Celebrating Spain's Chef Ferran Adrià's Legacy

Lisa Abend’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adrià’s elBulli offers an inside look at elBulli’s system of apprentices, called stagiaire, that run the restaurant.

Acclaimed chef Ferran Adrià (pictured left) was in New York recently to celebrate Spanish gastronomy and a new book about the apprentices in his kitchen at Spain’s elBulli, five-time winner of the Best Restaurant in the World title from Restaurant magazine. The three-Michelin-star elBulli will close on July 31 and reopen in 2014 as a foundation for culinary brainstorming where teams of collaborators will create ideas that chefs around the world can access online to adapt to their restaurants.

Adrià, often called the master of molecular gastronomy, has led the kitchen at elBulli in Roses, Spain, for more than 24 years.

The event, held at New York University’s King Juan Carlos 1 Center in Manhattan, coincided with the launch of the recently published book, The Sorcerer’s Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adrià’s elBulli, written by author and journalist Lisa Abend. Abend spent 70 days during the June to December 2009 season at elBulli researching the system of apprentices, called stagiaire, that Adrià uses to run his restaurant.

After competing with 5,000 applicants for 35 slots for a six-month stint at almost no pay, many of these apprentices have gone on to become renown chefs across the world. Abend described how the stagiaire would spend 14-hour days in two lines surrounding a huge worktable in elBulli’s kitchen performing labor-intensive tasks such as removing pine nuts from pine cones with precision. “I never thought about where pine nuts came from before I witnessed that,” she said.

Chef Adrià discussed how the dedication of the stagiaire defined the spirit of elBulli. “Fifty to 60 percent of the great chefs in the world come through elBulli,” he said, “and it’s not because we’re so good. It’s because we make very good people, better.” Many stagiaire are already working in top restaurants around the world and leave at their own expense to work and learn in elBulli’s kitchen.

“Lisa was the first to speak about these workers and it’s the best way to pay tribute to me,” he added.

Adrià added that a film adaptation of Abend's book had just been approved. "It will not be a movie about elBulli," Adrià said. "But about the people who make it.”

The event was hosted by Foods & Wines from Spain, an organization that conducts a range of promotional activities designed to inform about Spain’s culinary products. Its new website, www.foodsfromspain.com, promotes the country’s food products and history.—Denise Purcell

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