During the winter months, new products are investigated and sourced, potential new suppliers are contacted and new techniques are tested and photographed daily. Chefs attend specialist courses and visit food and drink trade fairs. Inspiration comes not only from visits to restaurants and food markets around the world, but might also come from local hardware shops (where new tools not previously used in cookery might be discovered), museums and art galleries, and walks in the countryside. The chocolate dusts and powders of the dessert Earth, for example, were inspired in 2003 by the colours and textures of the earth in the Australian bush.
Ferran Adrià - 'Creativity means not copying' A Day at elBulli
