El Bulli does not interview prospective stagiaires Marc Cuspinera, chef de cuisine, makes the call largely on the basis of how an applicant fills out a form. Selection is based more on instinct than anything resembling a formal hiring process.

If they make it through the six months that El Bulli is open, they can say they have worked in the best restaurant in the world. It is why they stand virtually unmoving for seven of those hours, feet planted at the centre counter, squeezing the germ from thousands of kernels of corn or trimming the slime off anemones. It is also why they agree to work unpaid for 14 hours at a stretch in exchange for one meal a day and a bed in an unattractive apartment. The high regard in which the restaurant is held, as well as the chance to receive instruction from Adrià and his chefs, explains why the final 32 apprentices travel, at their own expense, from everywhere from Seoul to Bologna and Los Angeles to Caracas, to the tiny, overbuilt town of Roses on Spain's Costa Brava.

Behind the curtain, dozens of other cooks stand with him: in recent years, there have been about 45 people at a time working in El Bulli's kitchen, and since most of them stay for just one season, the total over the two decades since he began experimenting with food reaches high into the hundreds.Įach year, around 3,000 apply for the privilege of passing six months as stagiaires – technically the word means 'interns' or 'apprentices,' but it translates metaphorically as 'kitchen slaves'– at its stove tops. The only trick – if that's the right word – is that he is not doing it alone. Ferran Adrià really is working wonders with food, the likes of which have never before been seen. A t El Bulli, there is no hoax, no quaking charlatan pretending to be powerful.

Ferran adrià a day at elbulli