Ferran Adrià
Encyclopedia
Ferran Adrià i Acosta is a Catalan
chef
born on May 14, 1962 in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat
. He was the head chef of the El Bulli
restaurant in Roses on the Costa Brava
, and is considered one of the best chefs in the world.
. The chef de cuisine at this hotel taught him traditional Spanish cuisine
. At 19 he was drafted into military service where he worked as a cook. 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.
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
. Adrià's stated goal is to "provide unexpected contrasts of flavour, 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 El Bulli to eat but to have an experience."
El Bulli is only open for about six months of the year (in 2010, the season was due to run from June 15 to December 20). Adrià spends the remaining six months of the year perfecting recipes in his workshop "El Taller" in Barcelona
. He is famous for his thirty course gourmet
menu.
He is also well known for creating "culinary foam
". In his quest to enhance flavour, Adrià discards the use of cream and egg; foam is made exclusively of the main ingredient and "air" (combined in a siphon bottle equipped with N2O
cartridges). Adrià's foam creations include foamed espresso
(Èspesso), foamed mushroom, and foamed beetroot
, as well as foamed meats.
El Bulli has 3 Michelin
stars and is regarded as one of the best restaurants in the world. In 2005, it ranked second in the Restaurant Top 50
. It was awarded the first place in 2006, displacing The Fat Duck
in Bray, England. El Bulli retained this title in 2007, 2008 and 2009, but in 2010 the title was awarded to Noma
of Copenhagen, Denmark.
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 at Harvard University.
In October 2010, Adrià announces an alliance with Telefónica
.
cook Santi Santamaria
who described his approach to cuisine as "pretentious". Tradition
alist 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
near El Bulli, 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-flavoured blackberry crushed ice and Kellogg's
paella
(Rice Krispies
, shrimp heads and vanilla-flavoured 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".
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.
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
chef
Chef
A chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who cooks for a living, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation.-Etymology:The word "chef" is borrowed ...
born on May 14, 1962 in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat
L'Hospitalet de Llobregat
L'Hospitalet de Llobregat or briefly L'Hospitalet is a city to the immediate southwest of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain, and the second largest in Catalonia by population...
. He was the head chef of the El Bulli
El Bulli
elBulli was a Michelin 3-star restaurant near the town of Roses, Catalonia, Spain, run by chef Ferran Adrià. The small restaurant overlooked Cala Montjoi, a bay on Catalonia's Costa Brava, and has been described as "the most imaginative generator of haute cuisine on the planet" and does a great...
restaurant in Roses on the Costa Brava
Costa Brava
The Costa Brava is a coastal region of northeastern Catalonia, Spain, in the comarques of Alt Empordà, Baix Empordà and Selva, in the province of Girona. Costa is the Catalan and Spanish word for 'coast', and Brava means 'rugged' or 'wild'...
, and is considered one of the best chefs in the world.
Career
Ferran Adrià began his culinary career in 1980 during his stint as a dishwasher at the Hotel Playafels, in the town of CastelldefelsCastelldefels
Castelldefels is a town in the Baix Llobregat comarca, in the province of Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain and part of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona. Its population is 63.151 .-Geography and location:...
. The chef de cuisine at this hotel taught him traditional Spanish cuisine
Spanish cuisine
Spanish cuisine consists of a variety of dishes, which stem from differences in geography, culture and climate. It is heavily influenced by seafood available from the waters that surround the country, and reflects the country's deep maritime roots...
. At 19 he was drafted into military service where he worked as a cook. 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.
Along with British chef Heston Blumenthal
Heston Blumenthal
Heston Marc Blumenthal OBE is an English chef and owner of The Fat Duck, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Bray, Berkshire voted Best Restaurant in the UK by The Good Food Guide 2007 and 2009, and voted best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine in 2005...
, Adrià is often associated with "molecular gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy is a subdiscipline of food science that seeks to investigate, explain and make practical use of the physical and chemical transformations of ingredients that occur while cooking, as well as the social, artistic and technical components of culinary and gastronomic phenomena in...
