ADMO, Ducasse and Adrià open a restaurant next to the Eiffel Tower that can only be enjoyed for one hundred days

• MARTA FERNÁNDEZ GUADAÑO

Updated Thursday, December 92021-01: 12

• Share on Facebook

• Share on Twitter

• Send by email

See 1 comment

A familiar face to those who were clients of

parades through the room of a restaurant that was condemned to close on March 9, 2022, located almost at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

began working as a teenager in the most influential business of the contemporary era of gastronomy. 'Hoy', accompanies Albert Adrià in Paris at the start of an extraordinary project:

is the ephemeral space created by

and

in Paris, with the complicity of

and with the challenge of "re-evolving the idea of European haute cuisine ". It started on November 9 and will last only 100 days. With this rare project, they are making history.

Although of different generations (Ducasse, 1956; Adrià, 1969) and almost divergent culinary styles, both could be classified among the most influential in the global culinary scene. "The strange couple", the youngest of the Adriàs defines himself, who has suffered "very closely" the effects of the pandemic, with the farewell to

his alliance with the

(owners of

). With

as his only own restaurant - it could reopen in 2022 - and with international projects such as London-based

Albert Adrià had been immersed in R&D for a year and a half for brands (

or

). Until Ducasse, who at the end of June left

(a luxury hotel where one of his triestrellados was located) due to the end of his contract, appeared shortly before the summer to make a proposal: "Do you want to have fun?" whose businesses in the Barcelona Parallel had impressed the French.

That's where

came

The announcement at the beginning of August - via

- of the temporary alliance

was the starting gun for three months of hectic work. There were online and face-to-face meetings in Paris and Barcelona, ​​also with a key piece:

Ducasse's right-hand man, who has landed this pop-up with constant contact with Adrià and the support of

Best Pastry

in the World in 2019.

In search of headquarters. First step? Deciding the location, a task undertaken by the Ducasse business group, which brings together three dozen restaurants in a dozen countries, which with almost 20 stars award the world record for Michelin stars to the chef who was the only survivor of a plane accident in 1984 The Ducasse team found the space:

restaurant at the

-created in 2006 by the former president of the French Republic-. Its glass dome overlooking the Eiffel Tower seemed the ideal space to experience "the creation of a European cuisine. It means breaking a taboo, opening the mind and borders. It is a new step in gastronomy", argues Alain Ducasse.

ADMO's business plan included its own name: an acronym formed by the initials of the surnames of Adrià, Ducasse and Meder, with the addition of the 'o' for Les Ombres.

Next step: what was going to be fed at ADMO?

"At the beginning, we almost blocked ourselves mentally. We were building ADMO like an onion, that is, layer by layer. It is a group collaboration, in which it is implantable that each one should do their own thing. Egos cannot matter. We have reflected on how and what to cook and about the liturgy to serve the menu, born from the idea of ​​creating a single kitchen by doing collective work, this is 'just' an experiment ", says Adrià.

With many Ducasse suppliers as allies, ADMO has created a collection of new dishes, which are neither 100% Ducasse nor 100% Adrià, but joint creations combining the Naturalité philosophy of the French (linked to the fierce defense of seasonal produce) with the creative genius of the Spanish. "I come to cook at Alain's house; I must adapt to his customs and norms. We are one in this project. I had to learn his philosophy and Romain's way of working. It has not been so much to focus on recipes, but to put together philosophies", he says Adrià. An example: Mole, cauliflower and monkfish liver, whose base sauce comes from the mole of Hoja Santa (which was the Mexican restaurant of elBarri) that Meder revisited with the vision of a game sauce. "There is 50% of each one in the recipe which, in the end, is three times better",they say.

This experiment reaches the customer in the form of a

(excluding drinks).

At noon - under a very Parisian formula - a shorter menu is dispatched (

).

They are cheaper prices than those of haute cuisine in Paris.

Full tables

If Ducasse is a kind of godfather who gives the ok or destroys the ADMO dishes, there has been another key piece:

, Chef de Cave de Dom Pérignon, a French maison without whom this "ephemeral and experimental project", probably , it would not have gone ahead. "Vincent is the person who has tasted our menu the most and has helped us to make it round the most," says Albert Adrià. Dom Pérignon (whose president and CEO is the Spanish Berta de Pablos-Barbier) has taken the opportunity to launch its Rosé Vintage 2008, "a champagne as peculiar as this project", says Chaperon.

With its tables almost full, ADMO serves 65 diners at noon and 85 at night. It has a team of about 60 professionals (the waiters do a single service), contributed by Ducasse or Adrià -and others from the Les Ombres staff-. "Alain has a team that is a

says the Catalan, who turned to his team for the opening:

(he was a sommelier at elBulli),

(a chef turned into his assistant) and some of Los

his core of trust in elBarri. Among them, the youngsters

and

did not hesitate to leave

few days.

(his business opened a year ago in Pamplona) to support his former boss in activating ADMO.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

See links of interest

• Last News

• 2022 business calendar

• Home THE WORLD today

• Holidays 2021

• Podcast Economia

• How to do

• Juventus - Malmö FF

• Zenit St Petersburg - Chelsea

• Spain - Japan, live

• Atalanta - Villarreal

• Benfica - Dynamo Kyiv