Texture will be the flavor of the future, says Spanish chef

(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MUGARITZ CHEF, ANDONI LUIS ADURIZ, SAYING: "The most interesting thing is the texture it has. The texture invites play, we invite people to wrap it, touch it, stretch it."

Location: Errenteria, Spain

Michelin star chef Andoni Luis Aduriz doesn't run a restaurant

Mugaritz, the eatery he founded in 1998, has outgrown that label

to become a laboratory that designs astronaut food

and pushes customers out of their comfort zones

"If the kitchen is a space where there are only certainties and people are going to eat what they recognize, people are going to ask for what they know they will find, we introduce people to new lands and encourage them to explore."

Customers are offered a 20-course set menu

and food is made using ancient preparation techniques

"Today we must keep in mind that there is a new challenge in all these things that is related to the health of the planet. We must eat in a reasonable way so that everything regarding food is not a burden in these times that we have to live in. We have to support kilometre zero with a bit of intelligence. Here in the Basque Country, we do not produce coffee, if we decide not to drink coffee because it comes from far away, we will cause something unsustainable, leaving millions and millions of families around the world without work because we are not going to drink their coffee. But it does not make sense that tomatoes come from the other side of the planet. It does not make sense that we buy parsley that travels hundreds of kilometres when it grows freely here."