Ferran Adrià

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Ferran Adrià, 2014

Ferran Adrià Acosta (born May 14, 1962 in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat , Catalonia , Spain ) is a Spanish chef and restaurateur. Adrià worked from 1983 to 2011 in the restaurant "elBulli" (in his own spelling) near the town of Roses on the Costa Brava . From 1990 to 2011 he ran it together with Juli Soler. Through experimental food preparation, preparation and presentation, he became a co-founder of molecular cuisine . He himself describes his cuisine as avant-garde cuisine or gastronomy ( cocina de vanguardia ), as molecular cuisine only makes up a very small part of it. Adrià is considered to be one of the most influential contemporary chefs.

life and work

Adrià is the elder of two sons of the plasterer and painter Ginés Adrià and his wife Josefa Acosta. At the age of fourteen he attended the Virgen de La Merced Institute in Barcelona to complete a business apprenticeship in preparation for studying business administration. In 1980 he left school for no particular reason , but dreamed of going on vacation to the island of Ibiza . He financed his vacation by washing dishes in a small hotel kitchen in Castelldefels . The chef there introduced him to El Práctico , the Spanish equivalent of Escoffier's cookbook . At the age of seventeen he had already gained his first professional experience as an assistant chef in various restaurants in Barcelona. He worked his way up to the prestigious Finisterre restaurant .

At the age of nineteen Adrià had to do military service. He was smutje at the naval base in Cartagena , where he was a member of the Admiral's kitchen crew. There he received a recommendation to apply to the El Bulli restaurant under the direction of Juli Soler. Even then, El Bulli was appreciated by gourmets (two Michelin stars ) under the Alsatian chef Jean-Louis Neichel (1975–1980, now Barcelona ), who came mainly from France and Germany, but also from Barcelona and the region. The former restaurant owners were the German doctor Hans Schilling and his wife Marketta until 1990; they called their bulldog Bulli and also adopted this name for the restaurant.

After serving in the military in 1983, at the age of 21, Adrià became head chef at this restaurant together with Christian Lutaud. Soler then sent him to an apprenticeship at top European restaurants. In 1986 he took over the motto from the master chef Jacques Maximin in Nice: “To be creative means not to copy.” A year and a half later, he became the sole head chef without a regular qualification. For five years he first cooked the dishes he had learned during his training. After another five years of developing a conventional new Spanish cuisine, he began bold experiments in 1993. In the early years of its experimental phase, the restaurant suffered from a lack of guests. The gastronomy critic Wolfram Siebeck made Adrià known to the German public in 1995. In the USA he only became known nationwide in August 2003 through a large report in the New York Times Magazine and thus gained increased international attention.

El Bulli

Valley view of the 3-star El Bulli restaurant
Kitchen in El Bulli
Ferran Adrià, 2007

Adriàs Restaurant El Bulli is located in a secluded bay on the Costa Brava , north of Barcelona, ​​and has 50 seats. Every season was booked out and finally overbooked in no time with pre-orders. Every year several hundred thousand reservation requests totaled up to two million inquiries with a capacity for only 8,000 guests in one half-year. In the luxury hotel Hacienda Benazuza near Seville , which he co- operates , menu courses from earlier years are offered. The restaurant was not self-sustaining because of the high personnel costs, in 2008 it was a loss of 300,000 euros. Books, advertising, appearances and a catering service had to make up for the deficit.

