MARBELLA CLUB

Though it's considered one of the most the exclusive dinner reservations in the world, editors of Esquire Spain magazine are bringing the olfactory experience to the wider public with a scratch-and-sniff cover that smells like El Bulli, the restaurant.

The June cover features a stubbly Ferran Adrià, mugging for the camera with furrowed brows on the eve of El Bulli's closure, set for July 30. Meanwhile, readers can release the smells of his restaurant - the scents that greet Adrià every morning by the bay of Cala Montjoi in Spain - by scratching the Esquire logo.

The scent is a combination of the ocean, eucalyptus and pine trees - essences meant to conjure up the Mediterranean Sea.

In a video interview with the magazine, Adrià waxes on about how pleased he is with the result, a collaborative effort with Dario Sirerol who has created scents for El Bulli in the past, and magazine editor Andrés Rodriguez.

"There is no doubt this Esquire cover smells as El Bulli," Adrià said. "It's just amazing that people can smell this little piece of the coast...When you smell this, you smell the Mediterranean Sea."

As the countdown to the closure continues, the din of noise from food writers has reached a steady, high-pitched drone. The restaurant - often cited as the best in the world - has reached a reputation of mythic proportions.

Bloggers, journalists and diners lucky enough to score a reservation have been falling all over themselves trying to squeeze in one last, hyperbole-laden review before the restaurant shutters, a trend Slate.com refers to as the "I Ate at El Bulli Piece" or IAAEBP.

Last year, for example, two million people tried to snag one of 8,000 seats - a 0.4-percent admission rate, writer Noreen Malone pointed out.

Stories also follow a predictable, unoriginal formula, she noted. Many begin by describing the treacherous path to the restaurant with common terms like "hairpin curves"; next up is a history of its origins; and some reviewers will try to detach themselves from the set of privileged dining elite - what Malone calls "modest throat-clearing" - by attributing their dinner to dumb luck or a happy mistake.

In 2014, the restaurant will reopen as the El Bulli Foundation, a gastronomic think thank and research facility