Bidder pays €22,000 for dinner with Ferran Adrià

Spanish chef Ferran Adrià's plans to set up his new food foundation were looking particularly tasty on Wednesday after an auction to raise funds for the venture in Hong Kong.

Among the 6,518 lots up for sale was an exclusive gastronomic tour and dinner with the renowned Catalan chef, for which one anonymous bidder paid 22,000 euros - over five times the starting price of 40,000 Hong Kong dollars (around 4,000 euros). The 48-hour guided tour was set to culminate in a dinner for four at Adrià's brother's restaurant.

Another high-earning lot featured 10 French wines from the cellar of Adrià's now-closed El Bulli restaurant in Catalonia, which were sold for over 150,000 euros.

Other items auctioned off at Sotheby's Hong Kong included kitchen equipment and marketing paraphernalia from El Bulli.

"Very pleased"

In total the auction raised 14.1 million Hong Kong dollars (1.4 million euros) for the El Bulli Foundation, a quarter of the budget needed to set up the center.

"We are going back to Barcelona very pleased," the chef told newswire Efe after the auction. "Without doubt this is a good way of starting the El Bulli Foundation."

Adrià plans to open the culinary research center on the site of his formerly three-Michelin-starred restaurant, which shut its doors in July 2011.