Re: El Buli closing down
 

Burton-Race got into financial trouble when his wife divorced him and sold his restaurant while he was away playing in the jungle!

Gordon Ramsay's restaurant chain is only a small part of his income - most of it comes from "personal" work, ie books and TV which earns him serious money. There has never been any chance of GR going bankrupt, just the restaurant chain.

As for Ferran Adrià , he has recently announced that he is getting involved with a new "University of Gastronomy" in San Sebastian which will probably take up some of his time.

If he is going bust it would be odd to announce the closure of his restaurant especially as he is not planning to close it until 2012.

Re: El Buli closing down
 

... and in actual fact he isn't in financial trouble as such, its just that the courts ordered him to liquidate his assets in order to reach a settlement with his estranged wife, he is still considered to be worth over £3 million. I for one would love to be in that much financial trouble.





There was a report in the Restaurant magazine last year that said that Anthony Wassa Tosser, sorry, Warrol Thompson is technically broke from his restaurants but his endorsements, books, TV work and oddly enough his cookware earns him over £10 million a year.... now again I say, thats a broke I would love to be!

Re: El Buli closing down
 

Reading into some of the articles a little more I suspect this is just a brilliant piece of PR, he has spoken about closing down in the past.

Re: El Buli closing down
 

The reason for my cynicism is that over the years Ive seen many business`s making wild claims,ie fully booked for a year whilst charging 300,00 euro a head ,they all fall by the wayside with some lame excuse leaving creditors in the lurch, Ive had this happen to me.
To see the reality of this people need the do a few mental calculations as to how many people can acctually afford this place and then how many of them want to eat here or have the time to travel there, tens of thousands?? get real!

Some here have said his restaurant was never meant to make money, at 300,00 euro a head and fully booked ?!!,ludicrous , no sane person sets up to loose money, however wealthy.

I would guess anyone who thinks thes actions are normal for a high flyer have never been in business and are never likely to be.

Turning over millions is not nessasarily making millions ,net profit is all that counts and even these figures can be fiddled for a short period of time.

Re: El Buli closing down
 

Apparently he gets requests for bookings from 800,000 people each year.

He has not made a profit from the restaurant since 2000. As has already been said, he makes all his money from associated activities.

You might find this article worth reading.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodm...ticle_continue

Re: El Buli closing down
 

Do you really believe that? , over 2500 calls a day!!!!!!!!!!! I certainly dont.

I cant help feeling there is also a case of the emperor's new clothes here.

Re: El Buli closing down
 

Actually they are nearly all emails and the reservation book is only open for one day.

If you choose to think it's all lies then that's up to you.

Re: El Buli closing down
 

Rotor, I think the same. I read somewhere that he only opens in summer too. All those newspaper articles probably just copied what he said. Don't really care though as I haven't been and don't wish to:rofl:

Re: El Buli closing down
 

[QUOTE=Fred James;8290313]Actually they are nearly all emails and the reservation book is only open for one day.

If you choose to think it's all lies then that's up to you.[/QUOTE]


Not lies more like clever marketing ,many are actually taken in by it:sneaky:

Re: El Buli closing down
 

I've been one of those 800,000 more than once. Never managed to get a table though :(

Re: El Buli closing down
 

Oh dear god, it makes you wonder about people doesn't it?

Re: El Buli closing down
 

booked out for 2010, they will open reservations for 2011 in september, then 2 years to "investigate and create a new concept", this is not a restaurant is a laboratory, and Adria makes tonw of money...but not from the restaurant wich is only a experimental plataform....money comes from books, tv, dvd, etc etc....

Re: El Buli closing down
 

There's not a meal in the world worth 300e, a place for idiot's, who cares if it closes or not.

Re: El Buli closing down
 

Your opinion of course, but it seems that there are at least 800000 people who do not share your opinion.

Re: El Buli closing down
 

I'd rather go to El Bulli once than go to McDonalds 60 times, or Weatherpoons 40 times!

I wouldnt spend £50k on a car, but I dont call people idiots for doing so