Roger le goéland

Presentation (the slate) and insistance on foraging reminded me of Marc Veyrat, and isn't stardust a typical Heston move? And somebody else who used it. Hardly groundbreaking? But personally I thought his food was quite special. He has a right to be cocky.

Is that true for business and first class? I doubt many "coach" passengers would want a cocktail (just a bunch of us from eG), but considering the choices usually available in terms of booze on a flight (together with their pricing) I'm sure it would be great. And easy, to be honest. A team of 2-3 with £20k and a year could make a commercial version with customizable amounts of gin/vermouth/number of stirs. No "shaken" option or Gordon's. Orange bitters optional. Now it's just fantasy... I'll add the aircraft machine as a Mk II (expansion into other markets). Can't believe they serve Sauternes in first class but can't make a simple margarita.

Don't larger aircrafts (e.g. 747) have a bar? Is it already possible to get cocktails on a transatlantic flight?

Could use liquid nitrogen, get both gas + cooling effect. But it's not practical for the average Joe. To be honest I've never had a cocktail made with packaged juice - is it really bad?

Engineering can replicate anything! Thought I'd add that considering the previous replies. You can chill a liquid and dilute it to any degree you want, play around with pressure, aerate it, carbonate it... it's all relatively cheap depending on development costs. E.g. I can chill your Japanese cocktail to below freezing in seconds with liquid nitrogen (as is routinely done in more experimental restaurants). Give me a few months and money, I'll put a touchscreen, extremely accurate pumps and you can have a cocktail chilled at the temperature you want, with the quantities you want. Don't worry, I am fully aware of what happens during shaking (we'll do an MTM analysis of the shaking process, we ran experiments to determine amounts of water melted during stirring/shaking/different ice cube sizes and temperatures, currently working on the level of turbulence required...) It was tempting to create a very good cocktail maker (as described above). Mainly because we would then have a University-funded cocktail maker, would look great in my kitchen. But unfortunately half the marks go into the business plan, and as pointed out before, such a machine would be easily replaceable by a skilled bartender. Also, I would want my drink to be man-made. So we're going for the average pub. I think the kiscocktail fails because it's a beast, takes up a few square meters, and is hired with staff. The price is ridiculous - despite the high markups and the money you can make on cocktails, it's just not worth it. Thus, "for corporate parties" sounds like their market. An espresso machine doesn't take the space of a pool table! Also, the image projects a lack of quality, I can almost taste the chemicals and preservatives of the concentrated juice... But if I'm selling a pub a machine the size of a two-nozzle espresso machine, for £150-300, that can allow the manager to sell a few cocktails for minimum fuss, it might be doable. We can always say "here have it for free for two weeks, see what you think". The business potential of this idea is rapidly vaning. It will make (is making) an interesting project, and a good way to explore different combinations of ingredients to get closer to the perfect <insert cocktail name>. Oh well, at least my college bar wants it (anything gimmicky?). I'll post photos of the beast if it's not too ugly once built... As for legislation - anything with more than three liquids in it is not subjected to ANY measuring (anything with less, you gotta get out the "crown-stamped" optics). This opens the door for interesting things.

Yes, this means France is a market - I was at a pretty good restaurant in Savoie and ordered a martini, so the waiter brought me red vermouth on the rocks. Their idea of a decent whisky is JW red label. Time for some culture shock. Frankly, if Nespresso can sell so well, considering the bitter, plastic-tasting stuff that they serve, I won't have to work too hard on quality. I see Manhattans cropping up a lot in the thread - is it worth adding brandy/whisky and removing one of the other spirits, considering that the Long Island Ice Tea is possibly the most popular cocktail after the Mojito here?

