Culinary spherification (El Bulli)
Esferificación culinaria (El Bulli)
- Date
- 2003 · confidence medium
- Place
- Cala Montjoi, Roses, Girona, Catalonia, Spain
- Credited to
- Ferran Adrià and Albert Adrià (El Bulli)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A technique that gels the surface of a liquid with sodium alginate and calcium to form thin-membraned spheres that burst in the mouth. Ferran Adrià and his team brought it into the kitchen of El Bulli in 2003 and it spread through haute cuisine worldwide.
Spherification with alginate was documented by Unilever in the 1950s to make artificial caviar; El Bulli brought it into haute cuisine and popularised it. The dates of the first dishes (2003-2005) vary by source.
What it led to
- avant-garde cuisine built on textures (the Adriàs' “Texturas” line)
- variants of reverse and basic spherification
- texture ingredients for professional and home use