Spanish chef Albert Adrià has come a long way, after years of living in the shadow of elder brother Ferran. Adrià was the pastry chef and creative director of El Taller, the research laboratory of three-Michelin-starred El Bulli, in Roses, Spain, arguably the most influential restaurant in the world before it closed in 2011. But it was Ferran, the head chef of El Bulli, who earned all the attention while Adrià tended to stay in the background.
Now, however, with both brothers involved in a number of restaurants in Barcelona, including Enigma, Tickets and Hoja Santa, each with one Michelin star, it is usually Adrià who gets the publicity.
This isn’t the first book he has written about Tickets; Tapas: Tickets Cuisine was published in 2013. With Tickets Evolution (2018), Adrià is showing how much the restaurant has changed since it opened in 2011. The numbers speak for themselves – Tickets had 17 cooks in 2011 and 32 in 2017, and while 960 dishes were served each day in 2011, that figure rose to 2,185 in 2017.
In the introduction, Adrià writes, “Tourists make up nearly fifty percent of the clientele of elBarri [his restaurant group]. What we find positive about all this is the fact that in addition to the sun, beach and culture, we have managed to get tourists to come to Spain to explore our cuisine […] Thanks to what we have accomplished, Spanish cuisine is recognised worldwide today, a milestone that has ironically been achieved thanks in part to haute cuisine, with internationally acclaimed restaurants […] For tourists, the magic word is ‘tapas’, and this is a real phenomenon that we should celebrate as well: we finally have a solid and definitive brand of Spanish cuisine not bound by clichés.
“The questions that come to me now include: What are tapas? What does it mean to tapear, or to go out for tapas. Do we see all tapas the same way? How can I clearly explain to a foreigner what a tapa is, above and beyond how it may be understood in one region or another? I would prefer not to be longwinded, because I don’t have clear answers myself. However, when I am asked whether Tickets is a Catalan, Spanish or tapas restaurant, I say ‘All three!’ without a moment’s hesitation.”
Despite Adrià’s statement on the cover that “This is not a tapas book”, many of the recipes in Tickets Evolution are what most people would consider tapas – small bites of food that go well with drinks. They range from easy to difficult, and include toro ham with caviar; nori millefeuille with tuna, tapioca and avocado; tuna nigiri and trout roe gunkan; oyster with rose water and green mandarin juice; foie gras tapa with honey meringue; suckling pig taco with hoisin mayonnaise; oyster with sea urchins; kimchi oyster; mussels with warm Café de Paris butter espuma; blackcurrant churros with horseradish cream; parmesan cheese air waffle; liquid salad with cockles; and shiso oyster.
