Ferran Adrià (born 1962) is the world-famous head chef of the restaurant El Bulli in Roses, Spain which closed in 2011. In the late 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, El Bulli was legendary. It was awarded three Michelin stars and was given the accolade ‘best restaurant in the world’ by Restaurant Magazine five times in a row. El Bulli can rightly be regarded as the founder of modern experimental cuisine.
Since the closure of El Bulli, the Catalan chef has been engaged in research on creativity. With the assistance of a team of researchers, designers and professionals from numerous other disciplines, he is trying to map out the creative process. For this research, he continually draws on his rich past at El Bulli.
Ferran Adrià visited Maastricht for the exhibition Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity in Marres. The exhibition was a homage to Ferran Adrià’s quest for creativity and how it led to his revolutionary, innovative cuisine. In a sold out Centre Céramique, the master chef talked about his current practice and answer questions from the audience, which largely consisted of students and talented young chefs.