elBulli Goes Nonprofit

Ferran Adrià announced in January that he would be closing his world-renowned restaurant elBulli—considered by some the best restaurant in the world—for two years to gain new inspiration, since it had become “impossible to keep creating.” At that point, he said: “In 2014, we will serve food somehow. I don’t know if it will be for 1 guest or 1,000.”

Turns out Adrià will, indeed, be serving food beginning in 2014 to “a certain number of customers,” but stemming from experiments that result from his new nonprofit venture—not the back of the house. His new private, nonprofit foundation will grant between 20 and 25 annual scholarships for chefs and other members of the food industry with the long-term goal of creating an “exhaustive and detailed” encyclopedia of contemporary cuisine. “We want it to be a think-tank of gastronomic creativity,” he said.

The foundation will continue in the same gastronomic vein Adrià has become known for—highlighting the integration of science and culinary arts with regular forays into deconstruction, often crossing into wholly new culinary territory. However, it will also delve into cocktails and more traditional approaches to food, including breakfast—a meal he said “is traditionally ignored by restaurants, but which I am very passionate about.”