Our original "problem" to be "solved" was the barman getting an order for 10 mojitos when the bar is 4-deep. If you have any business sense you'll ignore it for the guys asking for 5 pints right? But if the cocktail takes 10 seconds, then it's easier to serve than a pint and makes the bar more money. slkinsey, I'll do the financials this week and get back to you on that! I do think it might be cheaper here (where labour laws are stricter). If not, it's still hassle saved. thirtyoneknots, it's not so much about allowing the bar owner to fire staff, it's about saving time in the cocktail making process. Even when the bartender can find the bottles without looking, it will take between 40s and 2 min to make a cocktail (we can reduce that through motion study but who cares about damn motion study in a bar?!). But a friend was served a 5 min Long Island Ice Tea. jsmeeker, hopefully we can get the quality to be above that of the stuff that comes out of Starbucks' automated espresso machines. You nailed the market! Over here it is damn near impossible to find a pub that serves cocktails. I guess you have a different culture in the US, with far more bars, but here most people go to the pub. Pubs don't serve cocktails (except in a few weird London places). A few bars do, and good (very good!) restaurants. Even some 4* hotels don't serve cocktails, and most 3* and under. You guys are just lucky! One of the main reasons they don't serve cocktails, based on the few bartenders I've talked to around here, is that they don't have the right staff. E.g. the extreme example is a student bar where all bartenders are students who do it one hour a week, such as at my college bar. They don't serve cocktails because noone knows how to, and because even if they did they wouldn't have the time to train people to make them. Most people are somewhat happy to drink crap lager and bad vodka shots because they can meet with their friends, and sometimes they mix a 20l tank of an OJ-based cocktail to add variety but it really isn't great. It's not really a cocktail robot, based on what I've seen of cocktail robots on youtube. This is like a coffee machine you see in Starbucks, but for cocktails. Think of it as a box, with a bunch of bottles on top, a nozzle at the bottom, and buttons or a touchscreen on the side. Easy to use, fast (so you can serve 6 Long Island Ice Teas in a minute) and cheap (price is mainly dependant on the cooling system). No fancy stuff, just plain old imitation of what happens to the alcohol through teh shaking/stirring process. Simple, efficient engineering. So the pub has this box, and a cocktail menu with a few simple cocktails and appetizing pictures. Average John and wife Maggie walk in for their nightly pint and glass of white wine, and they decide to try one of the cocktails - it's not much more expensive. They order, it comes faster than a pint, and it tastes pretty good. It's warm, it's summer, so they order some more. They tell their friends, who try it out too, and we get a nice viral marketing effect. So far this thread has been very good, please keep throwing me hard questions! I'm starting to think that the business side of the idea is pretty much doomed, but it will make a nice engineering challenge nevertheless.

Is that really a piece of chicken shaped like an aileron?!

Thanks for the restaurant answer. That is indeed a good point. I do not know much about restaurant bar economics so assumed that the lack of cocktails on most (lower end) UK restaurants' menus was due to a lack of staff able to make them. However: (1) I would have been such a person. When I was younger and didn't know what a cocktail was, any of those would have intrigued me. I am still young - came across the mojito for the first time in Die Another Day (and then I mock those who watched it) and spent the next few years looking for one. The combination of ingredients on the above cocktails just sounds refreshing and delicious to the layman. Whenever I host dinner parties, I serve those kind of cocktails and people absolutely love them. No requests for vodka cocktails or long island ice tea. So I do believe that presented with a choice, people would order these cocktails. I guess I am not representing of the population at large - if I or somebody else were to take this forward we'd do more thorough market research. (2) If I can prove that it makes them money, they'll buy it. That is, after all, the goal for most places.

Hmm, haven't really polished that off yet (we're having a look at what people actually want first). As an example, with rum, gin, tequila, vodka, cointreau (5 bottles), lime juice, lemon juice (2 juices), simple syrup, grenadine (2 syrups) I can make: Daiquiri (lime/syrup + rum), Pedro Collins (top up with soda water, serve on the rocks), Mojito (muddle mint in glass before, top with soda water) Pink daiquiri (lime/grenadine + rum) Gin sour (lemon/syrup + gin), gin daisy (lemon/grenadine + gin) + associated tall Margarita (lime/cointreau + tequila), White Lady (lemon/cointreau + gin), etc. Long Island Ice Tea (all spirits + cointreau/lemon) and so on. Easily adapted. Add a bottle of vermouth, you can get a Martini. I am uneasy about it, somehow. Could remove one of the juices and use the other one but it just wouldn't taste the same.