Every year Adrià received 1,500 applications from chefs around the world, of which only 35 were selected. Two thirds of them also worked without pay. He and a small “creative team” also tried out new recipes during the summer season. This happened in the morning in a small group. Over the course of a year, attempts to create a new dish totaled around 6,000 dishes. In a large notebook, Adrià immediately notes all attempts and his evaluation of them. Only 40 dishes are selected for a new menu sequence. "Around 90 percent of all major inventions in the world of cooking today come from us," Adrià claimed in 2010. Initially, he only wanted to continue this high level of innovation until 2008 and then only continue on a small scale. He also considered taking a year and a half off. But from 2009 he wanted to experiment instead with changes to the previous structures. The restaurant should now be open until December and the menu sequence should be changed several times. He wanted to run his restaurant in this way at least until he was 50, after all at the beginning of 2010 he announced a temporary closure: “First of all, in 2012 I wanted to end everything. I work 15 hours a day, 333 days a year. And that for 25 years. ”After all, he has to think of his family. On July 30th, 2011, he closed the restaurant for two years in order to relax and concentrate fully on the development of culinary creations. In 2014 the El Bulli restaurant will be converted into a foundation and expanded, in which chefs, sommeliers , restaurateurs and other professionals will develop new gastronomic products and concepts. A selected number of guests will continue to enjoy the new menus. Adrià also plans to offer scholarships to around 20 to 25 young people from around the world. El Bulli is to become a “ think tank for creative gastronomy”. In April 2013, Adrià from Sotheby’s auctioned El Bulli 's wine supply . Proceeds between 1.1 and 1.6 million dollars were expected, which will be donated to his El-Bulli Foundation.

Adrià explained his way of working as follows: at the beginning of a new season, he determines which products should be worked on with which techniques. That is the hardest part of the job. The experimental group in the cooking laboratory, a small group of the best employees (with Albert Raurich, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch as chefs de cuisine ) takes on the processing of the products . These are mostly intuitive, but vary a combination in a systematic way if the results are promising. Each attempt is finally recorded with a photo and assessment. Adrià limits his activity to tasting and logging and therefore compares himself to a director. The techniques are not an end in themselves, but rather serve to optimize the taste experience of aromas and textures . The aroma and taste of natural products should be kept as pure as possible. A sideline of El Bulli is the production and sale of texturas , auxiliaries for spherizing , gelling , emulsifying and thickening dishes as well as concentrated natural flavors ( surprises ).

Molecular cuisine

Bear crab with espuma from green tea , 2005
Melon caviar, 2004

Adrià came up with the idea of ​​molecularizing food when looking at the froth of a squeezed juice in a bar. He then transferred the principle of foam production (“ espuma ”) to other foods, until he gave up this idea again because he was already copying too often with it had been. Adrià did not offer any classic menus, his "menus" were differentiated, sophisticated, extremely complicated 30 to 35 small courses: Raw vegetables are processed with high-tech medical technology, salt shakers are filled with fragrant artificial mist, he seasoned vegetable gelatine strips with charcoal oil , forms jellied olive puree into olives with liquid olive extract inside, stuffs squid with a mixture of ginger and coconut, serves a mussel mousse in a coating of wafer-thin pork fat and injected eggs with caviar paste before cooking. Techniques from the food industry are used here: for example the method of " lyophilization " (freeze-drying in a vacuum) of fruit and vegetables. The meticulous effort was so high that he only ever offered this one menu sequence per season. In 2008, a 32-course menu cost 230 euros. In 2004 he had already earned more with his cookbooks than with his restaurant. At El Bulli, Adrià was “not interested in business” and therefore did not see his restaurant as a business, “but as our stage. Some call it concept cuisine, but I think it's different. Food is the oldest form of communication, thousands of years old. And we have found a new language for it. "

One of his new cooking techniques is "spherization": this is a controlled gelling of liquids, which then take the form of "spheres" - a spherical outer shell with a liquid core. Examples of this are melon or apple caviar, tomato spheres or liquid olive extract, encased in firmly gelled olive puree in the shape and color of an olive. The taste contrast between the solid shell and the liquid content can also be created using fruits and other products, which are first freeze-dried , then ground and finally gelled.

