If there’s a chef who has shifted the boundaries and the forms of contemporary gastronomy, that chef is Ferran Adrià. Everything possible has been written and said about him in the international media, so anything we might add risks appearing superfluous.
All we can say is – to cite the claim of the El Bulli Foundation, which he has set up with his brother Albert to breathe new life into his inextinguishable creativity – that he “cooks ideas”.
It’s an assertion that is at once ambitious and modest, which says a lot about the talent of the world’s most famous Catalan.
The new Foundation’s mission is to draw on the treasure trove of skills and knowledge left by the El Bulli restaurant to create and be a place of sharing and discovery. In the presentation to the new Foundation, one reads that it will provide freedom to create and take risks without respecting routines or timetables. No premise could be more stimulating.
Now we await Adrià in Pollenzo to find out more, to hear him explain in his own words the philosophy behind the project and the challenges and lessons he intends to pass on to our students.