Renowned Spanish chef says elBulli struggling

By HAROLD HECKLE (AP)

MADRID - Acclaimed Spanish chef Ferran Adria says his world-famous restaurant elBulli is struggling financially and he's looking for ways to keep it afloat when it reopens after a hiatus.

Adria told The Associated Press that elBulli, famed for its high-tech "molecular cuisine," will be part of a larger, nonprofit foundation when it reopens in 2014. Under Spanish law a foundation can receive special tax benefits, accept grants and become involved in education.

Adria said elBulli will open June 15-Dec. 20 as normal and the 2011 opening days will be announced in September. Adria said it would close in 2012 and 2013 for planning and preparation.

He said there were no plans to close the restaurant for good. But in an interview published in newspaper El Pais on Sunday Adria acknowledged it was a struggle to keep elBulli going.

"As a business, elBulli is madness," he told the newspaper. "We need more financial muscle."

The restaurant, situated in Cala Montjoi, two hours drive north of Barcelona, was voted the world's best restaurant last year by the British magazine Restaurant - the fourth consecutive year it received the honor.

For many years the easiest way to approach the secluded beach on which it was built by its original German owners was from the sea by boat.

Adria is known for trailblazing cooking in which ingredients are "deconstructed" and reassembled in unexpected ways, creating dishes like Parmesan ice cream sandwiches or Adria's trademark foams - airy reincarnations of solid food. The chef has made them from such things as tea or seaweed.

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