Adrià likes the term molecular cuisine, but considers it “inapplicable” for his cuisine. It is “ridiculous” to “ reduce one's kitchen to the use of liquid nitrogen , freeze-drying or the like.” This part of his work makes up “perhaps three or four percent in the overall picture.” The decisive factor is rather a high degree of versatility .

criticism

The then editor-in-chief of Gault-Millau , Kohnke, described Adrià's career leap towards the world as "highly acclaimed". Substances to be rejected such as transglutaminase , methyl cellulose or xanthan would be used on a massive scale.

"In truth, he is just the most famous laboratory assistant among kitchen stars, his restaurant elBulli is a showroom for the Spanish chemical industry."

- Manfred Kohnke

These statements were a reaction to the revelatory article "Thin whistle for five people" in the Stern , in which Jörg Zipprick refuted the claim that Adrià's laboratory had invented Gellan , Iota or Glice and stated that these were regular food additives . The title is an allusion to the use of 100 grams of isomalt (E 953) in the “Olive Oil Spiral” recipe, which can have a laxative effect from just 20 g. Furthermore, the author complains that Adrià has received tax money from the EU (500,000 €) and subsidies from the chemical industry ("Project Inicon", 600,000 €) and is now contributing to the industry's increase in sales due to its sponsored, tax-paid popularity.

Science and cuisine

In 2008, the IESE Business School in Barcelona carried out a research project on innovation to find out how ideas are generated there.

At a lecture at Harvard University in late 2008, Adrià expressed the desire to be able to create an encyclopedia of cooking and science together with Harvard scientists. In autumn 2010, Adrià and his Washington colleague José Andrés and other chefs took part in a 13-week series of lectures with demonstrations and exercises in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University for students and interested chefs. It was about the basics of culinary physics with examples from Adrià's test kitchen such as the properties of an emulsion , the stabilization of foam in a liquid or the composition of liquids with different densities due to different temperatures.

culinary arts

His restaurant remained closed for the second half of the year until 2009 and he worked on further innovations in his cooking laboratory in Barcelona: El Bulli taller . The "workshop" (Spanish: taller ) is located near the Boqueria market ; Adrià shops here and looks for new foods. Together with scientists, designers, food technicians, food chemists and artists, he creates new recipes, cutlery, plates, interior furnishings, even the lighting and musical accompaniment are planned down to the smallest detail and implemented into a total work of art . For 2007 he was invited to take part in the documenta 12 art exhibition . Instead of the generally expected show cooking, he offered to entertain two visitors or artists of the documenta, selected by the exhibition organizer Roger Buergel , as guests at El Bulli every day . Their reactions to eating the menu sequence are documented in an art book by the painter and Pop Art co- founder Richard Hamilton , who was also a regular guest at El Bulli , which was published in autumn 2009 .

Beer creation

Beer creation Inedit   ( Estrella Damm )

In 2009, the Spanish brewery Estrella Damm created the Inedit beer brand in collaboration with Ferran Adrià and the sommeliers from El Bulli as well as Juli Soler, Dan Barber the wine experts Ferran Centelles and David Seijas . Inedit is a coupage of barley malt and wheat that is refined with spices such as orange peel, coriander and liquorice. The new beer is to be drunk from white wine glasses. The primary target group for the new beer is upscale gastronomy.

family

Ferran Adrià has been married to Isabel Pérez Barceló since 2002. His brother Albert Adrià (born October 20, 1969) is a pastry chef , he has worked at El Bulli since 1985 and was also the manager for El Bulli taller during the winter season. In 2008 Albert left El Bulli with the agreement of his brother and opened the tapas bar Inopia in Barcelona's old town Eixample . In January 2011, Ferran and Albert Adrià opened another tapas bar ( tickets ) in Barcelona's Sant Antoni district on Avinguda del Paral • lel   with dishes created in El Bulli as well as more conventional tapas. In May 2011, the directly adjacent cocktail bar 41 ° (Spanish: cuarenta y uno grados , English: forty-one degrees ) followed, supplemented with snacks from the El-Bulli kitchen. The offer of tickets is based on local products and seafood. Gourmet cuisine should be offered to families and travelers at affordable prices in a relaxed atmosphere.

