A (Culinary) Major in Philosophy

For one day last week, the Diamond Ballroom at Hong Kong’s new Ritz-Carlton hotel was turned into a lecture hall. The audience was a small group of media and die-hard foodies, and the speaker was Ferran Adrià, the man behind Spain’s famed El Bulli restaurant and the world’s most influential chef.

He was dressed in a white jacket with gray slacks and black dress shoes, but he wasn’t giving a cooking demonstration. Instead, the 49-year-old Catalan pontificated like a philosophy professor on the existential nature of cuisine.
“When does a tomato taste like a tomato?” Mr. Adrià asked. Is it when you cut it and put salt on it? Is tomato sauce natural? He considered several other ingredients the same way too, pondering the hypothetical problem of creating a pastry made of strawberries. “All of cuisine is an elaboration,” he said.

At El Bulli, Mr. Adrià was a pioneer of molecular gastronomy — a term he disdainfully describes as “marketing.” The three-Michelin-star restaurant, which ranked No. 1 on Restaurant Magazine’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants a record five times over the past decade, was legendary for its deconstructionist and experimental cuisine.

Then, in July, at the height of El Bulli’s powers, Mr. Adrià closed the eatery where he had first become head chef in the mid-1980s.

Which brings us to Hong Kong. It’s a mark of the celebrity nature of chefs these days that Mr. Adrià was touring Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong courtesy of the Spanish tourism board, in the hopes of generating interest among Chinese travelers. It was his second visit to China, and he said he hopes to spend more time there — studying Chinese cuisine, of course.

“I’m more interested in finding out why dairy products aren’t used in a dish than the dish itself,” he said in an interview. “Why do they [the Chinese] put all the dishes in the middle of the table? Why do they cook vegetables so quickly but fish for so long? Why are there a lot more hot dishes than cold dishes in Chinese cuisine?”

Mr. Adrià’s long-term project is a new culinary foundation, which is scheduled to open in 2014 on the site of his former restaurant. It will host a rotating group of 20 chefs who will visit for months at a time. Alongside Mr. Adrià, they will create new dishes and work on different approaches to cooking.

“It’s a very strange project…and the most important challenge of my career,” he said. “It’s like if I were a musician who used to do 150 concerts a year and dedicated some time to composing. But then you change, to go to 90% composing and 10% performing. That’s what I want to do.”

There were times when Mr. Adrià was tempted to open restaurants in his name around the world like many of his peers — Joel Robuchon or Gordon Ramsay, for instance. But he decided against it. “I would have felt like I prostituted myself,” he said.

Still, he is aware of the business side of his profession.

“The restaurant never made money,” Mr. Adrià said, adding that most of his personal earnings come from consulting and advertising endorsements with firms such as PepsiCo and Spain’s Telefónica. Corporate events were also a moneymaker — companies would pay up to €115,000 (about $188,000) to spend a full day at El Bulli and witness the chef in his kitchen, creating a sample of his dishes, he said.

He is targeting a fund of up to €8 million to pay for his new project. The site will house an archive, museum and special media presentation lab, all designed by Spanish architect Enric Ruiz-Geli.

While Mr. Adrià said the foundation is unique, he was inspired by Harvard University, where he taught a class in culinary physics last year.

“When one goes to Harvard, there’s something that impresses you,” he said. “That’s the spirit of El Bulli, something overwhelming.”