A star is torn

Albert Adria flips excitedly through his newest book, Natura, showing off his favourite dessert creations. He's at the Kee Club in Central, where, last Thursday, he signed copies of the book, showed a short film about the techniques and inspiration that went into it, and another film about the history of a small restaurant in Spain called El Bulli.

If you have even a remote interest in the world of fine dining, you will have heard of this restaurant. El Bulli is not just any Michelin three-star restaurant. Voted by chefs, food and beverage professionals and food writers (including this one) to be the best restaurant in the world for two years running by Restaurant magazine, it's also the hardest one to get into, with about 500,000 e-mail requests for the 7,000 seats available during the six-month season.

It is also, without doubt, the most creative and influential restaurant in the world. Adria (right) and his better-known brother, Ferran, make what is usually referred to as molecular cuisine. Almost everyone has by now tasted the ubiquitous 'foams' and fruit 'caviars'.

Such is El Bulli's reputation for cutting-edge techniques that each year, thousands of experienced chefs apply to work there without pay; in 2003, Kee Club chef Gianluigi Bonelli was one of the few chosen (he's the one who asked Adria to come to Hong Kong for the Natura book launch). Adria is - or was (more on that later) - the pastry chef and creative director of El Taller, the El Bulli laboratory where ideas are worked into something edible; brother Ferran is the chef de cuisine.

True to its title, Natura is inspired by nature - and other things. 'Every dessert has a history,' says Adria. 'Roots [mandarin sorbet with chocolate sponge, chocolate and yuzu mousse, black sesame rocks and chocolate roots emerging from 'earth'] is my homage to director Guillermo del Toro, who made [the Oscar winning] Pan's Labyrinth. He's a very good friend. I wanted to make something like a tree in the movie, but it was very difficult, so in the end I turned the tree upside down - this is the roots. Thinking of the dessert took four or five days but the technical part was hard. It took about 10 days [to perfect].'

Most people look at falling leaves and see falling leaves. Adria sees them as an idea for something edible.