Ticket to ride, on the Bull(i)

ldquoI tugged and pulled bullied and pleaded and succeeded in getting myself a reservation at Tickets This restaurant normally has a two monthplus waiting listrdquo Nikhil Agarwal tells us This is not surprising as El Bulli had a wait list of over six months at any time But what really excited us was the fact that Agarwal spent quality time with chef Albert Adria Excerpts from the intervew One of the bars of the new restaurant Tickets created by Ferran Adria and his brother Albert Adria in Barcelona Spain Getty Images What was the idea behind Tickets We wanted to create a traditional yet sophisticated take on the regular Spanish tapas bar We were keen to make it more fine dining while retaining the casualness Toasted bread with cured sirloin pickled onion and smoked cheese Do you plan to open any restaurants outside Barcelona We have a lot of opportunities today to open restaurants all over the world but at the moment we do not want to We may open a restaurant in London Honestly we donrsquot have the team to open more restaurants Albert Adria with Nikhil Agarwal When did your fascination with food start I started working in the kitchen at 15 because I needed to work But soon I fell in love with food and the kitchen Fried fish with a sauce of peppers garlic and vinegar Whatrsquos the secret to opening amazing restaurants When we closed El Bulli we had a lot of experience and a great team This team allows us to take all the ideas that we have in our minds and make it a reality We understand what people want Why did you close El Bulli El Bulli was a train running at a very high speed and we had to toil relentlessly to ensure that it stayed at that speed At the end we were tired We learnt a lot from El Bulli We became famous around the world and working there encompassed the best moments of our lives Ferran and I are still the same team but today we are older and with families It was time to move on We also wanted to close El Bulli at its peak Do you and Ferran think the same way We speak the same language but have different personalities We discuss a lot and find middle ground In which direction is Spanish gastronomy heading It is contradictory On one hand we want to be avantgarde and on the other we want to hold onto tradition Whatrsquos new in Spanish cuisine It is not easy to find something new now but perhaps we can see what we can bring back from history Things have changed today the world is a much smaller place Now I can get ingredients from India South America and Africa Thanks to the Internet I can see the menus of restaurants all over the world We can easily access information about different cultures Do you believe in using ingredients from all over the world Tickets is 95 per cent Spanish and besides a few things we are proud to showcase Catalan cuisine using the finest local ingredients You and Ferran are known as the purveyors of Molecular Gastronomy I was talking to a journalist the first time we used nitrogen and somehow we got tagged as purveyors of molecular gastronomy We wrote a letter to the entire media saying that we do not believe in molecular gastronomy At the end every cuisine of the world depends only on one thing the quality of the ingredient The customer is not interested in molecular gastronomy I may give him a variation of an olive but if he doesnrsquot like its taste we have failed We serve customers from around the world which is quite a difficult task Fifty per cent of our clientele are foreigners and we want to cater to everybody So we cannot say that we follow or understand molecular gastronomy People have to wait for over two months to enjoy a meal at Tickets How do you live up to their expectations The entire team knows that there are people waiting to have dinner or lunch at our restaurant and we take this responsibility very seriously We want to make sure that we do the best with every lunch or dinner seating Why did you name the restaurant Tickets The area where Tickets is located was like Broadway so we named it accordingly When you walk in you come in for an experience The ice cream that I ordered was was served by someone riding an ice cream cart to my table and ringing the cycle bell to inform me that it had arrived It reminded me of my childhood Your food is known to stir patronsrsquo emotions Food is the most important thing for us We can play with emotion but in the end itrsquos the quality of food that matters Everything else mdash emotion changing shapes and sizes mdash is secondary I am serious even when I am fooling around with food u00a0