Andoni Luis Aduriz Receives the Gold Medal of the Círculo de Bellas Artes

11/06/2026

The Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid has awarded its Gold Medal to Andoni Luis Aduriz, making him the first chef in the institution’s history to receive this distinction. A recognition previously granted to philosophers such as Baudrillard and Žižek, writers like Galeano, Gamoneda and Kallifatides, and graphic artists such as Andrés Rábago. With this gesture, the Círculo celebrates a career that has placed gastronomy on the same level as artistic creation, intellectual reflection and cultural production.

The Medal distinguishes personalities who have made an extraordinary contribution to culture, the arts and thought. In Aduriz’s case, the recognition encompasses both his avant-garde cooking and his work as a writer, theorist and communicator — from his sociological essay No sé y otras certezas to collaborations with references such as Harold McGee and Alex Atala, through a body of writing that has spent years building bridges between cooking and knowledge.

Trained alongside Ferran Adrià at El Bulli and with fourteen consecutive years among the ten best restaurants in the world according to The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, Mugaritz is today far more than a restaurant: it is a space where cooking and thinking are one and the same.

This recognition comes at a significant moment for gastronomy as a cultural discipline, shortly after the French Academy of Fine Arts welcomed Guy Savoy as its first chef. Two gestures pointing in the same direction: cooking, when it is thought through and lived with this depth, belongs to art.