Ferran Adrià has revisited one of the more unexpected chapters of his early life, recalling the months he spent in Ibiza as a young man during an appearance on La Revuelta with David Broncano on 29 September 2026.

The internationally known chef explained that Ibiza was initially part of a very different plan. Before becoming associated with El Bulli and one of the most influential periods in modern gastronomy, Adrià was a young man who wanted to come to the island, enjoy its nightlife and earn enough money to finance that lifestyle.

Ibiza was part of the reason he entered the kitchen

Adrià has previously explained that, at around 18, he abandoned his administrative studies and started working in restaurants partly because he wanted to earn money for a trip to Ibiza.

His official biography records that he first worked as a dishwasher at the Hotel Playafels in Castelldefels, where chef Miquel Moy introduced him to basic culinary techniques. In 1981, he moved to Ibiza and worked at Club Cala Leña in the Es Canà area.

Years later, that seemingly practical decision would prove to be the beginning of an extraordinary culinary career.

“To pay for the partying, I had to work”

During La Revuelta, Adrià looked back on his younger years with the humour expected from the programme.

He described going to Ibiza primarily to party and explained that earning money became necessary to keep up with that lifestyle. His account offered a glimpse of an Ibiza very different from the island of today, recalling the atmosphere of the 1980s as an era of intense nightlife and long nights.

When Broncano asked about the more uninhibited side of the island at the time, Adrià also acknowledged that sexual excesses were part of the scene he remembered. His comments were presented as recollections of his own experiences and memories of Ibiza in that period.

How long did Ferran Adrià stay?

There is some uncertainty over the exact length of Adrià's stay.

During the latest television interview, he said that his time in Ibiza lasted six months and ended after he was let go. However, this does not match all of his earlier accounts.

In June 2026, Adrià said that he had worked as a dishwasher at Club Cala Leña and spent two and a half months in Ibiza, describing the experience as something that changed his life. Historical biographical material has also recorded a four-month period at Club Cala Leña in 1981.

The safest established point is that Adrià worked in Ibiza in 1981, at Club Cala Leña in Es Canà, before returning to Barcelona and continuing his early restaurant career.

From Ibiza to El Bulli

After returning from Ibiza, Adrià continued working in restaurants in Barcelona before entering military service in 1982. He later joined El Bulli, where he eventually became one of the central figures in the restaurant's transformation and its international influence.

The connection between Ibiza and the beginning of his career has remained part of Adrià's personal story. In June this year, he again recalled that he became a cook because he wanted to come to Ibiza on holiday.

Ferran Adrià and Heart Ibiza

His relationship with Ibiza did not end with those early years.

In 2015, Adrià returned to the island professionally when he joined his brother Albert Adrià and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté in launching Heart Ibiza. The project, located beside the Ibiza Gran Hotel, combined gastronomy, music, art and live entertainment.

Heart became another chapter in Adrià's long association with an island that had first attracted him as a teenager looking for summer parties.

Gènesi brings his story back into focus

Adrià appeared on La Revuelta while promoting Gènesi, the new six-part fiction series centred on his career and the rise of El Bulli.

The production is based on real events but also contains fictional characters and storylines, making it more accurate to describe it as a fiction series inspired by the history of Adrià and the restaurant rather than as a documentary.

The series premiered on TV3 and the 3Cat platform on 21 September 2026, bringing Adrià's story and the El Bulli era back into the spotlight.

An unexpected beginning

For Ibiza, perhaps the most interesting part of Adrià's story is how ordinary the beginning was.

He did not initially arrive as a future culinary icon. He came as a young man looking for a holiday, found a way to pay for it by working in a kitchen, and spent part of 1981 in Ibiza.

That experience became one small but significant step in the path that eventually took him from washing dishes to El Bulli and international gastronomic recognition.