I love questions. Please let me know if I'm wrong! 1. Between 5 and 8 depending on the spirits. Changing the bottles allows you (either through a manual, or through a programmable computer if we get enough money for it) to change those 5-8 cocktails. Add to that all associated long drinks e.g. daiquiri + soda = pedro collins. Mojito is trickier, muddled mint is not easy to handle. (really looking forward to designing the interface...) We might have to either add concentrated mint oils (expensive and tricky) or find a substitute. It's too popular to drop, thanks to bloody James Bond. We were at one point considering making a specialist machine that makes just mojitos, as it's an absolute pain for bartenders. You as a professional may disagree - please let me know if you do, I would LOVE to have a reason to drop it. 2. I included liqueurs in "spirits", I thought in terms of alcohol content and changing bottles. Although it will most likely just be Cointreau/whatever cheap triple sec they have. 3. Gin and orange (and its little brother the rum & coke because the customer doesn't know what a Cuba Libre is, or vodka red bull) can be handled by most pubs. Shot + soft drink is easy to order and easy to make. Anything that involves a shaker is much more time consuming and requires intelligence, experience or the ability to open a book and follow instructions. Pegu Club is cointreau/lime + gin. Margarita is cointreau/lime + tequila. All I need to do is tell the machine to shoot gin instead of tequila. So yes it can make a Pegu, provided I can sort out the timing of the valves & programming. 4. Any of the advantages of just in time versus enterprise resource planning or equivalents. Holding stock (especially perishable) costs money. Here it would cost space in the fridge (possibly an extra fridge), time from the bartender, effort from the bartender, and a bartender that knows what he/she is doing and can be bothered when nobody orders cocktails anyway. I am guessing the cocktails would go off after a while. What if no-one wants a particular drink? With the machine you waste your lime juice, with your house cocktail you also lose the booze (which is the real cost driver). To any bar owners: do cocktails make you more money? I always assumed the margins were higher, but there is more booze in a cocktail than a shot & topup.

Ah I see, yes I came across these frozen cocktail machines. As slkinsey says, we're looking more into making standard cocktails. It's quite complex actually (for a 4 week project), a lovely marriage of engineering and food. Wonder whether people would want those kind of cocktails in a pub. Any leads on the restaurant market? What would you order before/after dinner?

Fantastic news! Proves people actually want this. Do you have any more details about this, did people actually ask "a margarita from the machine"? (also it means I ought to go and find out about that machine) Point taken, although I was somewhat hoping to create a new market for quality products (see Apple vs. absolutely every single other laptop manufacturer - posting this on a Toshiba). Somebody once told me "I didn't think there was a difference between pressed and concentrated juice until I had pressed juice. I never had concentrated again". Well, I'll sell it to the owner of the place, and they can put whatever juice they want in it. At least they'll use concentrated lime juice rather than sweet n' sour mix If the bitters injection adds too much complication, it will go, but it would be a shame. A team member went to his college bar, ordered a Long Island Ice Tea and it took 5 min to arrive. People keep telling us that you order a cocktail for the theatricals of the shaking, but last night none of us saw our cocktails made. Apparently 62% of the UK orders booze in restaurants. Do you order cocktails in restaurants?

Mmmm not quite sure how much I can disclose (IPR is an important part of the business plan). The chilling process is interesting. What it ends up doing: you press a button, wait 5-10 seconds and the cocktail comes out, a la coffee machine. The process is not the same as standard shaking but yields the same result. Basic ingredients: 5 spirits bottles + 2 juice tanks + 1 water tank + 1 bottle/dispenser of bitters. First prototype will probably have less. Which cocktails do you order the most often, or see ordered the most often? Do people even order classic cocktails anymore (manhattan, daiquiri, GIN wet martini stirred up with a twist of lemon etc.) or stick with over sweetened fluorescent stuff? Is there a resurgence of the classics after the 80s bright juicy things? I read a few books that say so. Do you find this to be true?

