You don’t often get to eat turtle dove with blackberry caviar and a side of carmelized trout roe on the wages of a Swiss motorcycle courier, but that’s the kind of gastronomic adventure 46-year-old Pascal Henry enjoyed moments before he became an international man of mystery.
Henry skipped out on a bill at the world’s top-rated restaurant, El Bulli in Spain, on June 12. He had finished dessert and went out to his car to get a card for a couple at another table. He never returned.
The motorcycle courier was on a tour of the world’s 68 greatest restaurants, all of them awarded three stars by the Michelin guide. El Bulli was restaurant number 40 on his trip, and a meal there would have cost about $250 before the wine, leading to some speculation that he simply ran out of money and skipped on his bill.
But Henry did not return to work when expected, and even Interpol is looking for him.
Henry had saved for years to make this stomach-pleasing journey through France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Spain. At his first stop, a French restaurant, the famous French chef Paul Bocuse had written the evening’s menu in Henry’s notebook, then had suggested he get the other 67 chefs to do the same. Bocuse even faxed ahead to ask his colleagues to treat Mr. Henry with courtesy, since Henry was knowledgeable and enthusiastic about fine food.
According to Reuters, El Bulli closes for five months every year so its chef can create new dishes, which often are based on flavours distilled into gels and foams. It’s yummy, say critics, but a little pretentious.
At least Henry got to finish his dessert at the world’s best dining establishment before he, presumably, "died and went to Heaven." And even the temptation of riding a courier motorcycle in Switzerland wasn’t enough to bring him back to ground.
