OUTLOOK / INTERVIEW say: “Hmm, that’s delicious”, then our guests also usually think so. It’s a different matter with complicated foods that not everybody likes. The cultural differences that I already mentioned also come into play. Take chipirones, which are known in English as baby squid. If they are sent back to the kitchen just once, then that is not a problem, but there were times at elBulli when 20–30 percent of the food was returned to the kitchen. I don’t want to experience something like that here. Sometimes the client is good and the food is good, but it doesn’t speak in the client’s language. This evening at Tickets, for example, we will be conducting an experiment. We will prepare Caesar salads right in front of the customers who order them, at their tables. Although this dish isn’t from Spain, I believe that we make the best Caesar salad in the country. Nevertheless, I have to find a balance and see how the customers react before including Caesar salad as a staple on Tickets’ menu. You have to take into account that people’s attitudes change, depending on where they are eating. If you are in a Spanish tapas bar, then why should you order a Caesar salad? For me this is an interesting dish, because it is relatively inexpensive and consequently my customers don’t have to overpay. By the way, right now only three things can be bought cheaply at the market: eggs, potatoes and salad. Everything else is expensive. For example, we don’t buy shrimp during the summer months, because they are the most popular dish at Spanish seaside restaurants. Now that the summer season has ended, most of these restaurants are closed, but shrimp are still available in the sea and we can get them 20-30 percent cheaper. We’re always making these types of calculations so that we can offer the best prices to our customers.
The press usually describes Tickets and your other restaurants as new projects by the Adrià Brothers. To what extent is Ferran involved here? He sometimes comes to have dinner here
and we are always happy when he does, because his opinion is very important to us. When I opened this restaurant, we talked it over a lot between us, but this is mainly my project. We’ve been in this business together for 25 years. We don’t always think exactly alike, but our language is the same.
In another interview you used a Barcelona football metaphor, comparing your brother Ferran to Guardiola [a former player and current coach at FC Barcelona, ed.] and yourself to Messi [a current forward with the team, ed.]. Now you have your own Messis in each of your restaurants. How would you describe your current relationship with Ferran? (Laughs.) Ferran said in that same interview that “at elBulli, I was the ying and Albert was the yang. Now, I am the yang and Albert is the ying ying ying.” Sometimes I poke fun at him and say, “When I was the yang, I worked hard. Now that I am the ying, I am still working hard, unlike you!”
Have you ever felt jealous of the fact that your older brother has received more fame and glory than you have? No, no. Ferran is very smart. elBulli was his thing. When I worked for Ferran at elBulli, he paid me a salary. It was a professional relationship. I was Messi.
Wouldn’t you like to be famous? I choose very carefully who I grant interviews to. Right now, my priority is to finish this six-restaurant project and to create an excellent team. I grant only two interviews per week. I hadn’t granted any for the past two months (you are, of course, the exception). Otherwise, I wouldn’t have the time to work. I also try to avoid TV interviews. I simply don’t like television as a medium. Furthermore, as soon as you are seen on TV, you lose credibility from foodies. Nowadays, television is a very dangerous medium, because it distorts one’s sense of reality. I, for my part, feel best preparing meals behind the scenes in my restaurant kitchens. BO
The day after our interview, Albert had to catch a flight to Peru. That evening, his older brother Ferran took his place at Tickets. It seems that together, the ying and the yang of the Adrià family do make up a unified whole after all.