Dinner with elBulli’s Ferran Adria? Bid at Sotheby’s auction

The venerable auction house Sotheby’s, which has been entrusted with the task of auctioning off elBulli’s fabulous wine cellar, has just sweetened the auction with a few new lots. The sale, which will take place in Hong Kong on April 3 and in New York on April 26, will now include a range of memorabilia and equipment that was once used in the renowned elBulli kitchen.

Maybe even one of the gizmos used to make chef Ferran Adria’s famous foam? Opening bid on a signed example of his siphon is $50. But there is special crockery for spherical olives or petit fours, glass serving dishes, mesh trays and more. They’re selling off everything that could possibly bring in a little money.

“You might not have been able to go to the restaurant but a small part of elBulli is now available to enjoy in your home kitchen!” says Jamie Ritchie, president, Sotheby’s Wine, Americas and Asia.

Auction hounds: Now when you show off your kitchen with four dishwashers and three stoves, you can point out that chef’s jacket signed by Adrià (opening bid $1,000), that set of elBulli knives (opening bid $1,000) or simply that menu (opening bid $250), which came from the now-shuttered elBulli’s kitchen.

Of more interest to passionate food lovers is a dinner with the famous and famously voluble elBulli chef, Ferran Adrià himself. Opening bid: $5,000. How high will that go?

Very high, I hope, as proceeds of the auction will go to the elBulli Foundation, opening in 2014, to promote creativity, studying innovation and “using cooking as a language that interacts with other disciplines.” I suspect Adrià will surprise us yet again with his fervent originality.

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