Could Javier Bardem play a convincing Ferran Adri?

Spanish actor Javier Bardem is being wooed to play chef Ferran Adrià in the upcoming silver screen adaptation of the story of Catalan restaurant El Bulli.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, producer Philippe Rousselet is hoping to land one of Spain’s most famous actor exports, Bardem, to play the chef whose pioneering use of molecular gastronomy marked a turning point in the international culinary landscape.

The restaurant closed at the peak of its popularity in 2011, after being awarded the title of World’s Best Restaurant five times by influential trade publication Restaurant magazine.

It’s also drawn a roster of VIP diners including Bardem’s wife Penelope Cruz, and drew nearly two million reservation requests annually for 8,000 seatings.

The movie will be based on food writer Lisa Abend’s book "The Sorcerer's Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adrià’s elBulli," and mix fact with fiction, says movie studio Vendome Pictures, which will be producing the film.

Abend was given behind-the-scenes access to the El Bulli kitchen in 2009, where she was privy to the rigorous training program and the inevitable human dramas that unfolded among the kitchen’s brigade of young, ambitious chefs.

Accordingly, Rousselet describes the screenplay as “The Breakfast Club” meets “Dead Poets Society” meets “The Social Network.”

Every year, out of 3,000 applicants, only 32 were chosen to apprentice in Adrià’s kitchen, where they would work 14-hour days in a triple Michelin-starred restaurant 160 km north of Barcelona.

Adrià will be reopening the restaurant for the movie, and will act as a culinary advisor for the film.