What a way to cap off a trip from Spain but a meeting with the great El Bulli chef/owner Ferran Adria in the sold out Castro Theatre on a Monday night. No doubt that every chef in town was there to see Ferran. My sister had to gush for a split second at a Food Network celebrity chef who I failed to recognize under dim lights (!!).

With an interpreter by his side, Ferran started off by pointing out the top three cities he loves- (1) Barcelona where he currently resides, (2) Sydney, and (3) San Francisco - uproar here, of course. He then described his concept of creativity. Relive the first 10 minutes below: (Turn up your volume and apologies for the small video)



The almost two-hour talk led to some pictures showing how Ferran and his team come up with molecular gastronomy (more about this on Part 2 of the post). He also shared what they are currently cooking up in El Bulli after the restaurant closed earlier this year through a video.

Ironically for my marketing class in bschool, our final exam was the El Bulli case- how to transform the business after years of being on the top. Now that the "last supper" can never be had, we have to wait until 2014 to see its transformation into a think tank of sustainability and creativity.  Watch it for yourself:

After the video, Ferran announced a case competition about sourcing funds and marketing for El Bulli Foundation for MBA candidates in LBS, HBS, Berkeley, Colombia and ESADE. He capped it off by saying that MBA students should be working on current cases rather than always pondering about old cases (slap on the face for those bschool profs who don't care about updating their materials and still using 19forgotten case studies!).

It is apparent that Ferran's team is business savvy partnering up with big corporate names and MBA schools. A recipe for success in the restaurant industry- culinary chops AND business skills.

Stay tuned for Part 2...