OP: Natura
For more than 20 years, Albert Adrià was the head pastry chef at the internationally acclaimed, groundbreaking restaurant elBulli in Spain’s Catalonia region. He, along with his brother Ferran and the culinary impresario Juli Soler, were the godfathers of what came to be recognized as a center of exuberant innovation and a style of working we all now know as molecular gastronomy. Albert was highly admired for his distinctive approach to design and technique, and, in many ways, his work became the blueprint for pastry innovation in the 21st century.
His first book Los Postres de El Bulli (1998) attracted considerable attention for its adventurous thinking, and his second, Natura (2008), which we offer here, demonstrates its further evolution. Adrià’s books—both imaginative and exciting to the palate—endure among the most influential works of modern pastry. Both remain relatively scarce and are still highly in demand.
The book presents Francesc Guillamet’s extraordinary photography accompanied by brief descriptions of each dish—pine bark with pine nut streusel, lemon rind confit, and frozen pine cone foam; honeycomb with crusted lulo sorbet, grape syrup sponge cake with chocolate cookie and fried hazelnut praline; campari baba with fresh ginger ice cream, orange confit and wasabi yogurt, milk chocolate, and candied black sesame. The recipes appear only on an accompanying CD in the volume.
This copy is a first printing, signed and inscribed to a previous owner, in Very Good condition. The book is bilingual—Spanish and English—published without dust jacket but with attractive padded boards, exhibiting some shelfwear and lightly bumped corners. Still inspiring, still very much relevant.