Ferran Adrià (elBulli)
This public lecture series discusses concepts from the physical sciences that underpin both everyday cooking and haute cuisine. Each lecture features a world-class chef who visited and presented their remarkable culinary designs: Ferran Adria presented spherification; Jose Andres discussed both the basic components of food and gelation; Joan Roca demonstrated sous vide; Enric Rovira showed his chocolate delicacies; Wylie Dufresne presented inventions with transglutaminase. The lectures then use these culinary creations as inspiration to delve into understanding how and why cooking techniques and recipes work, focusing on the physical transformations of foods and material properties.
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Next Video: Science and Cooking: A Dialogue- Lecture 1-
Harold McGee, Ferran Adria, and José Andrés
Who is Ferran Adrià? Ferran Adrià Biography
Ferran Adrià i Acosta (Catalan pronunciation: [fəˈran
əðɾiˈa]) is a Catalan
Spanish chef born on May 14, 1962 in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Catalonia). He
was the head chef of the elBulli
restaurant in Roses on the Costa Brava and is considered one of the best chefs
in the world.
Ferran Adria has been
called the world's greatest chef. He is certainly one of the most creative. Gourmet
magazine referred to Adria as "the Salvador Dali of the
kitchen". His restaurant, El Bulli, was recently named best restaurant in
the world by the prestigious Restaurant magazine. Without a doubt,
Ferran Adria will hold a prominent place in culinary history.
Childhood
Ferran Adria was
born May 14, 1962 in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (a suburb of Barcelona), Spain.
Adria's early schooling took place in Barcelona and at the age of 14 he
enrolled at the Instituto Verge de la Merci¨ to study business administration.
In 1980, at the age of 18, he left school out of boredom.
Culinary
Beginnings
Career
Ferran Adrià began his
culinary career in 1980 during his stint as a dishwasher at the Hotel
Playafels, in the town of Castelldefels, Spain. The chef de cuisine at
this hotel taught him traditional Spanish cuisine. It was here that he learned
the classic culinary techniques as the chef there introduced Adrià to El Practico, the Spanish
equivalent of Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire. Adria eventually made
it to Ibiza, working at the Club Cala Lena for four months in 1981-1982. He
returned to Barcelona and worked at a number of restaurants before finally
landing a job at the celebrated Finisterre,
where he became assistant chef.
At 19 he was drafted
into military service where he worked as a cook. He was in the Spanish Navy
stationed at the Naval Base of Cartagena. He was a member of the captain
general's kitchen staff and eventually was in charge of a kitchen for the first
time in his life.
In 1984, at the age of
22, Adrià joined the kitchen staff of El Bulli as a line cook. Eighteen months
later he became the head chef.
In 1994, Ferran Adrià
and Juli Soler (his partner) sold 20% of their business to Miquel Horta (a
Catalan millionaire and philanthropist and son of the founder of Nenuco) for
120 million Pesetas. This event became a turning point for el Bulli: the money
was used to finance an expansion of the kitchen and the relationship with Horta
opened the door to new clients, businessmen, and politicians who helped spread
the word about the creative experimentation happening at the time in Cala
Montjoi.
Along with British
chef Heston Blumenthal, Adrià is
often associated with "molecular
gastronomy," although like Blumenthal the Catalan chef does not
consider his cuisine to be of this category. Instead, he has referred to his
cooking as deconstructivist. He defines the term as 'Taking a dish that is well known and transforming all its
ingredients, or part of them; then modifying the dish's texture, form and/or
its temperature. Deconstructed, such a dish will preserve its essence... but
its appearance will be radically different from the original's.' His
stated goal is to "provide unexpected contrasts of flavor, temperature and
texture. Nothing is what it seems. The idea is to provoke surprise and delight
the diner." As he likes to say, "the
ideal customer doesn't come to elBulli to eat but to have an experience."
ElBulli was only open
for about six months of the year, from mid-June to mid-December. Adrià spent
the remaining six months of the year perfecting recipes in the workshop
"elBulliTaller" in Barcelona. The restaurant closed on July 30, 2011.
It will reopen as a creativity center in 2014.
ElBulli had 3
Michelin stars and was one of the best restaurants in the world. It
received first place in the Restaurant Top 50 in 2002. Then in 2005, it
ranked second. It was again awarded the first place in 2006, and retained this
title in 2007, 2008 and 2009, making a record 5 times in the top spot. In 2010,
after elBulli announced it would close for good the next season, the title was
awarded to Noma of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Adrià is well known
for creating "culinary foam." Adrià explored foams created without
the addition of cream or egg white; foams are made of a flavored liquid and an
additive (such as lecithin), then aerated through a variety of methods,
including whipping with an immersion blender or extrusion from a siphon bottle
equipped with N2O cartridges. Further culinary processes (such as freeze-drying
or freezing with liquid nitrogen) may be applied to foams as well. Using a
single flavored liquid allows the flavor of the final product to be less
diluted and thus more intense.