Awards (excerpt)

Exhibitions

Publications

  • El Bulli 1983–1993 (with Juli Soler and Albert Adrià)
  • El Bulli: el sabor del Mediteráneo , 1993, ISBN 84-7596-415-X .
  • Los secretos de El Bulli , 1997, ISBN 84-487-1000-2 .
  • El Bulli 1994–1997 (with Juli Soler and Albert Adrià), ISBN 978-3-936682-47-2 .
  • Cocinar en 10 minutos con Ferran Adrià , 1998, ISBN 84-605-7628-0 .
  • Celebrar el milenio con Arzak y Adrià (with Juan Mari Arzak), 1999, ISBN 84-8307-246-7 .
  • El Bulli 1998–2002 (with July 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 (with Juli Soler and Albert Adrià), ISBN 84-7871-607-6 .
  • Ferran Adrià, Albert Adrià, Juli Soler: A day at elBulli. Insights into the world of ideas, methods and creativity of Ferran Adrià. Phaidon , Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-0-7148-5895-1 .
  • Food Art - works of art from Ferran Adrià's kitchen. A photographic staging by Francesc Guillamet. Hampp, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-936682-89-2 .
  • The family meal. Cooking at home with Ferran Adrià. (Original title: The Family Meal, Home Cooking With Ferran Adriá ). Edel, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8419-0119-4 .

literature

  • Manfred Weber-Lamberdière: The revolutions of Ferran Adrià: How a Catalan made cooking an art. Afterword by Ferran Adrià. Bloomsbury , Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8270-0742-1 .
  • Till Ehrlich : The retreat of Ferran Adrià. In: Chief's Own Hearth . No. 31, Edition Vincent Klink , Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-927350-29-8 , pp. 87-95.
  • Interview Ferran Adrià, in: Torsten Eßer / Tilbert D. Stegmann (eds.). Catalonia's return to Europe 1976–2006, LIT Verlag Berlin 2007, pp. 289–292, ISBN 978-3-8258-0283-7 .
  • Richard Hamilton , Vicente Todolí (Ed.): Food for Thought. Thought for Food. Thoughts on the creative universe of Ferran Adriá, the avant-garde cuisine and its relationship to the world of art. Actar, Barcelona 2009, ISBN 978-84-96954-69-4 .
  • Colman Andrews: Ferran. The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food. Gotham, New York 2010, ISBN 978-1592405725 .
  • Lisa Abend: The Sorcerer's Apprentices. A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adrià's elBulli. Free Press, New York 2011, ISBN 978-1439175552 .
  • Peter Stolz: "The Dalí among the cooks" in: Küche - The magazine for food, drinks and technology , 8/2003. pp. 12-16, ISSN  0344-4376 .

Movies

  • El Bulli - Cooking In Progress. Documentary, Germany, 2010, 108 min., Written and directed by Gereon Wetzel, produced by if ... Productions  
  • Cooking and Creativity. Lecture, USA, 2009, 4:25 min., Production: Harvard University , February 18, 2009, online video .
  • Google presents: Chef Ferran Adrià. Talk, USA, 2008, 64 min., Production: Google , October 13, 2008, online video , interview with films from elBulli , commented on by Adrià.
  • Anthony Bourdain - A question of taste: cooking revolution with Ferran Adrià. (OT: Anthony Bourdain - Decoding Ferran Adria. ) Documentation, USA, 2006, 46:28 min., Director: Anthony Bourdain , production: Travel Channel, TV series: Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations , German premiere: July 1, 2007 on DMAX .
  • Kitchen from a different planet. Documentation, Germany, 2004, 45 min., Script and direction: Stefan Quante , production: WDR , first broadcast: August 7, 2004.

