Molecular Gastronomy

Molecular gastronomy — the application of scientific techniques to cooking — was pioneered by Ferran Adrià at El Bulli (Spain) and Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck (UK) in the 1990s–2000s. It uses techniques from food science: spherification (liquid olive oil in a gelatinous sphere resembling a real olive, bursting with liquid in the mouth), transglutaminase ('meat glue'), liquid nitrogen cooking, sous vide (vacuum cooking at precise temperatures), edible foams, and gels. El Bulli (Catalonia, Spain), which closed in 2011, was voted the world's best restaurant 5 times and accepted only 8,000 of the 2 million annual reservation requests. Adrià essentially reinvented what cooking could be. Today's most innovative chefs — René Redzepi, Massimo Bottura, Joan Roca — combine scientific technique with local culture and sustainability.