Pat booked us some tickets to the Spoken Word series at Royal Festival Hall and tonight’s event was Ferran Adria. Ferran Adria has been described as the best chef on the planet, and his restaurant, elBulli, was voted the World’s Best Restaurant for the fourth time this year.

I was pretty excited to hear this guy speak due to the influence he has had modern cuisine as we know it. The session lasted a couple of hours which is reasonable considering that the it included his Spanish needing to be translated to English (and vice versa during the Q&A session), some video presentations and a lengthy Q&A session.

You can tell that Ferran Adria is a generous guy at heart. Tonight he really came across to be very passionate about food, about gastronmy and well, his art. Granted he is currently doing a tour around the world to promote his latest book but he didn’t really push it except to have a big picture of it projected on to the screen whenever he wasn’t using it for his audio visual feast. Most of what he talked about was about the food and his approach to it.

He is also quite an entertainer and not without a sense of humour. One of his funnier comments was in response to a question from a member of the audience. In his introduction Ferran had indicated that he’d just come from a pie and mash shop in Bethnal Green so this audience member started off by saying she was from Bethnal Green and wanted to know 1. What he thought of the pie and mash shop and 2. What would be his last meal on earth if he knew he was going to die. Interestingly he answered the second question first by responding that if he was going to die he wouldn’t care what his last meal was to be (fair enough) and second to say that he really liked his pie and mash. But he elaborated to say that what he enjoyed about his visit to the simple pie and mash shop was that he felt like he was learning and experiencing a bit of history. I find it interesting that no doubt one of the most interesting, dynamic and innovative chefs on earth would somehow find his way to the one thing that was quintessentially English – the pie and mash shop. That’s a true foodie for you.

The host asked him the question that no doubt was on everyone’s mind – how does one get a spot at his restaurant? With over two million applications a year for only 8,000 spots the odds of getting a reservation are like winning the lotto (we were unsuccessful this year!) He said he didn’t know but that every email was read personally by his guy handling reservations. But he also said that 50% of covers are reserved for new diners and 50% for returning guests – which I didn’t realise before. He said there is only one person ever to eat at El Bulli in every year it has beenopen – Richard Hamilton. Lucky guy! We did a quick survey around the room to compare those who had eaten at El Bulli and those who hadn’t and the results were quite surprising with at least a third of the room saying they’d been before. Lucky them!

I was extremely charmed by Ferran Adria. He wasn’t at all egotistical. He came across very genuine and at times humble. He’s also quite the talker – so much so when we ran out of time during the Q&A he promised that next time he came to London he would hold a Q&A session where he would answer every question posed or until we got to 5am … whichever came first. But, he stated, no one could leave the room in that time! LOL