Web links

Commons : Ferran Adrià  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : El Bulli  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Gastronomy critic on Adrià

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Arthur Lubow, "A Laboratory of Taste," New York Times Magazine, August 10, 2003.
  2. cf. "Synthesis of elBulli cuisine" ( Memento from September 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), elbulli.com, point 22
  3. a b Dpa , AFP : “Top gastronomy. Spanish top restaurant El Bulli becomes a foundation “ , Die Zeit online, February 22, 2010
  4. a b c A. Ameri-Siemens: "The secret message of the oyster" ( Memento from May 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 28, 2009, interview.
  5. Julia Moskin: "After El Bulli, Spain Looks Forward" , New York Times , June 14, 2011: "El Bulli, currently the most influential restaurant in the world ..."
  6. a b c Dwight Garner: "A boss as a poet, Rockstar and Chemistry Professor" , New York Times , Oct. 5, 2010
  7. ^ Equipo elBulli (the team) ( Memento of March 22, 2007 in the Internet Archive ): Ferran Adrià
  8. a b Ferran Adrià , restaurant-ranglisten.de .
  9. 1975-1980. The Neichel era. elBulli.
  10. ^ "The Avantgardist" ( Memento from January 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Rolling Pin, February 2006.
  11. a b Wolfgang Lechner: "The Chemist" , Die Zeit , 2001, No. 45.
  12. Ferran Adrià: “He foresaw my future” , Die Zeit , September 11, 2003, No. 38.
  13. Arthur Lubow: "A Laboratory of Taste" , New York Times Magazine, August 10, 2003 in 11 parts.
  14. Merten Worthmann: "The foam-born kitchen" ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), art - Das Kunstmagazin , 2006, No. 12, p. 60, ( PDF file; 2.16 MB); Page no longer available , search in web archives: text version , accessed April 10, 2011.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.art-magazin.de
  15. a b c d e f Christoph Amend: “Innovative Cooking. One stroke of genius after another ” , Die Zeit , March 12, 2009, no.
  16. Christian Schubert: “What is on the table is eaten here” , FAZ , December 23, 2009
    “Other three-star chefs create maybe 20 or 40 dishes a year, but they are not always brand new. His team, on the other hand, makes 6000 attempts every year to create something really new. Around 40 of them make it onto the menu. "
  17. Daniel Böniger: “The best restaurant in the world is closing” , Tages-Anzeiger , February 1, 2010.
  18. Ferran Adrià: “I have a dream” , Die Zeit , December 22, 2005, No. 51.
  19. ^ A b Lothar Schmidt: "Vacuum drying is also an art" , Die Welt , May 10, 2007, interview.
  20. Dpa : “The culinary revolutionary seeks new inspiration” , Frankfurter Rundschau , January 27, 2010.
  21. ^ "El Bulli will definitely close on July 30, 2011" , comprendes.de, August 2, 2010.
  22. sto / dpa / AFP: "" El Bulli "on the Costa Brava will be closed" , Spiegel Online , January 26, 2010.
  23. Christine Toomey: "What Ferran Adria is cooking up after El Bulli" , The Times , March 28 of 2010.
  24. ^ Ag .: "Avant-garde restaurant" El Bulli "becomes a charitable foundation" , Die Presse , February 22, 2010
  25. Hubert Spiegel : The end of an era. Adriàs El Bulli wine cellar is auctioned. In: FAZ , March 29, 2013.
  26. Celebrity chef Ferran Adrià: “Organizing creativity efficiently” , WirtschaftsWoche , September 16, 2011, interview.
  27. a b Texturas. Recipes & information , brochure, ( PDF file; 2.3 MB).
  28. See: Peter Stolz. "Revolution in the cooking pot" in: Küche - The magazine for food, drinks and technology , 7/2005. P. 13.
  29. ^ "Organizing creativity efficiently" , WirtschaftsWoche , September 16, 2011.
  30. a b “Between test tube and tradition. Artist chef Ferran Adrià ” , SWR , June 15, 2007, 9 pages, (PDF; 43.4 kB).
  31. Stefan Quante: "Kitchen from Another Star" , WDR video, August 7, 2004.
