In 1994, Ferran Adrià and Juli Soler (his partner) sold 20% of their business to Miquel Horta (a Spanish millionaire and philanthropist and son of the founder of Nenuco) for 120 million pesetas.

This event became a turning point for elBulli, the money was used to finance an expansion of the kitchen and the relationship with Horta opened the door to new clients, businessmen, and politicians who helped spread the word about the creative experimentation happening at the time in Cala Montjoi.

With his assistant Daniel Picard, Adrià has made almonds into cheese and asparagus into bread with the help of natural ingredients.

"[7] Adrià felt like an intruder at the event, saying "artists all over battle all their lives to receive an invitation to display their work at documenta and now I, a cook, am asked to go along!

"[7] Organizer Roger Buergel told Adrià that he believed "that to create a new cooking technique was as complicated and challenging as painting a great picture.

"[17] With this notion in mind, Buergel invited him to partake in this prestigious international event held every five years in Kassel, Germany.

With the approval of the documenta committee, he set up his pavilion (i.e., exhibition space) some 850 miles from Kassel in his own restaurant, El Bulli.

[18] He believed that in order to truly experience his craft one had to come into his controlled environment because what he does is "ephemeral, it's not moveable, it can't be in a museum" (it was also impractical to move all his equipment there).

[19] The collection of these experiences were documented, along with photographs and interviews from an eclectic group of figures in the art world (including Massimo De Carlo, Bice Curiger, Anya Gallaccio, Massimiliano Gioni, Carsten Höller, Peter Kubelka, Antoni Miralda, Jerry Saltz, Adrian Searle, Vicente Todolí and Richard Hamilton), and were published in Food for Thought, Thought for Food.

"[7] Despite the fact that dishes from avant-garde cuisine are aesthetically pleasing (you eat first with your eyes), one of his colleagues, Chef Heston Blumenthal from the Fat Duck in Great Britain, "is uneasy about the idea that he might be an artist, although he does compare restaurant going to a trip to the theater, the cinema or an art gallery.

[21] When people discuss a meal there, they usually talk about the rhythm and flow of the dishes, and that the movements of the waiters and sommeliers are amazingly choreographed.

Algin is a key component of the "Spherification Kit" and is used for every spherical preparation: caviar, raviolis, balloons, gnocchi, pellets, and mini-spheres.

Most of the recipes included are complex and require many out-of-the ordinary kitchen appliances, such as a Pacojet, freeze-dryer, liquid nitrogen tank, candyfloss machine and Perspex molds.