Creativity means not copying. Ferran Adria More Quotes by Ferran Adria More Quotes From Ferran Adria I cant live without activity; I cant be sedentary. Ferran Adria sedentarycantactivity El Bulli was created by 2,000 people that passed through it. And we didn't know that something big was happening. It was like a game in a way. You didn't really know how it was going to end up, and people who would leave, they would take a piece of it with them, but they would leave another piece behind. Ferran Adria piecesgamespeople People wouldn't think of making avant-garde cuisine at home. When people play basketball at home, they can't play like Michael Jordan. Ferran Adria basketballhomethinking At one point cinema and photography weren't treated as art. Now it's crazy to think they're not. The key question is "What is art today?" The most important artists of the last 20 years are Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive, because the influence they have had is incredible and they've changed the world. That is art. Ferran Adria photographyjobsart For me to go to a restaurant and eat something that is not only good, but totally new, is a double thrill. Double the enjoyment. Ferran Adria enjoymentrestaurantsthrill If you go off the edge, it's not cooking anymore, so you have to push it to the limit... What are the limits? Ferran Adria cookinglimitsifs People need to understand. If they go to a show on Broadway and find seventy people working but only fifty spectators, how much would the ticket cost? That's what El Bulli's about. There are seventy actors who are playing for just fifty spectators. Is the price expensive? It's relative. How much does a normal dinner at a five-star hotel restaurant cost? Four hundred dollars. It's the same as El Bulli. But you can also think of it this way: How much would it cost to eat something that nobody else is eating? Ferran Adria starspeoplethinking Innovation, being avant garde, is always polemic. Ferran Adria polemicsavant-gardeinnovation What's wrong with transforming food? Ferran Adria transforming You cannot get an influence from the cuisine of a country if you don't understand it. You've got to study it. Ferran Adria cuisinestudycountry We opened El Bulli; there were no secrets there. The recipes were not secret. Anybody who came, the recipes were there for them. This was unthinkable then. Ferran Adria unthinkablerecipessecret I am not a multimillionaire. I dont own a yacht or a Ferrari. I live in a 60-square- metre flat. My needs are simple. Ferran Adria ferrarisquaressimple In my early days, I copied the great French chefs, like most chefs do. Copying is not bad. Copying and not recognizing that you are copying is bad. For me, when I go to a restaurant and am served a dish influenced by something we created at elBulli, if it's well done, it makes me extremely happy. Ferran Adria copyingdonechef When I go to a fine dining restaurant, I'm excited and I do expect to find proposals to wake my senses. Ferran Adria excitedproposaldining The avant-garde has always existed throughout the history of mankind. The good things from the avant-garde last and eventually, after many years, become tradition and people forget they were ever part of the avant-garde. The kitchen is a living discipline, always evolving, and there will always be cutting edge things that over the years, ends up being part of tradition. Ferran Adria year-endcuttingyears I don't do my mother's cooking. Because I am a professional and she isn't. Even if she is a better cook. Ferran Adria cookscookingmother My idol was Johann Cruyff (a Dutch soccer player) and I wanted to be like him. But when I realized that I would never be, I decided to do something else. I met the kitchen by chance and quickly became completely enamoured by it. Ferran Adria playeridolssoccer We knew the time would come that we'd have to step down because we'd been winning Oscars for 15 years. I discovered this one day when I got home, my mother was reading a newspaper and she said, 'Again? What are you doing in the papers?' And I realized if my mother thought that of me, what would my enemies think? Ferran Adria readingmotherhome A chef is a chef, a cook is a cook; a lorry driver is a lorry driver and a designer is a designer. I've never heard anyone say that Philippe Starck is a chef. The important thing is dialogue. If I said to Norman Foster that he was a chef he'd say "No", but he might have a dialogue with chefs. People have said to me for many years that I'm not a chef and that I'm an artist instead, but I always say, "No, I'm a chef." I just have dialogues with designers. Ferran Adria artistpeopleyears I don't have a favorite cooking tool. In the kitchen, I always have my pencil and notebook in my hand. I cook more theoretically than I do practically. My job is creative, and in the kitchen, the biggest part of my creativity is theoretical. The pencil has a symbolic meaning for me. The type of person who carries a pencil around is the type of person who's open to change. Someone who walks around with a pen isn't; he's the opposite. Ferran Adria notebookcreativityjobs
