Ferrán Adria - The Salvador Dalí of the Spanish kitchen

By Carole Kotkin


From the first taste of the apéritif offered at El Bulli — a frozen gin with hot lemon fizz — you know this is no ordinary restaurant. In fact, many claim El Bulli, operated by Michelin three-star Spanish chef Ferrán Adria, is the best restaurant in Europe and quite possibly the world. Few globally renowned restaurants are more out of the way than this one — it sits at the end of a narrow mountain road 100 miles north of Barcelona along Spain's beautifully rugged Costa Brava, near the town of Roses. Still, adventurous food lovers from around the world book reservations a year in advance.
Open only from the end of March through the end of September, El Bulli, which is named for the English bulldog, serves about 50 diners per evening — many of whom have traveled halfway around the globe to partake in the experience. The kitchen, with 30 staff members collaborating on Adria's creations, is almost as crowded as the dining room.

Praise for his culinary achievements comes from lofty heights. Adria has been called "the best cook on the planet" by noted French chef Joel Robuchon.

"He's doing the most exciting things in our profession," agrees fellow Frenchman and legendary chef Paul Bocuse. Writing in The Los Angeles Times, critic David Shaw hailed Adria as "the brightest star in the gastronomic firmament."

Adria has won the adulation of both his peers and his far-flung clientele for his arresting combinations of texture, temperature and taste. For instance, bite-size cuttlefish ravioli explode in a burst of coconut and ginger; soft-boiled quail eggs feature a crispy caramel crust; a polenta comprises frozen and powdered Parmesan cheese; and almond ice cream sits on a swirl of garlic oil and balsamic vinegar.

But most of his fame was gained when Adria discovered he could produce espumas, or foams, from nitrous oxide canisters intended for making whipped cream. Adria filled the canister, which he had received as a gift, with various liquids and gelatin. Soon he was creating tomato, asparagus, cheese, foie gras, shellfish and potato foams. The flavors were limitless — if sometimes a bit outlandish.

Jeffrey Cerciello, the chef at Bouchon in Napa Valley (owned by the French Laundry's Thomas Keller), did an internship at El Bulli from 1993 to 1994. He was actually in the kitchen when Adria received the career-launching canister. "Up until this time, Adria was preparing traditional foods. But he knew he had hit on something and he began experimenting," Cerciello recalls. "After almost ten years, people are still as excited about Adria's cooking as they were then."

Adria, now 39, began his culinary career at age 21. Straight from his economics studies and military service, and without any formal kitchen training, he landed a temporary cooking job in 1984 at the two-star El Bulli. He was given a copy of the classic Escoffier Cook Book, which he memorized from front to back. "I read everything I could — I became my own university," the now-iconic chef says. Within a year of Adria's arrival, Julio Soler, the small restaurant's manager, unexpectedly found himself in need of a head chef. He knew he need not look elsewhere to fill the spot.

To prepare for his new role, Adria first began a grand tour of top kitchens in France. He then apprenticed at Georges Blanc in Vonnas and Restaurant Pic in Valence. In 1990, Adria and Soler purchased the restaurant and Adria began cooking food that nobody had ever seen before. In 1997, El Bulli received its third Michelin star.

Today Adria is probably the world's leading proponent of what can best be described as "techno cuisine" — where art meets science. For instance, rather than serve gazpacho in a bowl, Adria freezes the soup into lollipop-shape popsicles. "I'm not confined by classic techniques," he says. Adria's aware that he challenges the staid palate with dishes like a dessert wafer of white chocolate and black-olive paste, or tagliatelle carbonara made of gelatinized chicken consommé cut into thin, pasta-like strands that dissolve back into consommé on the tongue. But for Adria, the unusual is commonplace. "People say, 'Oh, there is all this chemistry at El Bulli!' But there is chemistry and physics in every kitchen, in all cooking," he says. "I can explain everything to you — except the magic, which is what really matters. The rest is rationale, technique, professionalism. The magic moment, when you find that gelatin can be transformed into tagliatelle, I cannot explain."

Adria's approach, however, makes it clear that inspiring gustatory creations don't just emerge from a vacuum. His culinary heritage — lessons learned in other restaurant kitchens, familial traditions, even personal preferences — all play a role. "To have a future, you have to have a past," Adria proclaims.

