Instilled by his family with a passion for the cooking profession, Albert Adrià has made quite a name for himself within the industry, especially in Barcelona. Through an innovative mentality and drive to reimagine food, Adrià has built an empire.
At an early age, Adrià left his studies behind and began to focus on something different: the art of the restaurant industry. Becoming part of the El Bulli team, he worked as an apprentice throughout various parts of the kitchen, growing increasingly interested in pastries. El Bulli was a Michelin 3-star restaurant near the town of Roses in Catalonia and run by Albert's brother, Chef Ferran Adriá.
Check out our blog post on Albert's brother, Ferran, here!
Drawing from everything he learned about pastries in his ten years at El Bulli as well as training and working in prestigious patisseries, Adrià moved on to write his first book in 1998. Titled Los Postres de El Buli, the book rapidly gained an audience as well as the award for best patisserie book at the Perigueux Gastronomic Fair.
Breaking into the early 2000s, Adrià began to take on many new and exciting projects, including the opening of his new restaurant, the Inopia Classic Bar, an unpretentious establishment specializing in traditional tapas. He moved on to publish his second book, Natura, and to direct a documentary film, "Un día en El Bulli", which went on to win awards at several film festivals. In the summer of 2010, just four short years after its start, Adrià ended the Inopia project to create a wide-ranging project that brought together various restaurants and gastronomic concepts under the name of elBarri.
Michelin stars are no stranger to Albert Adrià. While he began his time working in the Michelin 3-star restaurant that was El Bulli, in 2013, two restaurants that are part of elBarri, Tickets and 41º Experience, received a Michelin star, as well as Pakta in 2014. Following this success, in 2015 he was awarded the prize of World's Best Pastry Chef by The World's 50 Best Restaurants, organized by Restaurant Magazine. The awards continued with the National Gastronomy Prize for Best Restaurant Entrepreneur in Spain, awarded by the International Academy of Gastronomy.
With so many awards and a never-ending list of new ideas, we can't wait to see what Chef Adrià cooks up for us in the future.