Call him biased if you like, but when the man widely considered to be the world's best chef tells you who really deserves the title, you pay attention. "The best cook I've ever come across," says Fer-ran Adria, "is my brother Albert." For most of his career, Albert Adria labored leeward of Ferran. Although Albert joined the staff at elBulli-the now closed restaurant on the coast of Catalonia renowned for avant-garde cuisine-a mere year after his brother started and stayed until 2009, the younger brother never achieved the fame of the outspoken Ferran. Yet it was he who developed many of its iconic dishes-such as desserts that evoked natural landscapes like the forest floor-and revolutionized the world of pastry by, among other things, creating desserts that weren't necessarily sweet. "He does all the work but manages to stay in the shadows," says Momofuku's David Chang.
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