Why Ferran Adria, world’s top chef, won’t go back to the kitchen – and what he’s doing instead
Father of molecular gastronomy says his legacy is alive and well years after his famed El Bulli in Spain closed, explains why it would make no sense for him to open another restaurant, and talks about Amazon Prime series on his career
Ferran Adria – “the most influential chef in the world” – is a man on a mission. Just not one that involves him having to run a restaurant.
The Catalan – whose El Bulli restaurant was named the best on the planet a record five times – is out to prove that the wildly experimental dishes he pioneered there still cut the mustard.
In the seven years since he unexpectedly shut the storied restaurant on Spain’s Costa Brava with 3,000 people still on the waiting list for a table, simpler, more earthy cooking has come into vogue.
But the father of molecular gastronomy, who brought the world the idea of “mandarin air”, eating smoke, caramelised quails, trout egg tempura and any number of foams and emulsions, says he has not stood still.
Ferran Adria and Hong Kong’s Richard Ekkebus on that HK$10,888 dinner
“I have not stopped working” nor experimenting, he says, since he shut El Bulli, which held the maximum three Michelin stars.
