3Cat’s ‘Gènesi’ Tells Origin Story of El Bulli, the Iconic Restaurant of Celebrity Chef Ferran Adrià

The six-part 3Cat series “Gènesi,” which premiered two episodes at the San Sebastian Film Festival on Sept. 21, aims to look back at the genesis of the iconic Catalan restaurant El Bulli, which was crowned the world’s best restaurant five times before it closed in 2011. The series plays on Catalan broadcaster 3Cat that same day.

El Bulli’s celebrity chef Ferran Adrià, along with the film’s cast and crew – director David Pujol and actors Miquel Fernández, Carlos Cuevas and Joana Vilapuig – are attending the festival to present it.

The dramatic series focuses on its key players led by Adrià, its manager-co-owner, the late Juli Soler and his brother Albert Adrià as well as highlights the 3-Michelin Star restaurant’s transformative impact on global haute cuisine while positioning it within Catalonia’s culinary traditions and cultural legacy.

To that end, it also features prominent figures in Catalan gastronomy led by Oriol Castro, Santi Santamaría, Fermí Puig, and Christian Escribà, without whom the scope of El Bulli’s legacy cannot be truly appreciated.

The series was conceived in 2025 to coincide with Catalonia’s designation as a World Gastronomy Region.

“Gènesi” is a 3Cat series co-produced with Minoria Absoluta and Fishcorb Media, in collaboration with the Government of Catalonia, with support from the Catalan government’s ICEC. Netflix will distribute it throughout the rest of Spain, Europe, Latin America and the U.S. International sales are handled by New Regency.

Adrià and Pujol elaborated on the series and the restaurant’s enduring legacy in an interview with Variety:

Ferran, it must have been strange to see yourself portrayed by the actor, Miquel Fernández. What did you make of his performance? Do you think he captured your essence and your charisma? Did you give him any notes?

Ferran Adrià: I’ve been portrayed many times and I love it, but playing someone is very different from embodying a real person. One of the hardest things to capture about me is my voice and the way I speak, and Miquel did an incredible job. His performance feels so authentic because he never slips into satire or caricature. Before filming, we spent several days with the actors, giving Miquel the chance to observe how I move, speak, express myself, eat and taste food. The entire cast did the same with their characters, immersing themselves in who we were and how we operated. You can really feel that commitment in the series.

David Pujol: The truth is, our main challenge was finding an actor to play Ferran Adrià. His unique way of speaking and being made him a complex character to cast. With Juli Soler, I always knew I wanted Iván Massagué, having worked with him before; he had the same energy and spark. Ferran was different. We auditioned many actors, both known and unknown, until Miquel Fernández came in. He had clearly done his homework, studying my documentaries and the script. His restrained delivery, pronunciation, tone and expression immediately stood out. Something happened: everyone saw it immediately – Miquel felt made for this role.

Ferran, what was it like recreating your signature dishes for the series? I believe there were around 70 of them.

Adrià: One of the most spectacular things about this series is the care and precision that went into recreating El Bulli’s cuisine. It was essential that the dishes were represented accurately and stayed true to what we created. That’s why we brought in chefs who had worked at El Bulli and knew our cuisine inside out: Marc Cuspinera, Alain Devhaive and Eduard Bosch-Lalo. They did a wonderful job. Ultimately, the dishes are characters in their own right. They couldn’t simply be props; they had to be authentic El Bulli creations.

Episode 1 raises the question that still lingers for many of us: why did El Bulli close at the height of its popularity? Is that something you can answer?

Adrià: Actually, the series doesn’t offer a single explanation at the end. Instead, it gradually reveals the different reasons that led us to make that decision. There wasn’t one single reason; it was a combination of factors. We felt we had reached the limits of what a gastronomic experience could be at that time. We had pushed the El Bulli model as far as we could and needed to begin a new chapter. There was also Juli’s situation, as we sensed he was becoming ill, while Albert was developing projects of his own. We didn’t close because El Bulli was failing. Quite the opposite—we closed at the height of our success, transforming ourselves so we could keep creating.

Pujol: Yes, the question of why El Bulli closed is addressed in the series. We frame it as a mystery, but ultimately the answer is revealed, as it was in real life. Ferran had repeatedly said he had reached his limits as a creator and didn’t want to repeat himself. After being named the world’s best restaurant five times, he felt it was time for something new. Juli was also ill, and the creative team had grown older, started families and found the pressure increasingly difficult to sustain. Yet Ferran and Juli made the decision at the height of El Bulli’s success – when more than two million reservation requests were coming in for just 8,000 available places each season. Closing then was an incredibly brave decision…. and a huge shock to the world.

Ferran, in Episode 2, you take your brother Albert to a place run by your friend, Rafa. You once said it was your favorite restaurant because he focused on the essence of the ingredients. Is it still your favorite place?

Adrià: Yes, absolutely. Sadly, Rafa passed away but his wife has continued to run the place, and she’s doing a spectacular job.

It has always been a very special place for me because it represents something fundamental in cooking: when you have an exceptional ingredient, the most important thing is knowing how to respect it. Rafa had an incredible sensitivity for that – he knew how to get to the essence of an ingredient without needing to overcomplicate it.

And that’s why that scene with Albert makes sense. We were immersed in a world of creativity, techniques and constant experimentation, but going there was also a way of reminding ourselves that great cooking can lie in the greatest complexity, but also in the greatest simplicity. And that remains just as relevant today.

What do you think sets Catalan cuisine apart?

Adrià: Catalonia has an extraordinary gastronomic culture, with incredible diversity in landscapes and ingredients, a strong culinary tradition and a remarkable capacity for innovation and creativity. But the revolution we experienced wasn’t created by El Bulli alone. It may have been one of its main driving forces, but countless chefs, restaurants, producers and professionals made it possible. Without them, El Bulli would have been only an anecdote. What sets Catalan cuisine apart is this combination of territory, tradition, knowledge, creativity and innovation—and, above all, an entire gastronomic ecosystem capable of evolving and moving forward together.

Pujol: Catalan cuisine is deeply shaped by its territory, with Mediterranean roots and influences that combine seafood, mountain produce and traditions that have evolved over centuries. The Empordà, for example, is known for its celebrated surf-and-turf dishes. In recent years, El Bulli’s influence has helped inspire a remarkable generation of restaurants, including Can Roca, Disfrutar and others that have been named the best restaurant in the world. Within a 150-kilometre radius, no other region has produced three such winners. I think that achievement reflects something fundamental about Catalan cooking: a mindset rooted in understanding the territory, respecting ingredients and traditions, while constantly finding new ways to combine and reinterpret them.