," 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
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
. Adrià's stated goal is to "provide unexpected contrasts of flavour, 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 El Bulli to eat but to have an experience."
El Bulli is only open for about six months of the year (in 2010, the season was due to run from June 15 to December 20). Adrià spends the remaining six months of the year perfecting recipes in his workshop "El Taller" in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
. He is famous for his thirty course gourmet
Gourmet
Gourmet is a cultural ideal associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterised by elaborate preparations and presentations of large meals of small, often quite rich courses...
menu.
He is also well known for creating "culinary foam
Foam (culinary)
Foam has been used in many forms in the history of cooking: for example, whipped cream, meringue, and mousse are all foams. In these cases, the incorporation of air or another gas creates a lighter texture and/or different mouth feel....
". In his quest to enhance flavour, Adrià discards the use of cream and egg; foam is made exclusively of the main ingredient and "air" (combined in a siphon bottle equipped with N2O
Nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas or sweet air, is a chemical compound with the formula . It is an oxide of nitrogen. At room temperature, it is a colorless non-flammable gas, with a slightly sweet odor and taste. It is used in surgery and dentistry for its anesthetic and analgesic...
cartridges). Adrià's foam creations include foamed espresso
Espresso
Espresso is a concentrated beverage brewed by forcing a small amount of nearly boiling water under pressure through finely ground coffee. Espresso is widely known throughout the world....
(Èspesso), foamed mushroom, and foamed beetroot
Beetroot
The beetroot, also known as the table beet, garden beet, red beet or informally simply as beet, is one of the many cultivated varieties of beets and arguably the most commonly encountered variety in North America, Central America and Britain.-Consumption:The usually deep-red roots of beetroot are...
, as well as foamed meats.
El Bulli has 3 Michelin
Michelin Guide
The Michelin Guide is a series of annual guide books published by Michelin for over a dozen countries. The term normally refers to the Michelin Red Guide, the oldest and best-known European hotel and restaurant guide, which awards the Michelin stars...
stars and is regarded as one of the best restaurants in the world. In 2005, it ranked second in the Restaurant Top 50
Restaurant (magazine) Top 50
The S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants is produced by British magazine Restaurant based on a poll of international chefs, restaurateurs, gourmands and restaurant critics. In addition to the main ranking, the Chef's Choice list is based on votes from the fifty head chefs from the restaurants...
. It was awarded the first place in 2006, displacing The Fat Duck
The Fat Duck
The Fat Duck is a restaurant run by chef Heston Blumenthal in Bray, Berkshire, England. The restaurant is known for its menu of unusual dishes, created following the principles of molecular gastronomy examples include: "snail porridge", "sardine on toast sorbet", "bacon and egg ice cream", and...
in Bray, England. El Bulli retained this title in 2007, 2008 and 2009, but in 2010 the title was awarded to Noma
Noma (restaurant)
Noma is a two Michelin star restaurant run by chef René Redzepi in Copenhagen, Denmark. The name is an acronym of the two Danish words "nordisk" and "mad" , and the restaurant is known for its reinvention and interpretation of the Nordic Cuisine...
of Copenhagen, Denmark.
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
Great Chefs
Great Chefs is a franchise of cooking shows and cookbooks that began with thirteen half hour programs produced for the American Public Broadcasting Service entitled Great Chefs of New Orleans...
television.
In the fall of 2010, Adrià and José Andrés
José Andrés
José Ramón Andrés Puerta , known as José Andrés, is a Spanish chef often credited for bringing the small plates dining concept to America...
will teach a culinary physics course at Harvard University.
In October 2010, Adrià announces an alliance with Telefónica
Telefónica
Telefónica, S.A. is a Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider in Europe and Latin America. Operating globally, it is the third largest provider in the world...
.
