Dinner With Ferran Adria Goes For $23K At Auction

A dinner with Spanish restaurateur Ferran Adria sold for approximately $23,000 during a recent Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong.

Adria is considered by many to be one of the greatest chefs in the entire world. His restaurant elBulli was rated as one of the best eateries in the world by The Restaurant. Being able to dine with Adria would be an honor for many people.

Although bidding started at $5,000, it soon started to rise. An online bidder secured his dinner with the restaurateur for a cool $23,200. The lucky individual will enjoy a meal with Ferran Adria at his brother’s restaurant in Barcelona.

“Everybody knew there was just one chance to get this lot of spending time with the great chef Ferran Adria, in his hometown of Barcelona. And this will probably never happen again,” Sotheby’s Serena Sutcliffe explained to The Associated Press.

While this particular auction has come to an end, there’s still one on the agenda for later this month. Another lucky person will be able to bid on a dinner with Adria on April 26. The auction will reportedly take place in New York.

The restaurateur is hoping that the next auction is as successful as the one recently held in Hong Kong.

“I think the New York sale will also go as well as this one, so it’s going to be double the amount of money. This is a lot more than what I was expecting, so we are very pleased,” Adria explained to reporters after the auction.

Both winners will be able to visit the site of elBulli, the restaurant Adria ran for 27 years. All of the money generated from the auctions will help fund a culinary institute where Ferran will teach his techniques. The elBulli Foundation is expected to open in either late 2014 or early 2015.

“We have two missions. One is to keep the elBulli legacy and the know-how and the buildings. The second is to create the creators. I hope one or two of the 30 creative people we get each year will be the next generation of leaders of the culinary revolution,” he explained to Business Week.

Would you pay $23,000 for a dinner with someone you admired?

[Top Image via Shutterstock.com – Bottom Image via Wikimedia Commons]