Adrià is the author of
several cookbooks including A
Day at El Bulli, El
Bulli 2003–2004 and Cocinar
en Casa (Cooking at Home). With his young assistant Daniel Picard,
Adrià has made almonds into cheese and asparagus into bread with the help of
natural ingredients.
Adrià has been a
featured chef on Great Chefs television.
In the fall of 2010,
Adrià and José Andrés will teach a culinary
physics course "Science and
Cooking" at Harvard University.
In October 2010, Adrià
announces an alliance with Telefónica.
In March 2012 he
announced the new project he's working on: LaBullipedia.
In a later interview he described as "A Western haute cuisine Wikipedia at
the service of information but also creativity".
Adria
Meets El Bulli
Adria completed
his service in August 1983. Soon after leaving the navy, he was given the
chance to do a stage (tryout) at El Bulli in Roses, Spain. Apparently the chef
liked what he saw and Adria was offered the job of Chef de Partie (line
cook). Adria was 22 years old at the time. Eighteen months later he would
become head chef.
El
Bulli Becomes a Star (actually 3 stars)
Before the arrival of
Adria, El Bulli was relatively unknown. Despite its remote location (El Bulli
is located in the small town of Roses on the coast of Catalonia, about two
hours north of Barcelona at the end of a narrow, winding mountain road.), it
has 3
Michelin stars and is ranked the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant
magazine.
El Bulli was known as
a traditional French restaurant. When Adria joined the staff, the
restaurant's manager Juli Soler recommended he travel to find fresh ideas to
use at El Bulli. Adria went to some of France's top restaurants where he
acquired a massive collection of techniques from many of the great culinary
masters.
documenta 12
In 2007, Chef Ferran
Adrià was invited to participate in documenta, "a sort of art world Olympics."
Adrià -having been called the ‘Salvador Dalí of the kitchen’ (not simply
because of his Catalonian roots, which he also shares with Casals and Miró) and
often referred to not only as an artist, inventor, scientist, designer,
philosopher and stage director– felt like an intruder at the event, saying
“artists all over battle all their lives to receive an invitation to display
their work at documenta and now I, a cook, am asked to go along!” Organizer
Roger Buergel told Adrià that he believed "that to create a new cooking
technique was as complicated and challenging as painting a great picture. He
said that he sees the work [Adria] does as a new artistic discipline, that
[Adria's] work shows cuisine should be a new art form.” With this notion in
mind, Buergel invited him to partake in this prestigious international event
held every five years in Kassel, Germany.
Adria decided to take
a different approach to this event. With the approval of the documenta
committee, he set up his pavilion (i.e. exhibition space) some 850 miles from
Kassel in his own restaurant, El Bulli. He believed that in order to truly
experience his craft one had to come into his controlled environment because
what he does is "ephemeral, it’s not moveable, it can’t be in a
museum" (it was also impractical to move all his equipment there). It was
then agreed upon that every day, two names would be selected at random and
those names would be the diners who would be able to see his ‘pavilion.’ The
collection of these experiences were documented, along with photographs and
interviews from an eclectic group of figures in the art world (including Massimo
de Carlo, Bice Curiger, Anya Gallaccio, Massimialiano Gioni, Carsten Höller, Peter
Kubelka, Antoni Miralda, Jerry Saltz, Adrian Searle, Vicent Todolí and Richard Hamilton),
and were published in Food for Thought,
Thought for Food.
However, there was
some controversy regarding Adrià’s participation in documenta, "some
questioning the idea that that cooking and art were co-extensive." Despite
the fact that dishes from avant-garde cuisine are aesthetically pleasing (you
eat first with your eyes), one of his colleagues, Chef Heston Blumenthal from the Fat Duck in Great Britain, "is
uneasy about the idea that he might be an artist, although he does compare
restaurant going to a trip to the theater, the cinema or an art gallery."
Even Adrià himself has compared a dinner at his restaurant as a night out at
the theater. When people discuss a meal there, they usually talk about the
rhythm and flow of the dishes, and that the movements of the waiters and
sommeliers are amazingly choreographed. Similarly to theater, in some aspects,
Chef Adria engages the diner’s five senses, hoping to evoke irony, humor, and
even childhood memories with his creations. He said he has "turned eating
into an experience that supersedes eating."