I am building a cocktail machine as my third year project. I do hope to spin it out and make it available. This thread isn't about engineering though, it's about cocktails. A little background: We want to allow places such as pubs and hotels in the UK (the 4* Garden House here in Cambridge doesn't serve cocktails!) to serve good quality cocktails to their customers. It's not going to be as good as The Lab or the Ritz, but it will definitely be better than the stuff bottled and full of preservatives. Fresh lime juice, simple syrup, classic cocktails. Thus we shall help the British public appreciate the finer things in life (or flop miserably as all they want is a pint of bitter). I believe there is definitely a need for this - I can only speak for Cambridge but decent cocktails are available in maybe 2-3 places. The design will be simple, robust and cheap. A bar could buy one for under £500 and it should last a few months at least (if used 50+ times a night). It will only provide 4-5 cocktails at a time, but because classic cocktails are based on a specific structure (e.g. half half sour -juice - and sweet - syrup or sweet booze - then add a certain amount of alcohol based on taste) the machine should be quite flexible. I would like to stress that I am NOT replacing the bartender. It's a completely different market - mixologists cater for a restricted crowd that has either specific tastes or a large wallet (or both) and their extreme quality product isn't what we are trying to replicate. We just want the average John to be able to have a cocktail down his local. What do you think? Am I misguided? Do Brits not care? Is it heresy to attempt to rationalize cocktail making, to make them without tasting before serving? I'd appreciate any thougts. We'll build the thing over the next 3 weeks, and if there's no market, well, it will be a nice addition to my kitchen

If you can stretch to £34, the Aubergine set lunch is pretty awesome - enormous amounts of delicious French/classical food, very decent wine included (as well as Evian), enough petits fours to fill a box and take home... not quite innovative though. And it will definitely take longer than "one hour".

Went tonight for the 7-course tasting menu (it is now 5 or 7 courses). Very good overall, not as "crazy" as people make it, everything actually works quite well (for a classical Frenchman). Highlights: perfect shellfish, cheap (£60 for 7 courses), I walked out feeling just full, healthy, but not stuffed like is normally the case. After we told them we came there because of eG Nuno came and asked us what we thought. Seats were comfortable, and the toilets had a whiff of pine that reminded me of the air in a pine forest, absolutely amazing! The food is innovative, but most importantly it WORKS. Somebody scared by anything vaguely strange would have been fine eating most of the dishes. Lovely "crescendo" towards plate no. 6 and then dessert. Points to improve on: out of 3 red mullets, two were perfectly cooked, the third was a repeat of the first course ("kingfish sashimi"). Also, the wine pairings were very simple, for £35 I expected more. Mostly young (2005-07), all white bar no. 6 (a NZ pinot noir, that was quite dull to be honest). The lamb replacing the venison ("we couldn't find any of the standard we wanted") was tough, again not all three lambs were cooked to the same level. Please get rid of the stuff the petits fours came on, it tasted like straw! Overall, I had a great time. The food was very good (that's what's most important), friendly service. I'd say (if anybody from Bacchus is reading this) please change at least wine no. 6 to something special (e.g. 7-8+ yo Burgundy), I was looking forward to it as a "climax", as it's the only red! Two more reviews should be coming up soon We ate (descriptions based on my memory, not the menu!): Amuse 1: parmesan puff (much better than Hibiscus'), crispy thin African wafer covered in cinnamon, then a flat thin biscotte, with a red pepper dip. Simple, delicious. Amuse 2: porridge and cream cheese with a mushroom consome. I loved it; others really didn't. Dish 1: kingfish sashimi with various strawberry creations and crunchy almond powder. The biscuit under the sashimi was not necessary. Not sure about whether the strawberry works but it was fairly decent. Served with a boring dry white. The cube of foie gras was awesome - it definitely felt bigger than it looked. Dish 2: Rhubarb and clam chawanmushi. An egg, white but very soft (low temp?), with some soft mousse underneath. Two asparagus stems. Three clams. One very thin, amazingly flavourful rhubarb crisp. Loved it. Dish 3: Oysters and onions old but new. Oyster tartare on another of those thin biscotti type crackers, with shallot (?) cracker on top. Underneath, onion soup, and the elBulli alganate olive except with onion soup (i.e. a soft crust containing a dollop of soup, eat in one go). Not much oyster, but what was there had flavour, that's for sure. Again, loved the dish. This came with a ginger sake which wasn't that memorable. Dish 4: Umami - del mar a la Montagna - memories of San Sebastian. Highlight of the night (which the inexistent venison should have been!). Langoustine tail on a soft pork jowl, in a mushroom-iberico jus. That jus was just fantastic. The wine may have been a bit more interesting for once. Can't remember by that point. Dish 5: Red mullet. Came with... courgette flower over a mound of crab meat, liquorice "jelly" cubes, coconut "jelly/foam" cube (not sure which!), a cracker on top, in a thin safran soup/sauce. The cracker on top of the red mullet, I assume, refers to Pike in crust of salt, but it really didn't work for me so I ate the cracker and then the mullet (much better). The coconut cube had a strong kaffir lime flavour, or maybe my taste buds were playing with me. Dish 6: should have been the venison loin. Lamb with two thin slices of scallop sashimi (spiced up with minute amounts of an invisible and red powder). "Study of peas" saw peas as peas, a cracker (interestingly addictive), a sauce, and accompanied by a caramelised rhubarb sauce. The lamb was too rough for my tastes, perhaps it is supposed to be chewy. The rest of the dish worked very well! Came with a very dull, very New World pinot noir from NZ. Waitress: "has [whoever served us the wine] explained the wine?" "no" (we asked him to get us the election results!) "ah. It's a New Zealand pinot noir. Enjoy!". What was the point of that? Also, perhaps I am not refined enough to appreciate a pinot noir yet (or at least one outside Bourgogne). But I had been looking forward to it for the whole meal... Dish 7: white chocolate mousse on a soft cake base, with a small spot of black olive "chutney" (that's what it looked like!), "iced ginger milk" ice cream (just a very cold ginger ice cream), decoration, and a mango sauce. Very acceptable! Came with a Moscatel with a nose of petrol. It was quite pleasant, wouldn't have minded a full glass for once. Our non-wine pairing colleague got a free tasting glass, thanks Bacchus! Petits fours: Catalan custard in a shot glass, almond financier, and a truffle "to be had last". The truffle was white inside, and quite pleasant (thanks to the wine pairing I missed out on any subtleties!) and the financier was, well, a biscuit. But the Catalan custard was the best of the three. The espresso was a bit bitter, a shame considering the care taken in preparing the rest of the meal. It was still relatively fresh, definitely better than chain coffee shops. Maybe Bacchus could roast its own beans? Now THAT would be cool.

