Cuisine meets R&D
IESE professors Julia Prats and Javier Quintanilla explore how elBulli went from a sleepy scuba diver’s bar to the world’s top restaurant, using plain marketing positioning concepts and not so common genius
Picture a hilly, rocky, almost barren stretch of peninsula, yet only 140 kilometres north of vibrant Barcelona and a mere 50 kilometres south of France. We are on the Costa Brava, yet worlds away from the touristic-industrial landscapes that British vacationers flock to.
Maybe this is where Spain should establish its innovation incubator. After all it is this peninsula – called Cap de Creus – that served as inspiration for Salvador Dali, one of surrealism’s leading lights, and now elBulli, the restaurant that has shaken up the rules of three-star gastronomy and risen to the top of world restaurant rankings.
elBulli is no normal business, and its gestation is also an example of unorthodox development, over a span of twenty-nine years. elBulli started in 1961 as a snack bar for scuba divers, created by a German couple who fell in love with the remote, wild site of Cala Montjoi. The Schillings had a love for the area, but they also loved food. And so, over a span of almost three decades, they developed elBulli from a fried fish eatery to a three-star nec plus ultra rendez-vous for foodies from world over (see box on elBulli history). Each year, half a million people apply for dinner reservations and only eight thousand are accepted!
Unusual business practices
elBulli is an unusual restaurant in other ways. Where else have you heard of a restaurant that is closed for half the year? Where the only meal served is dinner, even though driving home from remote Rosas after a six-hour dinner ceremony is a challenge? Where the reservation list for the full season could close the day after its opening?
As an artistic workshop, elBulli depends on the talent of its cooks, namely Ferran Adria (who became head chef in 1987) and his younger brother Albert. As a business, the restaurant is but the tip of an iceberg. The fifteen-table establishment located in Cala Montjoi is only part of a larger – should we say sprawling? – entreprise that includes other activities (see chart below).
It was in 1981 that the Schillings left the running of the business to Juli Soler, who joined elBulli without having prior restaurant experience. He had owned a record store in Barcelona specializing in jazz and rock. They got to know him well enough to develop a trust in his business acumen.
As it turned out, the Schillings' judgement was spot-on. Soler and Adria (who bought the business from the Schillings in 1990) have shown themselves to be adept at conceiving and negotiating brand extensions. These by now include cook books, cooking classes, licensing deals with food product manufacturers (for example coffee with Lavazza and chocolate with Chocovic), as well as running a hotel, the Hacienda Benazuza in Sevilla. Like quite a few other three-star enterprises, elBulli relies on spin-off activities to generate the bulk of profits (see chart below of elBulli restaurant financials; note that elBulli management does not provide consolidated financials for the non-restaurant activities).
Hunger driven by creativity
To the restaurant business, the passage of time can be the cruellest enemy. For each current shining twinkle in the firmament of Michelin triple stars, there are many that disappear into the black hole of ho-hum. Think Maxim’s or La Tour d’Argent in Paris, that have slipped from their former peak of star-studdedness into the hole of mere gastronomical commercialism.
Why this evanescence? Perhaps because great cuisine, like great fashion or great art, is produced by minds inspired by the moment. But when it comes to a great chef...well, he, or she, must grind it out, day after day, yet produce quality that continues to taste new, look new, surprise and even startle.
elBulli is fighting this uphill battle against the cruel arrows of fate by using innovation as its driving force. Ferran Adria’s motto is “It has to be new.” One important reason why the restaurant does not serve lunch and remains closed for six months from October to March is that slack time is needed by the chefs to design their next creations.
And so Adria and his restaurant staff of about fifty turn into quasi-biochemists for the necessary culinary research. Their tests require the latest in food technology (equipment that normally would be reserved for food for outer space or high altitude bivouacs). They draw upon sophisticated chemical compounds that a corner brasserie or tapas bar has never heard of.
These gastronomical scientists perform some five thousand experiments per season from which five hundred recipes are created and fifty dishes ultimately selected. Like all meticulous experimenters, they maintain a listing of all their steps in what amounts to a rigorous ‘catalogue raisonné.'
The results of all this R&D turn up in elBulli’s fixed tasting menu. Each of the fifty nightly guests is treated to some thirty avant-garde dishes which require close to two hundred ingredients.
Expect class participation
For one of the authors of this case study, professor Julia Prats (see profile) of Barcelona’s IESE business school (ranked 12th worldwide by the Financial Times), the lessons to learn from elBulli are numerous: “For me, the case is mostly about innovation. Innovation in ideas, in processes and in team management. I have used the case in several classes and I am always surprised at how active class participation is.” So our advice to professors who choose this case is to schedule more time for class participation… and expect heated debate on this controversial enterprise.
Why did Julia Prats choose elBulli? “Well, let me first dispel any notion that we did this as the only way to get a table there,” she laughs. “My research on professional services includes traditional areas such as law and consulting, but also more unorthodox sectors such as the arts. What is most intriguing with elBulli is how my students react. Younger MBAs will be very open and accepting of the elBulli idea, whereas older executive MBAs will be skeptical and accuse the restaurant of snobbery. For me, elBulli is like a $20,000 haute couture gown. The designer creates it for inspiration and not for everyday wear.”
Reference: ECCH reference 0-608-017; "elBulli’s Magic Recipe"; Julia Prats and Javier Quintanilla; IESE Business School (Barcelona); 2009.
Published in August 2009.
