27-08-2018
Ferran Adrià with siblings Luca and Martina Caruso, maître and chef at Signum, on the island of Salina. The Catalan chef spent a week on holiday in Sicily and the surroundings and made himself available for a long interview
Ferran Adrià has just spent a week in Sicily. A journey with friends in Palermo and the Aeolian islands. We met him by chance at Signum in Salina, while he was swimming in the pool of the hotel owned by the Caruso family. «Hey, it’s him!». We took the opportunity to have a long chat with him on the current state of the restaurant industry and on his current important projects. Good morning Adrià, what are you doing in Sicily? I’m here mostly on holiday. I’ve just spent two weeks of holiday in Mallorca and wanted to discover your island and its delicacies. It’s the first time for me. The Baleares, Sicily, Sardinia, Catalonia, Costa Brava with elBulli: they’re all part of the same horizons. Same geographic and historic profiles. Mediterranean culture. Did you enjoy Martina Caruso’s cooking? The food was very good, Signum is a fantastic place. If you don’t do avant-garde, it’s important that you offer the best products a place has to offer, and this is what happens here. I enjoyed Salina, a summary of this island. Productos del mar.
Adria and Luca Caruso with Alfredo Olivieri, author of the best granita on the island of Salina
A group photo at Signum. While travelling in Sicily, Adrià is guided by journalist Francesco Pensovecchio (second from the right), who reported on the journey on Wine in Sicily. Standing next to Luca Caruso, his partner Natascia Santandrea, the patron of Tenda Rossa in Cerbaia (Florence)
The poster from "elBulli, the story of a dream", a documentary series available from Amazon Prime as of July 2nd. The 12 episodes were filmed over 13 years, a not to be missed chance to retrace the history of the most influential restaurant in the past 30 years
Are the 23 points in the famous manifesto del Bulli still current? Take the tasting menu format, it looks like it’s going through a bit of crisis. They’re still current, sure, but we’re updating them and enriching them in a book soon to be published. That thing about tasting menus is another big lie told by critics. They say it’s no longer trendy, that we should move to à la carte menus. But those who visit a specific type of restaurant order the tasting menu most of the times because they want to enjoy a feast. Tasting menus are always the best tool available to the chef to create a new language. At elBulli we served 45 dishes in 2 hours, I would do it again. The imminent publication of the Bullipedia volumes is much awaited. On November 30th we will present the first congress on coffee with Lavazza in Milan. At the same time the next volumes of the Bullipedia will be out [after the first Bebidas volume]. These books will be on coffee, wine and cocktails, the first in a project of 35 books, over all, each with 700 pages. Writing the first two was simpler than the third because there’s no book that can sum up the work of the greatest bartenders in recent history. The volumes on wine alone will be 6, a total of 4,500 pages. Bullipedia requires huge research efforts. We’re late because in 2013, when we presented the project, we were not sure of the work it would require. We should complete the work by 2022.
Bebidas, the first books of the Bullipedia: volume 1 Definición, historia, tipos y composición (available on the Bullistore); volume 2 Productos elaborados con uso de bebidas, volume 3 Uso en el restaurante gastronomico. In November, they’re going to present the books on wine, coffee and cocktails in Milan
Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso
Ferran Adrià, 56
Gabriele Zanatta’s opinion: on establishments, chefs and trends in Italy and the world
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born in Milan, 1973, freelance journalist, coordinator of Identità Golose World restaurant guidebook since 2007, he is a contributor for several magazines and teaches History of gastronomy and Culinary global trends into universities and institutes. twitter @gabrielezanatt instagram @gabrielezanatt