Police investigate Michelin man’s last supper
A Swiss motorcycle courier on a tour of the world's best restaurants has not been seen since disappearing from the renowned El Bulli near Barcelona seven weeks ago.
Spanish police have mounted a search for Pascal Henry, 46, but a spokesman declined to comment on whether the fine-food fan might have simply skipped off without paying.
“The restaurant informed us of what happened and we later heard through Interpol that he was a missing person,” the spokesman said on Sunday.
“He got up from the table to look for some business cards and did not come back,” El Bulli manager Juli Soler told El Pais newspaper.
Soler doubted however that Henry had fled as he left behind a notebook with a menu hand-written by each of the three-star chefs who had served him.
“If you’re writing a book, you don’t leave that behind,” Soler told Barcelona paper La Vanguardia.
Investigators have not ruled out a fall from the nearby cliffs, although Soler believes this would have been “impossible”. “The restaurant terrace was packed,” she said. “Someone would have seen or heard something.”
“Christmas”
Media reports said Henry worked as a motorcycle messenger in Geneva. He had decided to spend his savings at each of the 68 restaurants in the world to have garnered the prestigious Michelin Guide’s top three-star rating.
In an interview Henry said he was not trying to set a record. “I just want that on my trip every day is like Christmas for me,” he said.
He was last seen at El Bulli, ranked as the world’s best by Britain’s Restaurant magazine, on June 12. He had a reservation for June 14 at the Arzak restaurant in San Sebastian but failed to show up.
A dinner at El Bulli costs around €230 ($375) and El Pais estimated the tour would have cost €17,000 in restaurant bills alone.
El Bulli was the 40th three-star restaurant Henry had patronised on a tour which began on May 5 and covered France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and Germany as well as Spain.
Henry is reported to have left one restaurant in France on a scooter. He has also been pictured alongside eminent French chef Paul Bocuse, who was said to have recommended him as a client to other restaurant owners.
El Bulli is booked solid from April to October, when chef Ferran Adria closes for five months so he can create new dishes. Adria’s avant-garde creations, often based on distilling flavours into gels and foams, drew criticism in a recent book by fellow three-star Michelin cook Santi Santamaria as pretentious.
In 2007 Switzerland had two three-star restaurants: the Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville in Crissier and Le Pont de Brent in Brent.
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