When play resumed, Agassi hit a backhand service return pass for 5-2, sent down a 109mph ace to set up match point, and drilled another backhand crosscourt pass to close out the victory.In Florida, Davide Sanguinetti took Andy Roddick by surprise, prevailing 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 to win the Delray Beach International Championship and become the first player to take two ATP titles this year.In California, Martina Hingis and Justine Henin eased into the fourth round of the Indian Wells Masters, but Jelena Dokic’s comeback from injury stalled with a 6-3, 6-0 defeat to Anne Kremer.. Like the film director Pedro Almod?, Ferran Adri?the chef behind the extraordinary restaurant El Bulli – recently voted the world’s best restaurant by Restaurant magazine – has become a symbol of mould-breaking Spanish creativity. Also like the famous film director, he’s become the leading personality in his field, constantly in demand from the media – which he manages to use skilfully while still transmitting the aura of a man not only dedicated to, but obsessed with, his craft. Strong men have wept after eating its unpredictable, 14-course set menu. Noodles made from jellied consomm?lobster gazpacho, parmesan ice cream, grilled strawberries, razorfish filled with coconut juice; these are a few of the 3,000 dishes Adri?as delivered to an increasingly fervent cosmopolitan clientele.Among the well-heeled and fast-moving in Barcelona, El Bulli is a cultural landmark. Novels have been written about the circles of sybarites – usually professional, creative types – who eat there regularly. But uniquely for a small place tucked away in a distant Mediterranean bay, the restaurant even inspires the not-so wealthy to talk about saving up to eat there one day, just for the experience.

El Bulli is eccentrically located, and people drive for hours to get there. A table at The Ivy in London (No 8 in the top 50) may be notoriously difficult to book; but the waiting list at El Bulli is legendary This year, for example, there are no tables free. El Bulli opens on 27 March, and closes again on 29 September, and every one of its 45 places for lunch or dinner is booked, for every single day. This happened shortly after the reservations were opened in January.Unusually for a Spanish chef, Adri?as no family tradition in cuisine, just raw talent He was born in a suburb of Barcelona 39 years ago. Assigned to the kitchens for his military service, he was rapidly entrusted with official banquets, from the buying to the cooking to keeping the accounts.

Aged 22, he arrived at El Bulli; eight months later he was head chef. There he gradually recovered one lost Michelin star, and was awarded a third in 1997.I recently interviewed him about a new project he was concocting in an 18th-century palace in the heart of Barcelona. Called “El Taller”, literally “the workshop”, it is a type of laboratory, or design centre – in Barcelona architects use the word “taller” to refer to their offices – located a short walk away from the main market on Las Ramblas, complete with a library, a chapel and meeting room, and a state-of-the-art kitchen. In the winter months, when El Bulli closes, this is where Adri?ill lock himself away to invent.He said that he’d never be able to create a better restaurant than El Bulli.

The lab is a platform for a new concept that is still under construction: the chef as pure thinker, as architect of new habits. One of Adri? attractive characteristics is that he can appear slightly mad, as much in his intensity as in what he does. But it was clear from the start that he believes this reputation is totally unwarranted.At 10 o’clock in the morning, he still looked as if he had just got out of bed. At a meeting with two of his loyal lieutenants, he dispatched the business of the day in short, sharp bursts, somehow avoiding being rude or abrupt He left little pauses for his interlocutors to catch up. When I asked about the severe discipline at El Bulli, he fixed me with a wide-eyed stare.”This is not a game.”As a teacher of new techniques, he struggles to be understood. “Strange? Strangeness is a cultural problem,” he explained, when I asked him how he arrived at some of the more unusual dishes.