  32. See: Peter Stolz. "The Dalí among the cooks" in: Küche - The magazine for food, drinks and technology 8/2003. P. 13.
  33. Video with Mark Bittman: "Olives at El Bulli" ( Memento from June 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), New York Times , September 2006, 4:42 min.
  34. ^ "Just the Tickets: Ferran Adrià's new tapas joint" ( Memento from September 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Nickloman, April 8, 2011.
  35. Too much chemistry - feeding Pope warns top chefs , Welt.de . Retrieved August 6, 2013.
  36. Thin whistle for five people , Stern (magazine) . Retrieved August 6, 2013.
  37. Julia Prats, Javier Quintanilla, Jordan Mitchell: "elBulli's Magic Recipe" ( Memento from December 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), IESE Business School , 2008, 31 pages, page no longer available , search in web archives: issue .@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / iesep.iese.edu
  38. "Up Next: The Harvard Center for Gastrophysics?" Harvard Magazine, December 19, 2008
  39. José Andrés , English Wikipedia.
  40. Steve Greenlee: "Ferran Adria to teach at Harvard" , Associated Press / Boston Globe , March 24 of 2010.
  41. Jane Black: “Foam 101? Chefs Andrés, Adrià will teach at Harvard ” , Washington Post , March 24, 2010
    “ Gen Ed course brings together famed chefs and eminent academics ” ( Memento of March 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 22 March 2010.
  42. ^ "Behind the Laboratory Door" , starchefs.com , June 2006 (Eng.).
  43. Jump up ↑ "The fuss about celebrity chefs at the documenta" , dpa / Kölnische Rundschau , June 14, 2007.
  44. Estrella Damm Inedit ( Memento of October 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) - Official site, 2009 (English)
  45. Susanne Thiel: “From celebrity chef to beer maker” ( Memento from September 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Spaniens Allgemeine Zeitung, May 14, 2009.
  46. Merten Worthmann: "Homage to the Classics" ( Memento of October 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Der Feinschmecker , 2008, No. 5, p. 36
  47. Avinguda del Paral lel , English Wikipedia
  48. "Ferran Adrià opened tapas bar" , food and drink , 17. January 2011
  49. ^ A b Allan Jenkins: "Missed out on El Bulli? Then try Tickets, Ferran Adrià's affordable Barcelona tapas bar “ , The Observer , June 19, 2011
  50. Page no longer available , search in web archives: Official page of tickets (catal., Spanish, English).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.ticketsbar.es
  51. Video: “Tickets and 41º: the Adrià brothers' Barcelona tapas and cocktail bars” , The Guardian , May 17, 2011.
  52. ^ "Spanish restaurant for the fourth time" best in the world "" ( Memento from April 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), AFP , April 20, 2009.
  53. Time Magazine : “The People Who Shape Our World,” April 26, 2004 and “Ferran Adrià. Gastronomic Innovator “ ( Memento from May 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
  54. "Arzak y Adriá, condecorados con la Gran Cruz de la Orden del Mérito Civil" , El País , June 26th of 2009.
  55. Press release: The British "Restaurant Magazine" announces the ranking of the "S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants 2010" ( Memento from September 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), April 2010, PDF file, 324 kB
    World's 50 Best Restaurants 2010 , S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants.
  56. Forty cooks for fifty guests in FAZ of December 8, 2014, page 11
  57. ^ Film page: El Bulli - Cooking In Progress ( Memento of April 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) by if ... productions
  58. Jürgen Dollases video film review : The magic of the culinary avant-garde: “El Bulli” , FAZ from September 14, 2011.
  59. ^ Film excerpts from El Bulli - Cooking In Progress ( Memento from March 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), elbulli.alivemindcinema.com