elBulli1846 opens as a museum

elBulli1846 (Cala Montjoi) opened its doors to the public on 15 June 2023, giving a warm welcome to its first visitors on an emotional day. The museum was envisaged as an entity that would fulfil various objectives, including safeguarding the legacy of elBulli, opening up new gastronomical paths, promoting an innovative mindset and developing quality content for education and self-learning in the gastronomic restaurant sector.

elBulli1846 occupies a floor space of almost four thousand square metres (2,500m2 externally and 1,300m2 internally). Its itinerary invites you to reflect on the themes of gastronomy and innovation, paying tribute to its Bullinianos (those individuals that participated in elBulli-related projects throughout its history), narrating the story of elBulli, and explaining in detail all the projects subsequently carried out at elBullifoundation, including Bullipedia and elBulliDNA.

Through sixty-nine installations of an artistic, conceptual and audiovisual nature, the museum offers visitors all the necessary resources to understand the evolution of elBulli, demonstrating why it was responsible for a paradigm shift in world gastronomy. It also explains, detailing several of the foundation-led projects, the reasons why elBulli is still in existence and how it manages not only to honour the past, but to look to the future and continue making history.

What is cooking? How did cooking begin? What is the creative process involved? What intermediate processes are necessary in the day-to-day running of a fine dining restaurant? elBulli1846 invites visitors to consider all these questions, encouraging a reflection on the themes of knowledge and innovation. On entering the historic building that, for fifty years, was home to elBullirestaurante (now preserved in its entirety), you are immediately confronted with the motto, “creativity means not copying”. This phrase gives meaning to everything the visitor will find inside the emblematic space that once housed the world’s most influential restaurant.