What Can a Restaurant Teach Us About Innovation?

When Chef Ferran Adrià shuttered his famed elBulli restaurant in 2011, foodie circles were stunned. elBulli was at the peak of its fame: it had three Michelin stars and a waiting list of two million diners. Adrià—widely considered one of the most imaginative culinary minds of the world—operated in an elite class of chefs. He kept his restaurant open just six months a year and served one meal a day, never offering the same dish twice.

Rumors circulated that the closure was due to a family feud or money problems. But the truth was that Adrià was petrified of repeating himself. (“Can you imagine this pressure?” he told The New York Times. "You cannot.")

In 2014 Adrià reopened elBulli not as a restaurant, but as a foundation dedicated to studying and understanding the nature of creativity. It’s a subject in which Adrià has passionate expertise. When he arrived at elBulli in the early 80s, it was a French restaurant. By the 1990s Adrià was head chef and elBulli was…