Innovation in a pressure cooker

I’ve been reading A Day at elBulli over the holidays, and almost every page was a great source of insights and ideas.

Although the book is about the famous elBulli restaurant in Rosas, Spain, it is by no means a cookbook, but rather an intimate look into the way the restaurant keeps up the amazing new inventions in gastronomy and at the same time ensures super high quality and service, day in, day out. The recipes are illustrative for their creativity and processes.

I found most of the ideas to be great illustrations for the challenges of running a truly creative business, and between the lines the book offers up great ideas of dealing with those challenges. One thing should be noted: as Ferran Adria, the head chef, says in this interview, elBulli loses money. So that part of ‘running a business’ is not figured out yet.  It illustrates once more the fact that many creative exploits suffer under the realities of business, making money. The interesting thing is that this way of thinking and the recipes and fame that have come from it  make it possible for Adrià to make money in other ways–books, catering–that support the restaurant. It’s the same way that many bloggers and writers make a living and it’s been noted this is the preeminent model for the creative age.

That said, let’s take a look at the processes that make it possible for the immense staff at EB to invent and surprise time and again.

A day is not a day

The first thing you will note is that ‘a day’ at elbulli does not really exist. It is the fact that all of this is a continuous process, that makes it work. Adria and a couple of trustees start early mornings with a creative session that allows them to experiment freely with new ideas, or refine ideas from other sessions. This happens EVERY day, and work does need to be ‘finished’ at one particular time, but only when the dish is perfected. Most businesses will create something and then sell it, at elBulli creation is an ongoing process that takes up as much time as the selling of it, the mise en place. The team has a number of creative techniques–adaptation, deconstruction, new technologies, finding new combinations, etc.–that they will use as a source of new ideas. A very important fact is that the restaurant only opens for 6 months, and the other six Ferran spends at a workshop called elBulli taller, together with the other two chefs, a chemist and an industrial designer! This to me is a testimony to the care Ferran takes in the ‘total package’ of his dishes, he works to find combinations where taste, texture, look and presentation are all pushed to new levels.

Lesson 1: let in people from other disciplines to help bring in new ideas and expertise. While this may sound trivial, try explaining to your engineering department that it might be helpful to talk to bankers or artists. Lesson 2: true innovation requires dedication, space and a distinct atmosphere. And a lot of room for trial and error.

The only way to have good ideas is to have lots of them.

Documentation, planning, coordination

Every aspect of the creative process is meticulously planned and every discovery is documented. elBulli even have developed their own system of symbols to describe ingredients. They will go over each step many times, perfecting the outcome but also the recipe, to make the dish consistent and manageable in the frantic pace of the kitchen.

Like in a design studio, ideas for dishes or concepts often start with sketches. where one of the chefs will have an idea for a certain structure of method. What happens next is that this idea is thoroughly examined and different executions are written up, along with the various results.  This way, different people can work on the same dish over an extended period of time, without losing overview. I imagine that this is a very hard task to do well, with all the different ingredients, tools and skills that go into a single dish and it clearly works to have a very well thought out system in place.

Lesson: Try a lot of alternatives but be sure to document what you learn, and use a standardized system so that you can cooperate with others.

With creativity, it’s not what you look for that matters, it’s what you find.

New techniques and concepts

New ideas are divided in different levels, ranging from dish to concept. At elBulli the reasoning goes that it’s nice to come up with a new dish, but it’s much more interesting to create a whole new way of doing things. A concept, in their vernacular, is the collection of preparation and the resulting texture and presentation. This is what everyone is aiming for, broadening the language of gastronomy with entirely new concepts, that can then be applied to a range of dishes. Case in point: ‘spherification’, a process in which liquids are hardened at the edge while the inside stays soft. This has resulted in olives that look like olives but pop upon touching the tongue and release a soft liquid with intense taste. This process has been subsequently used on mozzarella cheese, melon and other produce.
Another good example is the use of extreme cold–mostly liquid nitrogen–as a means to ‘cook’ food. There are various dished based on some kind of ingredient, I even read a review where the diner was served a sort of cream that was prepared table side in Teppan-style, using a frosted surface cooled with nitro.

I think the message here is that is pays to put in the extra effort to look for real breakthroughs in stead of incremental improvement. Finding a new ‘concept’ gives elBulli a whole new range of possible dishes at once, and in the same fashion looking for a sort of platform will give you a more scalable business model. It’s one thing to come up with a great new way to make athletic socks (I don’t know why that example popped in my head), but when you find a way to translate you innovation to the whole body you’ll have invented a whole new kind of sportswear and commensurate revenue stream. This is probably the biggest one in here, I think it is quite profound: look for a process rather than a single solution, and try to really understand it so that you can apply it to a broad range of ‘ingredients’.

A creative person tries to do what they don’t know how to do

Various insights
While at first glance you would expect differently, elBulli shares most of its ideas in the form of cookbooks. They are very willing to give away their ideas, not only to colleagues but also a broader audience. This is of course a very important source of income, but it also forces the team to stay creative and keep coming up with new dishes and concepts. Letting it go forces you to renew and stay creative.
It’s clear that working at elBulli requires a lot from the staff. Apart from working 16 hour days, 6-7 days a week, the energy and dedication necessary are enormous. Because of their fame many people apply for a ‘stage’ of job and the restaurant can pick only the very best and most dedicated, but I don’t think this level of achievement would be possible otherwise. But it’s probably a balanced situation where one–super achievement–keeps the other–dedicated people–coming, and vice versa.
When talking about creativity a lot of attention always goes to ‘blue sky thinking’ and ‘serious play’, but I think this situation clearly shows that there is no creativity without meticulous planning, execution and documenting. Top notch creativity is a fragile thing and it requires a very carefully tended environment to flourish. Dedication to setting up and maintaining that environment should be equal to creativity itself.

Creativity means changing your mind every day

So we’ve learned quite a few interesting things:

1. It helps working together with various outside disciplines
2. Creativity works better in the right environment
3. Great documentation is crucial
4. The best innovations provide a platform rather than a single idea
5. Setting ideas free forces you to stay creative
6. Great dedication and amazing results go hand in hand

Learning about the best restaurant in the world it’s nice, but I think these lessons that are hidden (though just under the surface) in it make it an amazing look at running a truly creative business. The book can be purchased here, it’s huge and full with amazing photographs so if anything it’ll look great on the coffee table.