Ferran Adrià is the dean of molecular gastronomy, the Catalonian chef who uses his kitchen laboratory for creations like liquid ravioli; caviar made from olive oil; an elliptical olive that is pure liquid; pine cone mousse; ravioli of cuttlefish wrapped around coconut milk; and Parmesan snow. They are astonishing and often baffling technical accomplishments that have garnered many disciples and set trends in restaurant kitchens worldwide.
At Mr. Adrià's three-Michelin-star restaurant, El Bulli, in the small town of Rosas about two hours northeast of Barcelona, he uses unusual, expensive equipment, like a $25,000 encapsulating machine, to express his artistic, often magical creativity. The dishes that emerge from his wizard's kitchen almost always taste as astonishing as they look.
Two of his most famous and influential creations are ''foam,'' in which he aerates sauces with a nitrous-oxide siphon that is ordinarily used to whip cream, and ''warm gelatin,'' in which he adds a seaweed powder called agar to stabilize beef gelatin without chilling it.
The son of a house painter, Mr. Adrià has often said that his career began accidentally, that he had no master plan. At a classic French restaurant in Barcelona, the chef, his father's friend, gave him a job as a dishwasher and made him "memorize Escoffier," he said. He was 17; a year later, he started working in kitchens around Spain. He began at El Bulli, then a French restaurant, in 1983. Shortly after, the head chef quit, and Mr. Adrià persuaded the manager to give him the job.
At 21, he began cooking in the classic French manner, but, curious as to why food was cooked the way it was cooked, he slowly started to create his own cuisine. During the off season, he would visit France, often with Juli Soler, the restaurant's manager, to check out the best restaurants. He says his career really began in Nice in 1986 at a cooking demonstration given by Jacques Maximin, an influential chef known for defying boundaries. Mr. Adrià recalled that someone asked, ''What is creativity?'' and Mr. Maximin said, ''Don't copy.''
Mr. Adrià's idea was simply, he said, to ''do new things with old concepts.'' He figured he would create something different with chicken curry, so he developed a now-famous dish, with a solid sauce and a liquid chicken.
He soon began to attract attention. Then, in 1997, the Michelin Guide gave the restaurant three stars. In 1999, Joël Robuchon declared him the world's greatest chef. (Mr. Adrià always shares credit with Albert Adrià, his brother, who runs the dessert side; his three executive chefs, Oriol Castro, Albert Raurich and Eduard Xatruch; and Mr. Soler, who has been his business partner of more than 20 years.)
El Bulli is open six months a year, usually from early April to early October. The rest of the year is for experimenting. Reservations are difficult if not impossible to get.
Looking back to his early years, Mr.Adrià told The Times in 2003: ''All we were trying to do at that time was have a good restaurant. I'm not even sure I knew I had a personal style until others said I did.”'
"The most important thing," he added, "is taste." — Adapted from "Adrià May Be Relaxing, But His Obsessions Are Still Abuzz," by Mark Bittman, The New York Times, Sept. 13, 2006, and "A Laboratory of Taste," by Arthur Lubow, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Aug. 10, 2003
Highlights From the Archives
El Bulli and a Meal for the Ages
Majestic old bottles of magnitude and complexity have their proper place.
September 22, 2010diningReviewTake a Napkin and Wipe That Grin Off
The heightened interest in ambitious restaurants like El Bulli over the last decade has been a wonderful thing. But it has had less-savory side effects.
February 17, 2010diningNewsTwo-Year Hiatus for El Bulli in Spain
Ferran Adrià, who brought the world treats like freeze-dried foie gras, will close his acclaimed restaurant for two years to tinker with new ideas in molecular cuisine.
January 27, 2010diningNewsMy Dinner With Adrià
As a kind of stunt, Ferran Adrià, the head chef of El Bulli in Spain, shopped in Chinatown with me and cooked a meal at my apartment.
October 12, 2008fashionNewsAdrià May Be Relaxing, but His Obsessions Are Still Abuzz
Ferran Adrià, the head chef at the trendsetting restaurant El Bulli, is celebrated for his astonishing and often baffling technical accomplishments.
September 13, 2006diningNewsTop Madrid Chefs Draw Inspiration From a Catalan Star
A handful of restaurants in often-overlooked Madrid — some of them run by disciples of Ferran Adrià himself — continue to assert themselves.
