Madrid – Phone company Telefonica and world’s top chef Ferran Adria today announced a 4-year agreement to refurbish his restaurant El Bulli and turn it into the top food laboratory globally.

The agreement will see Adria taking part in a series of activities taking place in some of the world’s major cities, including: Miami, New York, London, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Mexico, Madrid and Barcelona. These will involve creativity training courses; meetings with executives and clients; and conferences including a strong technological and innovative component, in both content and form.

Telefonica’s wll finance the transformation of ‘El Bulli’, Adria’s restaurant in the Costa Brava, which will reopen its doors in 2014 transformed into a totally different space. ‘El Bulli’ was rated the world’s best restaurant between 2004 and 2009 and Adria recently announced his intention to close it for two years and transform it into a unique ‘laboratory’, which will become an international landmark and a continuing source of inspiration for creative and innovative people.

During the signing of the agreement, Ferran Adria said: ‘the idea is to transform, once and for all, the relationship between creativity and society through the use of new technologies, which will facilitate sharing the progress made and day-to-day achievements as they happen. An intellectual challenge in which having a partner like Telefonica is nothing short of essential’.

In the words of Luis Abril, General Technical Secretary of the Chairman’s Office; ‘this agreement will allow us to make the new ‘El Bulli’ into the best creative laboratory in the world, combining innovation and new technologies in communications and knowledge ‘. ‘Telefonica and Ferran Adria’, added Luis Abril, ‘are both visionaries, leaders in their respective fields. They have both proven their capacity and willingness to act, to move from the realms of possibility and imagination into something tangible and real, as real as the alliance that we are now forging’.