To that end, focusing primarily on Spanish regional favorites, he "deconstructed" familiar dishes, ingredient by ingredient. Then he transfigured the ingredients and reassembled the dishes very differently, reinventing them in the process. Whereas traditional dishes exhibit a relative unity, these reinvented recipes emphasize every individual flavor, texture and temperature. Take, for example, Adria's version of pea soup; far from standard, it is served in a glass flute filled with liquid that is hot on top, cold on the bottom. Drunk in one long sip, according to the instructions from the waiter, the effect is fascinating.

In Adria's hands, simple water can be transformed into different textures and temperatures. For instance, during a demonstration at Tasting Australia, a wine and food festival in Adelaide, he added agar-agar (Japanese gelatin) to water and made noodles that could be heated to 70 degrees without melting, whisked another gelatin-water combination to generate a meringue-like fluff, and put still other mixtures into canisters to create foams. He even shaved ice into a granita that somehow held its form as it melted.

Adria is also more than willing to share his discoveries with fellow chefs. His enthusiasm for his subject coupled with his generous nature practically turn the rote of nightly dinner preparation into something like a well-attended lecture series. Indeed, Adria's unique sensibility beckons both long- and short-term apprentices, many of whom go on to establish their own Adria-inspired signatures in American outposts — more accessible places such as Washington D.C., Boston and Miami.

One such disciple, Jordi Valles, chef de cuisine at Aria Restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne, Florida, worked at El Bulli for the 1998 season. Valles, 29, a Barcelona native, returns for a visit every year. "I think of El Bulli as a school for chefs. He opened my mind. I left saying that with cooking, anything is possible," he enthuses. Valles, who adapted some of El Bulli's techniques and organizational skills to his own kitchen, is quick to defend Adria when he is accused of playing with or manipulating food. "Adria is obsessed with the science and form of food, the way it can be presented in new, interesting ways," Valles explains. "Grapes, for example, can sell for one dollar for two pounds, but when turned into wine it can sell for $1,000 a bottle. You don't call that manipulation."

Adria's influence is evidenced on Aria's Mediterranean-inspired menu. Be it subtle or obvious, Valles presents such dishes as asparagus soup served in a cappuccino cup with nutmeg foam or veal cheeks braised with langoustines and Mediterranean spices with flair and precision.

While El Bulli is closed during the fall and winter, Adria and his pastry chef brother, Alberto, travel abroad. They also devote that time to work out the techniques needed to achieve the astonishing flavor and texture profiles of their dishes. Adria tries to balance experimentation with the need to please the customer. "You never know the effort this person has made to get here, or who has been waiting months to eat here," he says. "So you need to give your all to these people because if you don't, if it doesn't work, this is just a food factory." Adria comes up with a challenging 80 new dishes each year, which makes El Bulli's evolving menu even more intriguing.

For many years, Adria worked on his formulas in El Bulli's kitchen, but he wanted to separate the intellectual from the mechanical, so in 1999, he moved his research and development work to an apartment in Barcelona that he and Soler transformed into El Taller, or The Workshop. "Architects and designers have studios in which they create, why not chefs?" Adria quips. He also believes in teamwork. "Several minds working on one idea will always achieve more than one mind alone," he says. "My philosophy is that food is like wine and you have to experience the explosion of all the different flavors. The 30 chefs who work alongside me at El Bulli are just the visible sign of what I am trying to achieve. The real excitement takes place in in the workshop."

One of those chefs, Jose Andres of Jaleo, an upscale tapas restaurant with locations in Washington, D.C., and Bethesda, Maryland, grew up in Barcelona. He worked at El Bulli from 1987 to 1989 and, despite his mounting acclaim here in America — in the past he's been nominated for a James Beard Rising Star Chef award and recently for the James Beard Best Chef Mid-Atlantic — he still returns every summer to El Bulli for a refresher course.

"I always wanted to work with the best, so one day I just knocked at his door and said, 'I'm Jose, here I am,' " he recalls. Over the interceding years, Andres and Adria became good friends, and perhaps no one stateside knows him better. "Adria's mind is like a computer, absorbing and processing everything," Andres says. "He always carries a notebook and his expression is full of wonder, like a little kid, when he discovers something. He shares everything with other chefs — except the new dishes of the season."

