elBulli for you, Adria

IS this man the world's greatest chef? Two million people can't be wrong. Bob Hart speaks with elBulli's Ferran Adria.

THERE is no further room for debate: Spain's Ferran Adria is the world's greatest chef.

His restaurant, elBulli, has wiped the floor with all comers by being named world's best restaurant for the fourth year in succession.

And next Sunday the small but uncannily gifted Adria, 46, will take the stage in Melbourne's Hamer Hall to perform an additional miracle.

He will deliver a presentation to an audience who will not be invited to sample his food, and who will understand, presumably, not a word of Catalan – the only language in which Adria is entirely fluent.

"There is nothing strange about this at all," he told me, firmly, and through a gifted translator, from London this week.

"If an architect or a doctor or any other professional were to give a presentation on his speciality, nobody would think it odd.

"So why should you think it odd for a chef to do it? I don't."

What's more, Melbourne foodies share his view: tickets for the presentation are being snapped up like a tray of elBulli canapes – his pine nut marshmallows, for example, or perhaps his five-pepper melon or his samphire tempura with saffron and oyster cream.

Because elBulli food, the product that powers the unparalleled success of his modest restaurant at Cala Montjoi in Northern Spain, a few hours drive from Barcelona, is at once inaccessible and irresistible.

The 50-seat establishment, which opens only about five months each year, receives two million applications for reservations annually, of which it fills only 8000.

Successful applicants pay a comparatively modest €200 ($335 plus wine) to be mesmerised by a 30-course meal of extraordinary complexity.

The rest or us, sadly, can only dream of such things as monkfish liver fondue with ponzu and white sesame-flavoured kumquat, or tandoori chicken wings with borage shoots, oyster cream and frothy mato cheese.

I raised with Adria the curious fact that his three-Michelan star establishment is regarded as the world's best at a time when there is a move towards local, seasonal, simple, natural foods through such things as the Slow Food movement.

"There is no contradiction in this," he assured me, again firmly.

"I am a very close friend of Carlo Petrini, who founded the Slow Food movement. We have much in common.

"The difference between haute cuisine and more natural and simple foods has always been vast. But the two approaches can coexist.

"At elBulli, you will find both: I supervise staff meals, and ensure everyone (elBulli has 60 to 70 staff members to address the needs of 50 diners) eats well before service.

"And the food they are served is very natural, quite unadorned.

"But then I also supervise the food we serve to our guests and that is haute cuisine.

"There is no contradiction here – the two approaches are simply different, addressing different expectations.

"Science, which is a vital ingredient of elBulli food, is important: to make wine, you need science. To improve the quality of the bread you make, you need science.

"Even with commercially made chocolate brownies, there are scientists at work behind the scenes, trying to improve the intensity of the chocolate, the taste, and so on.

"Any suggestion that there is no role for science to play in the preparation of foods is simply wrong. The two are complementary.

"For example, we are using new gelling agents for our food at the moment. Or at least, new to us: they have been used in traditional Irish cuisine for centuries."

There is nothing too surprising, however, in the fact that Adria should have unearthed an Irish ingredient: his search for ideas, ingredients, combinations and techniques it constant. As is his scientific research and experimentation.

But does Australia – which Adria visited for the first time in 2001, and seems to adore – have a role to play in culinary innovations?

"Yes, certainly," he says.

"Australia offers an unparalleled degree of freedom in culinary terms.

"It's such a young country and your cooking traditions, therefore, are also young.

"You are not yet locked into rigid frameworks: your gastronomy has a lot to offer the world because of the freedom it offers your chefs.

"Also, people in Australia accept new food, new approaches, more easily than many Europeans.

"There is a more natural approach to cooking in Australia: things are allowed to happen.

"The more culture a country has, the more things people know from the past, the more enriched that country becomes. But at the same time, there are two sides to the issue."

Another of Australia's great strengths, he says, is that there are indigenous ingredients and flavours with which the Australian public is not yet familiar, but which have important roles to play in haute cuisine.

"We import some of your natural spices, for example. And also fingerlimes, a native fruit, which are quite wonderful," he says.

"Also, you have gained so much from your proximity to Asia. For a European, it is a revelation to visit your country and to see how close your links to countries like Japan, China, Thailand and Malaysia have become in terms of your food.

"You have, also, Tetsuya Wakuda (chef/owner of Tetsuya's in Sydney – rated in the 10 best restaurants in the world). He is Japanese by birth, Australian at heart, and one of the most influential chefs in the world.

"So clearly, Australia has a role to play. You're important. In fact, since my first visit, and because of Australians who have worked and eaten at elBulli, I have become an ambassador for Australia. I talk about the country to anyone who will listen to me."

Adria is a chef who, for the 160 days each year during which elBulli is open for business (lunch only), serves diners meals many regard as perfect. But what, for him, constitutes the perfect meal?

"The perfect meal is the one you enjoy in its entirety. And the more you enjoy it, the more perfect it becomes," he says.

"But we have to be very careful about the use of that word 'perfect'. It can limit creativity because, once you feel you have discovered perfection, why would you look further?

"It is important that when you suspect you are approaching perfection in something, you remind yourself that there is probably something even better you can discover tomorrow.

"You may, for example, think you have tasted the best ham in the world - especially in Spain.

"But there is always the possibility that you will taste a better one the next day. It has happened to me."

The elBulli experience is unique - something for which few diners can adequately prepare. But what, in Adria's view, should they draw from the experience?

"Eating here should create a feeling that you have entered a new country, a new territory.

"Experiencing food is not just about assessing how good it tastes. Food is a language all of its own. It has meaning, and should play an important role in all of our lives.

"It is a language in which you can express many ideas, and trigger many emotions. It can provoke creative thoughts, make people laugh, even make people cry.

"But best of all, for me, is the way it can make diners at the same table interact and communicate with each other.

"And that's why there are so many people prepared to travel and pay good money to experience elBulli.

"And why some will even pay good money to listen to a chef speak to them in a theatre.

"Food, gastronomy, is a language. And when I hear how much interest my visit to Australia is generating, I find it incredible.

"I feel I am loved and respected by my fellow Spaniards, certainly. But even here, people tend not to understand exactly what I am doing.

"But they don't regard that as an obstacle: they still respect what I do."

More: Ferran Adria appears in Mebourne's Hamer Hall next Sunday at 4pm to discuss his work and his new book, A Day at elBulli, Phaidon, $75. Tickets: $40 (seat only) or $75 with copy of the book. Bookings are through www.ticketmaster.com.au or 1300 136 166.