Controversy
Adrià denounced his
fellow 3-star Michelin cook Santi
Santamaria who described his approach to cuisine as
"pretentious". Traditionalist Santi Santamaria attacked Adrià's
dishes in El Bulli as unhealthy, alleging that "Adrià's dishes are designed to impress rather than satisfy and used
chemicals that actually put diners' health at risk". Top chefs,
however, accused Santamaria, who runs the 3-star Can Fabes also in Catalonia,
of envy and "endangering the reputations of Spanish kitchens". The
criticism has split top Spanish chefs into pro- and anti-Adrià camps. Unusual
dishes that have been criticized include frozen whisky
sour candy, white garlic and almond sorbet,
tobacco-flavored blackberry crushed ice and Kellogg's paella (Rice Krispies, shrimp heads and
vanilla-flavored mashed potatoes).
German food writer,
Jörg Zipprick, accused Adrià of more or less poisoning his customers with the
additives he uses in his cuisine and said that Adrià's menu should carry health
warnings: "These colorants, gelling
agents, emulsifiers, acidifiers and taste enhancers that Adrià has introduced
massively into his dishes to obtain extraordinary textures, tastes and
sensations do not have a neutral impact on health".
Molecular
Gastronomy
In the late 1980's,
Adria began performing cooking experiments which would forever change El
Bulli's place in culinary history. Adria's experiments are often associated
with Molecular
Gastronomy or culinary physics, the application of science to culinary
practices and cooking phenomena. His creations are designed to surprise and
enchant his guests but the importance of taste is always the ultimate goal.
Culinary
Foam and the Future
He is best known for
creating "culinary foam", which is now used by chefs around the
world. Culinary foam consists of natural flavors (sweet or savory) mixed with a
natural gelling agent. The mixture is placed in a whipped cream canister where
the foam is then forced out with the help of nitrous oxide.
In keeping with the
creative goals of El Bulli, the restaurant closes for six month each year
during which time Adria travels for inspiration and performs experiments
and perfects recipes in his culinary lab, El
Taller.
In 2006, after many
years as number 2, El Bulli moved to the top spot in Restaurant
magazine's list of best restaurants in the world. Still a young man (44), we
can expect to see many more great things from Ferran Adria. They will most
undoubtedly be unexpected yet wonderful things.
Domestic Commercialization
Texturas is a range of products by Ferran
Adrià, and his brother Albert Adrià. The products include the Sferificación,
Gelificación, Emulsificación, Espesantes and Surprises lines are the result of
a rigorous process of selection and experimentation. Texturas include products
such as Xanthan and Algin which are packaged and labeled as Xantana Texturas
and Algin Texturas respectively. Xanthan gum allows the user to use a very
small amount to thicken soups, sauces and creams without changing the flavor.
Algin is a key component of the "Spherification
Kit" and is used for every spherical preparation: caviar, raviolis,
balloons, gnocchi, pellets, and mini-spheres.
In October 2008,
Ferran Adrià published A Day at El Bulli along with Juli Soler, and
Albert Adrià. The book describes 24-hours at the El Bulli restaurant, with
images, commentary, photographs and 30 recipes. Most of the recipes included
are complex and require many out-of-the ordinary kitchen appliances, such as a
Pacojet, freeze-dryer, liquid nitrogen tank, candyfloss machine and Perspex
molds.
Books
2.
El Bulli: el sabor del Mediterráneo,
1993, ISBN 84-7596-415-X
3.
Los secretos de El Bulli,
1997, ISBN 448710002
5.
Cocinar en 10 minutos con Ferran Adrià,
1998, ISBN 84-605-7628-0
6.
Celebrar el milenio con Arzak y Adrià
(with Juan Mari Arzak), 1999, ISBN 84-8307-246-7
7.
El
Bulli 1998–2002
(with Juli Soler and Albert Adrià), Conran Octopus, 2003, ISBN 1-84091-346-0;
Ecco, 2005, ISBN 0-06-081757-7
11. FOOD
for thought THOUGHT for food
(El Bulli y Ferran Adrià), 2009 ACTAR Editorial, ISBN 978-84-96954-68-7
13. Coco:
10 World-Leading Masters Choose 100 Contemporary Chefs. Editors of Phaidon
Press (Author), Mario Batali (Foreword), Rene Redzepi (Contributor), Ferran
Adria(Contributor), Alain Ducasse (Contributor), Shannon Bennett (Contributor), Gordon
Ramsay (Contributor), Yoshihiro Murata (Contributor). Phaidon Press (December 6, 2010) ISBN-10: 0714859575
14. Modern
Gastronomy: A to Z. Ferran Adria. CRC
Press; 1 edition (December 21, 2009). ISBN-10: 1439812454
15. Hannah
Collins: The Fragile Feast, Routes to Ferran Adrià. Ferran Adria (Author), Hannah
Collins (Author). Hatje Cantz
(January 31, 2012). ISBN-10: 3775732101
16. A
Stroll Through Adrianic Cuisine. Jaume Coll (Author), Ferran
Adrià (Author). Polytechnic
University of Valencia (2010). ASIN: B0067K9IF0
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