Controversy
Adrià denounced his fellow 3-star MichelinMichelin
Michelin is a tyre manufacturer based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne région of France. It is one of the two largest tyre manufacturers in the world along with Bridgestone. In addition to the Michelin brand, it also owns the BFGoodrich, Kleber, Riken, Kormoran and Uniroyal tyre brands...
cook Santi Santamaria
Santi Santamaria
Santiago Santamaria i Puig , known as Santi Santamaria , was a prominent avant-garde Spanish Catalan chef...
who described his approach to cuisine as "pretentious". Tradition
Tradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
alist Santi Santamaria attacked Adrià's dishes in El Bulli
El Bulli
elBulli was a Michelin 3-star restaurant near the town of Roses, Catalonia, Spain, run by chef Ferran Adrià. The small restaurant overlooked Cala Montjoi, a bay on Catalonia's Costa Brava, and has been described as "the most imaginative generator of haute cuisine on the planet" and does a great...
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
Can Fabes
Can Fabes is a restaurant in Sant Celoni, Catalonia, Spain. The chef was Santi Santamaria, who was the first Catalan cook ever to get 3 Michelin stars. Santamaria has been the president of Relais Gourmands and Vicepresident of Relais & Chateaux . Can Fabes has been a member of Relais & Châteaux...
near El Bulli, 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-flavoured blackberry crushed ice and Kellogg's
Kellogg Company
Kellogg Company , is a producer of cereal and convenience foods, including cookies, crackers, toaster pastries, cereal bars, fruit-flavored snacks, frozen waffles, and vegetarian foods...
paella
Paella
Paella is a Valencian rice dish that originated in its modern form in the mid-19th century near lake Albufera, a lagoon in Valencia, on the east coast of Spain. Many non-Spaniards view paella as Spain's national dish, but most Spaniards consider it to be a regional Valencian dish...
(Rice Krispies
Rice Krispies
Rice Krispies is a breakfast cereal that was created by Clayton Rindlisbacher for the Kellogg company, and later marketed by Kellogg's in 1927 and released to the public in 1928...
, shrimp heads and vanilla-flavoured 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".
Domestic Commercialisation
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 labelled 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 flavour. Algin is a key component of the "Spherification Kit" and is essential for every spherical preparation: caviar, raviolis, balloons, gnocchi, pellets, and mini-spheres.Works
- El Bulli 1983-1993 (with Juli Soler and Albert Adrià)
- El Bulli: el sabor del Mediterráneo, 1993, ISBN 84-7596-415-X
- Los secretos de El Bulli, 1997, ISBN 448710002
- El Bulli 1994-1997 (with Juli Soler and Albert Adrià)
- Cocinar en 10 minutos con Ferran Adrià, 1998, ISBN 84-605-7628-0
- Celebrar el milenio con Arzak y Adrià (with Juan Mari ArzakJuan Mari ArzakJuan Mari Arzak is the owner and chef for Arzak restaurant. He is considered to be one of the great masters of New Basque cuisine...
), 1999, ISBN 84-8307-246-7 - 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
- El Bulli 2003-2004 (with Juli Soler and Albert Adrià), Ecco, 2006, ISBN 0-06-114668-4
- El Bulli 2005
- A Day At El Bulli 2008
- FOOD for thought THOUGHT for food (El Bulli y Ferran Adrià), 2009 ActarACTARACTAR is part of ActarBirkhäuser is a publisher of books on architecture, graphic design, and contemporary art. It was founded in 1994 and is based in Barcelona....
Editorial, ISBN 978-84-96954-68-7 - The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adria 2011
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
El Bulli
elBulli was a Michelin 3-star restaurant near the town of Roses, Catalonia, Spain, run by chef Ferran Adrià. The small restaurant overlooked Cala Montjoi, a bay on Catalonia's Costa Brava, and has been described as "the most imaginative generator of haute cuisine on the planet" and does a great...
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
Liquid nitrogen
Liquid nitrogen is nitrogen in a liquid state at a very low temperature. It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. Liquid nitrogen is a colourless clear liquid with density of 0.807 g/mL at its boiling point and a dielectric constant of 1.4...
tank, candyfloss machine and Perspex molds.