Ferran Adria
Innovation, being avant garde, is always polemic.
I never even dreamed of being a chef, and that's fundamental.
When you talk about avant-garde cuisine, the surprise factor is really important. For example, I love looking at blogs and the photos, but I'm not that keen on other people taking photos of my dishes.
When I was a teenager, my idol was the Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff. He's the only person I've ever asked for an autograph.
I was 18 when I first started working at a restaurant. I was a dishwasher. I only got the job because I wanted to go to Ibiza for vacation, and washing dishes was the only job I could find.
Friends are really important, especially when you've had the successes that I've had. I've gone really far in my career, so they're the ones that keep you humble, keep your feet on the ground.
I don't read books regularly, because I'm always writing them. I've written 30 books, thousands of pages.
I cook more theoretically than I do practically. My job is creative, and in the kitchen, the biggest part of my creativity is theoretical.
Why not mix this and that? If soy goes well with fish, how come no one does beef carpaccio with soy? Why do we have such a taste and not another? It's all about culture. There is something, however, that I really don't like: bell peppers.
In a city, it's very hard to do a restaurant, an avant-garde-cuisine restaurant, where each year you need to change the whole menu.
We never have business meals at El Bulli. If it's about business, you're probably not paying much attention to the food.
If I were a customer, and I was given a dish with peppers, I would hate it. I also don't like blood sausage.
I wanted to take nouvelle cuisine further, to the point where we were breaking down the essence of taste and sensation, reconfiguring food as a series of really intense hits on the tongue.
It's very hard to be an innovator at the highest level in any discipline. For some chefs it's merely about combining ingredients, but that's something you can do with your eyes closed.
Risk is to do something that 99 percent of the time would be a failure.
When we're ill, one of the last things we have that we can enjoy is food.
When people arrive at El Bulli, everybody goes through the kitchen. It's a way of making them feel at home. When they leave, the only thing I ask is whether they've been happy. Everything in between, I don't particularly care.
I am not a multimillionaire. I don't own a yacht or a Ferrari. I live in a 60-square- metre flat. My needs are simple.
For me to go to a restaurant and eat something that is not only good, but totally new, is a double thrill. Double the enjoyment.
I don't dream at night; life has given me the stuff I need to be able to dream during the day. I'm very lucky.
I have a driver's licence, but the truth is that I hardly ever drive. I prefer to get around by taxi.
I don't worry about the things I can't change.
I had a very normal childhood, and my mother cooked very normal food.
If a child plays sport early in childhood, and doesn't give it up, he will play sport for the rest of his life. And if children have a connection with, and are involved in the preparation of, the food they eat, then it will be normal for them to cook these kind of meals, and they will go on cooking them for the rest of their lives.
I believe that if you eat well, you work even better.
I can't live without activity; I can't be sedentary.
Monkeys don't enjoy or appreciate flavours. Experts have told us that human beings are the only beings that can appreciate food at this higher level and the only living beings that cook.
Everywhere the sky is blue. There are a multitude of cuisines and dishes. I think of them as the languages and dialects of food.
There are many cultural prejudices. For instance, even though fresh fish is a regional staple, Catalans don't like sashimi.
Just to eat is a gift.
Ferran Adria making hamburgers... some thought it was crazy. But getting them perfect was a challenge. Plus I'm fascinated by all aspects of food.
Chefs have only been able to work in restaurants, high-end cuisine. Why? Why haven't they been able to find other scenarios? For those chefs who want to do avant-garde cuisine, should they be finding their income in a restaurant?
Food is about being happy - at a table, thats probably where we spend most of our happiest hours.Collection: Tables
Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster.Collection: Funny
Could you imagine people eating a painting - if they could introduce a painting into their bodies? It's probably the artist's dream, and we have the opportunity to do so.Collection: Dream
I think my virtue was I never thought "This is impossible.Collection: Thinking
You need an entire life just to know about tomatoes.Collection: Needs
Creativity means not copying.Collection: Creativity
I use the kitchen as a pathway to achieve this happiness.Collection: Cooking
If you think well, you cook well.Collection: Thinking
There is not a good or a bad cuisine, just the one you like the best.Collection: Cooking
You cannot get an influence from the cuisine of a country if you don't understand it. You've got to study it.Collection: Country
Salt is the only product that changes cuisine. There's a big difference between food that has salt and food without it. If you don't believe that, ask people who can't eat salt.Collection: Believe
I'm not a materialist, I don't care for things. I don't like cars, I hate things that can be exploited. I live a simple life. The only luxuries I have in my life are travel and food.Collection: Hate
You can't please everyone, especially if you're doing very radical things at the vanguard of cooking. That's life; it's a polemic I've lived with since I started cooking.Collection: Cooking
What you feel like eating at any given moment is what you should have.Collection: Should Have
We didnt create dishes. We create preparations to create many dishes.Collection: Preparation
Our kitchen is a kitchen that makes food designed to be tasted with the five senses and it requires concentration to appreciate all that we want to express.Collection: Appreciate
If I don't have pressure, I don't function.Collection: Pressure
When people think science and cooking, they have no idea that it's not correctly expressed. We're actually applying the scientific method. People think chemistry and physics are science, but the scientific method is something else.... It's the science that the world of cooking generates: science of butter; science of the croissant.Collection: Thinking