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費蘭·阿德里亞（Ferran Adrià）
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.'
參考譯文：
8月底的一天，香港新開的麗思卡爾頓酒店(Ritz-Carlton)的金鉆宴會廳變成了講堂。臺下聽眾是一小群媒體人士和鐵桿老饕，臺上講話的是西班牙著名餐館阿布衣餐廳（El Bulli，加泰羅尼亞語“斗牛犬”之意）的掌門人、全球最具影響力的大廚費蘭•阿德里亞(Ferran Adrià)。
阿德里亞身穿白色上衣、灰色休閑褲和黑色正裝皮鞋。不過，這位49歲的加泰羅尼亞人并沒有做烹飪示范，反而像哲學教授那樣講起了烹調的存在主義本質。
阿德里亞問道，什么時候番茄吃起來味道像番茄？是你把它切開來，撒上鹽的時候嗎？番茄醬是天然的嗎？他還用同樣方式剖析了其他幾種食材，并探討了如何用草莓來制作糕點這樣一個虛構的問題。他說，所有烹調都是一種闡釋。
在阿布衣餐廳，阿德里亞是分子料理的先驅── “分子料理”這種說法他并不喜歡，并鄙夷地將其斥為一種營銷手段。阿布衣餐廳是一家米其林三星(three-Michelin-star)餐館，過去十年曾創紀錄地五次榮登英國《餐廳雜志》(Restaurant Magazine)全球50家頂尖餐館排行榜榜首，這家餐館以其解構主義和實驗主義烹飪風格而享譽世界。
但阿德里亞今年7月份關閉了處于發展巔峰期的阿布衣餐廳。阿德里亞從二十世紀八十年代開始擔任該餐館主廚。
我們在香港見到了阿德里亞。他應西班牙旅游局之邀赴中國北京、上海和香港參加西班牙旅游宣傳活動，這彰顯了當今大廚們的明星本色。這是阿德里亞第二次訪問中國，他表示希望在中國多待一段時間，當然，是為了研究中國菜。
他在接受采訪時稱，“與菜肴本身相比，我更感興趣的是這樣一些問題，比如為什么中國菜里不放乳制品，為什么中國人把所有菜都放在桌子中間，為什么他們做蔬菜的時間非常短，而做魚的時間卻很長？為什么中國菜里熱菜比冷菜要多得多？”
阿德里亞要做的長期項目是創立一個烹飪基金會，計劃于2014年在阿布衣餐廳原址開放。該基金會將安排廚師來此進行為期數月的訪問，每次人數為20名。大廚們將與阿德里亞一道創作新菜肴，研究各種不同的烹調方法。
他表示，“這是一個非常特別的項目……是我職業生涯中最重大的挑戰。好比我是個音樂家，以前每年參加150場音樂會，另外還會花一點時間來作曲。但現在情況變了，要花90%的時間來創作，10%的時間來演出。這就是我想做的事情。”
阿德里亞也曾經想要像若埃爾•羅比雄(Joel Robuchon)或戈登•拉姆齊(Gordon Ramsay)等諸多同行那樣，在世界各地開以自己名字命名的餐館，但他最終還是決定放棄。他說，“這讓我有種自賣自身的感覺。”
不過，他也會從商業角度來看自己的職業。
阿德里亞稱，這家餐館從來沒賺過錢。他還說，他個人收入大多來自咨詢以及為百事公司(PepsiCo)、西班牙電信（Telef口nica）等企業做的廣告。公司活動也是一大收入來源。他說，公司會支付多達115,000歐元（約合188,000美元）包場阿布衣餐廳一天，并看他在廚房里做烹飪示范。
他計劃最多斥資800萬歐元來實施他的新項目。舊址旁將建設一個檔案室、一座博物館和一間特殊媒體展示實驗室，均由西班牙建筑師昂里克•魯伊斯-杰利(Enric Ruiz-Geli)設計。
盡管阿德里亞聲稱這個烹調基金會是獨一無二的，不過他也曾受到哈佛大學(Harvard University)的啟發。去年他曾在哈佛講授一門名為烹飪物理的課程。
他說， 當你走進哈佛的時候，會有一些東西攝住你的心神。阿布衣餐廳的精神也是如此，令人無法抗拒。
