Ferran Adria has often been dubbed the new Salvador Dalí, not only because he is the prime inspiration in avant-garde gastronomy and recognised as the world’s greatest chef, but because his restaurant, El Bulli, is located not far from Dalí’s former home.

This year his culinary skills were formally recognised as art when he was invited to be the only Spanish “artist” at this year’s Documenta in Kassel, Germany. It is the world’s leading contemporary art forum, held every five years.

The accolade comes a year after Adrià’s deconstructed creations earned him the prestigious Lucky Strike Designer Award. It was the first time the award had paid tribute to the design achievements of a chef.

The chairman of the award jury said Adrià’s integrated concept “lends food an unprecedented sensuous and aesthetic dimension”.

Two of the six Spanish restaurants that have just been voted among the best 50 in the world are in Gerona province. El Bulli, near Roses, was declared Best Restaurant for the third time in six years and the Roca brothers at El Celler de Can Roca, in Gerona, took eleventh place.

Adrià, an impish 45-year-old with curly black hair, says: “They say I’m the new Dalí of Catalonia because El Bulli is close to Cadaqués. But I am a chef and nothing like Dalí, although we share imagination. Perhaps some of our dishes are a bit surrealist but we just concentrate on alta cocina (haute cuisine).

“With six Spanish restaurants in the top 50, it shows that we are consolidating and, with four in the first 11, it silences those who doubt our skills. The French have lost their monopoly.”

One has to expect anything in El Bulli’s immaculate kitchen, where there are more staff than the 50 diners. Adrià started off washing plates then began cooking during his obligatory military service before joining the kitchen staff at El Bulli in 1984. He became head chef in 1986 and soon he and his astute business manager, Juli Soler, a former pop music promoter, were making waves beside the Mediterranean.

Adrià argued that traditional cooking did not bring out the full flavours and textures of their natural ingredients, of which Spain has an abundance. He set about deconstructing dishes such as tortilla and presenting the Spanish omelette as individually delicious parts of the sum, rather than a tasty sum of the parts.

Then there were the pure taste foams of the likes of oysters created with inert gas in pressurised canisters without the normal addition of other ingredients. He refined the technique of creating little taste bombs, such as ravioli that explode in the mouth, or raw eggs injected with caviar.

Just like Dalí, what you see is not necessarily what you get: for example, his green olives are actually recreated globes of olive nectar.

Adrià has a laboratory in Barcelona called El Taller that works on new creations and markets bright ideas to trendy hotel chains and food manufacturers. He sells a range of stainless steel cutlery called Faces and metal tableware, called Snack, inspired by Frank Gehry, the architect of Bilbao’s Guggenheim Art Museum.

Although El Bulli, which has three Michelin stars, is only open from April to September each year, offering 8,000 places at most, it received calls from two million hopeful diners last year.

What is Adrià’s secret: “Work, work, work! The most important criteria in inventing a new dish is that it excites my emotions. I want to provoke, surprise and delight,” he says.

The worst swear word to be heard in his kitchen is ostras (oysters).

Adrià is full of praise for fellow top chefs. He calls José Maria Arzak, the famous Basque chef in San Sebastian, “my elder brother” and says he loves Heston Blumenthal, of The Fat Duck at Bray, Berkshire “He is a stupendous ambassador for England.”

When in London he eats at the very British St John, in Smithfield, and Roka, the trendy Japanese restaurant, in Charlotte Street. In New York he favours Chinatown.

Adrià says: “I want to concentrate more on my life, my wife, spend more time in the kitchen and decide on the future of El Bulli. Others will keep the businesses going.”

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