June 5, 2005travelNewsAdrià Turns the Charms of El Bulli Into Fast Food
Ferran Adrià, the 42-year-old Catalan chef, has set for himself perhaps an even grander goal than perfecting liquid ravioli or vegetable juice bubble bath: the transformation of fast food into good food.
July 28, 2004diningNewsA Laboratory of Taste
Marc Veyrat, a French chef whose two restaurants have received top scores from the Michelin and Gault-Millau guides, told me that the most creative cooks in Europe were no longer French; they were Spanish. After a trip to Spain this summer, I'm convinced: the effervescence that buoyed French nouvelle cuisine in the 1970's has somehow been piped across the Pyrenees.
August 10, 2003magazineNewsIn Spain, A Chef To Rival Dali
This was El Bulli. This was the Michelin three-star restaurant everyone was talking about. The one that six top American chefs would all flock to this same week and the next, not for an event but on a pilgrimage. The one where the chef, Ferran Adria, is rarely referred to as a chef, but as a mad scientist, a genius, a Dali of the kitchen.
September 15, 1999diningBiographyARTICLES ABOUT FERRAN ADRIÀ
After El Bulli, a Sweet Taste of Life
The Catalan chef Ferran Adrià has big plans after his fabled restaurant closes in July.
May 14, 2011Pork Ribs Without Smoke
Chefs can work wonders with pork ribs by braising them in the oven, instead of cooking them outdoors the way it’s done in barbecue country.
April 6, 2011Green Cuisine in Legoland
Foodies flock to Denmark as a chef shapes a cuisine for a shrinking planet.
March 11, 2011Book Review: Nathan Myhrvold's ‘Modernist Cuisine’
At 40 pounds, Nathan Myhrvold’s “Modernist Cuisine” is a remarkable object, but it is not for most home cooks.
March 9, 2011Santi Santamaría Dies at 53; Raised Profile of Spanish Cuisine
Mr. Santamaría was in the forefront of a generation of chefs who helped draw the world’s attention to Spanish cuisine.
February 20, 2011Sean Brock Adds Husk to Charleston Dining Scene
Sean Brock’s new restaurant, Husk, in Charleston, S.C., one of the great eating towns of the region, is devoted to the excellence of Southern ingredients.
February 9, 2011Cookbooks - Holiday Roundup
This season’s cookbooks favor food that’s simple, fast and removed from the realm of fantasy.
December 5, 2010Feeding Frenzy
Frank Bruni travel article reviews new populist food and ethnic specialty restaurants in south downtown Los Angeles; photos
November 21, 2010At Harvard, the Kitchen Is a Laboratory
A science-of-cooking course teaches students about chemistry and physics, with a little help from some of the world’s top chefs.
October 20, 2010The Chef José Andrés’s Las Vegas Restaurant Will Pair China and Mexico
In concocting a menu for his new restaurant in Las Vegas, China Poblano, the Spanish chef has found challenges both technical and cultural.
October 13, 2010‘Ferran’ by Colman Andrews Pays Homage to a Chef
For a book that celebrates a break with traditional cooking, this biography of the avant-garde Spanish chef Ferran Adrià of El Bulli lays on the cream sauce with a heavy hand.
October 6, 2010El Bulli and a Meal for the Ages
Majestic old bottles of magnitude and complexity have their proper place.
September 22, 2010Chefs Await ‘Modernist Cuisine’
Nathan Myhrvold’s book will cover the latest kitchen techniques, sous vide to methylcellulose, in 2,400 pages.
September 22, 2010This Summer’s Hamptons: Hot Spots of the Season
As weekenders settle in for the remaining month or so of summer revelry, the Hamptons’ hot spots and hot trends are beginning to reveal themselves.
August 5, 2010In Madrid, ‘Ethnic’ Dining: Gumbo, Sushi and Daiquiris
Waves of immigrants have crossed paths with legions of Spaniards who have toured the globe and developed new tastes.
July 25, 2010SEARCH 115 ARTICLES ABOUT FERRAN ADRIÀ:
Multimedia
Freestyle Cooking With Ferrán Adrià
After a Chinatown shopping spree, Ferrán Adrià, one of the world's greatest chefs, creates an ad-hoc lunch on the Lower East Side.
Olives at El Bulli
Mark Bittman visits El Bulli, where chef Ferran Adria reveals the secret of his delectable olives. (From the New York Times's upcoming PBS series "Best Recipes in the World with Mark Bittman."
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