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FerranAdria

Can the World's Best Chef Save Spanish Tourism?

Filed under: Dining

Chef Ferrán Adrià, the innovative visionary behind the strange and wondrous cuisine of El Bulli, a restaurant widely reputed to offer one of the most amazing dining experiences in the world, has a new job. The chef has been charged with helping draw tourists to Spain. Tourism is a big part of Spain's economy but like other destinations it has seen visitor numbers decline. So the tourism industry is calling out the big guns. Adria will team up with the Esade Business School in Barcelona and La Caixa, the savings bank, to head the Tourism Management and Gastronomy School. Adrià will give classes one week each year teaching innovation and creativity to hospitality business owners. The London TImes reports that Adrià has met José Luis Rodríguez, the Spanish Prime Minister, to ask for €14 million to back the project which should begin next year.

Ferran Adria's New Beer

Filed under: Dining, Spirits, Wine

First we heard Ferran Adria, the famous Spanish chef from the world's greatest restaurant, El Bulli, was interested in pizza and it turns out he's already got the beer. Adria, his partner Juli Soler and two of his sommeliers have worked on a beer for the 100-year-old brewery Estrella Damm of Barcelona. This is no ordinary pint, The NY Times quotes Adria who says that, "The idea was to make a beer to drink with food, from a wineglass."

Inedit is actually a combination of two beers,
a lager and a German-style weissbier with flavors of coriander, orange peel and licorice. The two beers are fermented separately and then combined in a 750ml wine bottle where they undergo a secondary fermentation. It is recommended that the beer be chilled in a wine cooler and served in white wine glasses which are supposed to be filled only half full so that the nuances of the brew can be appreciated. It sells for $9.99 and is available at Whole Foods.

World's Best Chef To Open A Pizza Place

Filed under: Dining

ferran adria
What does the chef at the world's best restaurant do for an encore? How about opening a pizza joint? The LA Times reports that El Bulli chef, Ferran Adria has been in Italy studying pizza making. it's quite a change in direction for a man famous for his devotion to molecular gastronomy. But Adira has promised that his planned pizza restaurant in Barcelona, Spain will be a straightforward affair, no foams, no liquid nitrogen or strange balls of flavor, just your basic pizza pie.

Some Italian chefs are skeptical about the pizza skills of Ferran Adria and his pastry chef brother Alberto feeling that pizzamaking is more of a calling than something you can just quickly pick up. But for the Adrias the new planned venture offers a chance to cook for far more people than the small amount who eat at El Bulli each year. Let's just hope we don't see Adria frozen pizzas in the market in a few years right next to the Wolfgang Puck boxes.

El Bulli Is The Top Restaurant Yet Again

Filed under: Dining

ferran adria
Once again the molecular gastronomy stylings of chef Ferran Adria have pushed Spanish restaurant El Bulli to the top of another world's best restaurants list. El Bulli won the top slot in the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants 2009. The list is the result of a poll of more than 800 chefs, critics managers and others done for Restaurant Magazine.

According to the AFP, Adria is quoted as saying it was an important night for Spain (in addition to El Bulli, two other Spanish restaurants, Mugaritz and El Celler de Can Roca were in the top five). He dedicated his award to Heston Blumenthal, whose restaurant, The Fat Duck was in the second position. Adria praised Blumenthal for his honesty. Blumenthal closed his restaurant briefly over a potential food poisoning scare earlier this year. Restaurants in the top ten from the U.S. were Thomas Keller's Per Se and Grant Achtaz's Alinea in the US.

Off the list this year was Gordon Ramsay's flagship London restaurant. Bloomberg reports that it was in 13th place last year but didn't even crack the top 100 for 2009. He did squeak onto the list in slot 91 with his restaurant Maze.

Faces by Ferran Adria

Filed under: Dining

Faces is the collection of kitchen tools and tableware designed for the most famous molecular gastronomist, the man who heads up the best restaurant in the world, Ferran Adria. The basic cutlery (pictured) is elegant, with tattooed handles and sinuous curves. The shell-like Egg bowl collection is used both for serving and for work in the kitchen, depending on size, while the rest of the serving pieces, primarily made of stainless steel, glass and even leather, are unlike anything you'll find anywhere else. For the truly dedicated home chef, you can even pick up some of the unique spoons, skewers and tongs that all serve as eating implements at el Bulli itself. Prices run from $48 to $392 for various pieces of the collection.



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