KEY POINTS:
You would think a movie star was in town.
Photographers snapped away and food writers hung on every translated word as Alain Devahive explained the process behind a particularly tricky dish.
But then every dish this man makes is tricky - he is the research and development chef of the restaurant voted the world's best for the past three years.
elBulli, in the north of Spain, is famous for mastermind Ferran Adria's pioneering approach to food and Devahive - in New Zealand for the HospitalityNZ trade show - spends much of his time in a lab.
It's his job to find innovative and surprising ways of presenting food using sophisticated scientific techniques.
It's called techno-emotional cuisine - the old term for it, molecular gastronomy, is a bit passe, apparently.
The whole idea is to surprise and delight the tastebuds.
Whether it's a hot pineapple jelly topped with a prosecco foam, or what looks like a poached egg but with gorgonzola and honey inside, it's never what you'd expect.
Through a translator - his English extends to "hello" and "thank you" and our Catalan goes as far as "two beers please" - he said that innovation and surprise were just as important as taste.
"There are many ways you can surprise the customer, like with temperature," Devahive said. "If they expect it to be cold and it's hot or the other way around, you can find many ways to confound them and that's a lot of fun.
"The philosophy of food is changing, it's the 21st century. Classic, traditional restaurants are evolving and customer interaction is very important."
But don't expect to get into elBulli to try this new philosophy out. It is open for just six months of the year and turns down 750,000 requests for tables a season.
Were you to strike it lucky though, you'd virtually have your own personal chef. There are 45 chefs cooking at once for 45-50 people.
Devahive was recently on a movie set in Spain as technical adviser, helping the main character get to grips with being a chef.
He said the new science-based techniques were already being used in Spanish homes and he hoped enthusiasm would spread worldwide.
Food, however fancy, should be prepared with care, said Devahive, joking that if people nowadays spent less time in the gym and more time cooking, rather than throwing together five-minute dishes, they might not need to expend so much energy burning off unhealthy calories.
Devahive, despite his boundary-pushing craft, believes flavour, rather than technical trickery, is still at the heart of good cuisine.
After his session at Euro yesterday - where executive chef Simon Gault is also dabbling in the new cuisine and importing some of the key natural ingredients that can be used to create it - Devahive will hold master classes at the HospitalityNZ trade show on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, with just 50 tickets available to the public.