Like any master with his students, Adria sets the standards. "One of the most important lessons I learned from Adria is to make sure you make the best product you can — whether it's a hot dog, hamburger, tortilla or haute cuisine," Andres notes. He demonstrates Adria's influence with his deconstruction of the traditional Spanish tortilla — the flat, potato-onion omelet — into one-part potato foam, one-part onion purée and one-part sabayon, layered in a sherry glass with a topping of deep-fried potato dice. Similarly, he elevates the classic but simple concept of a tomato and anchovy salad to the sublime, again deconstucting and reassembling its basic ingredients to achieve ethereal results. "This is a simple dish brought up to another level," Andres enthuses. "Tomatoes have the most amazing natural gelatin. [Plus] the sweetness and acidity of the tomato paired with the saltiness of the anchovy make it a perfect match for a Verdejo from Rueda."

Gelatin, in fact, is one of Adria's trademarks, which Andres has adapted to his own cuisine. Similar to other chefs who have studied, however briefly, with Adria, Andres exploits those elements that speak to him, combining them with his own personal style. The result is fare that hints of Adria but departs from mimicry.

"What inspires me about Ferrán is his philosophy that the old ways should always be challenged, that we should look at everything from different angles," Andres muses. "The old-fashioned way is to protect the product's form and taste. He believes that we should change the form of the product but maintain its flavor or even make it more flavorful." So, while Andres' style at Jaleo is, he insists, "very classical" and "in development," he acknowledges his mentor with dishes like a deconstructed clam chowder.

"Adria is a brilliant, creative chef who likes to push invention to the limits," says Kenneth Oringer, executive chef-owner of Clio in Boston's Eliot Suite Hotel and last year's James Beard award winner for the Best Chef of the Northeast. "I can't think of anyone else who is as unique a thinker as Adria."

During his stint at El Bulli in 1997 — he spent a week there studying Adria's techniques — Oringer learned "there is no limit to the imagination, but it must make sense. The ingredients are familiar, the taste is familiar, but he makes you think about it."

Like Adria, Oringer takes classic dishes and deconstructs them, disregarding familiar contexts in an effort to form new ones. He describes a squab dish on Clio's menu that he conceived with Adria's approach in mind: first, a glass-like sheet of caramel is made without sugar (using glucose, fondant and pectin); next, spices and pumpkin seeds are added to the hardened caramel before the sheet is broken into squares; simultaneously, the squab breast is roasted until the skin is very crisp; it's then covered with the caramel squares; the bird is then gently reheated so the caramel melts; it rehardens as the squab cools. "When you bite into it," Oringer notes, "it has that thin crackle and crunch, and then another crunch from the squab skin. The impact is from the texture; you don't have to put much more on the plate."

Other chefs who don't necessarily wish to study with Adria, such as Norman Van Aken, the critically acclaimed chef-owner of Norman's in Miami, still take the time to understand the fuss. "The most important element to me," Van Aken notes, "is that despite the 'out-in-space' thinking that seems to drive the experimentation of the Adria brothers, it is their loyalty to traditional Spanish ingredients and history that keeps me enamored of them."

Admittedly, not every Adria creation is bound to be a success. Unorthodox combinations such as asparagus with caramelized grapefruit can be daunting, even perplexing. And the sheer variety of the 30-item tasting menu makes it next to impossible for every diner to like every dish. Certainly Parmesan ice cream sandwiched between crispy Parmesan wafers will not appeal to all, yet to an adventuresome epicure armed with a glass of Alvear y Escalera Carlos VII Amontillado, it's heavenly.

What everyone can agree on is Adria's ability to provoke opinion. Some view him as a sensation, others as a firebrand, while others hint that he is an aberration, insinuating that he is merely an accomplished technician whose extreme style and presentation upstages the food. None of the buzz matters to the warm and hospitable Adria, however. "Creativity is what you see that others don't," he notes. "Cooking is a way of seeing life and enjoying life."

And for Ferrán Adria, life — and food — is far from mundane.

 

Food Editor Carole Kotkin is a Miami-based writer, cooking instructor and consultant. She recently co-authored Mmmiami – Tempting Tropical Tastes for Home Cooks Everywhere. Wine News BuyLine Panelist Fred Tasker writes a weekly syndicated wine column for The Miami Herald.

Courtesy The Wine News

 

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