FERRAN ADRIA

AGE: 43
OCCUPATION: Head chef of El Bulli restaurant in Spain
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 0
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 0

PRO: Widely considered one of the best chefs in the world whose restaurant el Bulli ranked first in Restaurant magazine's Top 50 of 2006. The one-time military cook uses his kitchen-cum-laboratory to create explosive bite-size nibbles.

CON: His unique "culinary foam" technique may only be dazzling to the true epicureans of the world—he's openly admitted that except for a two year-stint between 1998 and 2000, his restaurant, which is only open half of the year, has remained consistently unprofitable.