I'm sure that if they were priced at the same level as the crappy English offerings (you know how cheap baguettes etc. are in France!) and that was very clear to the customers, you would find your shop full in no time. So long as they're not paying a premium for the extra quality... Considering one pays 70p for a baguette in Sainsbury's (£1.10 for the decent one) against the equivalent of 30p in the village where I come from, I am sure you could sell better stuff for the same amount or cheaper. Imagine what Roux felt like when he came to London to open Le Gavroche - "those English, they will eat anything. No taste buds or what?" and then he educated them. It's a constant conversation wherever I meet French people here - "if our bakers set up shop on this island they would make a fortune in no time." Please at least try! (and preferably in Cambridge )

For £2,000-3,000 you can either get a relatively nice RTW suit, or you can get an infinitely superior suit crafted to your personality, in 8 weeks, mostly by hand, on Savile Row. One of the two markets is very lucrative.

Jay, I would disagree with you - the list IS important, in that it is almost impossible to get a place at any place that makes it to the top (unless of course you write regularly in a major British paper). Admittedly these places would be full most of the time anyway, by virtue of their quality/reputation amongst foodies, but there's a difference between RHR's "book 2 months in advance" and elBulli's half a million people trying for a few thousand tables, scrambling to send the email a few seconds after the reservations open!

I am intrigued as to the absence of Marc Veyrat on this list - surely he should be ranking near the top, or at least in the top 100? It is somewhat annoying that Mugaritz was catapulted to the top. Now it will be impossible to get a booking. So much for my trip to Spain.

Are all the chefs there for all the sessions? The website isn't particularly clear (or I am not particularly good with it).

How early did you have to book lunch? Was it a case of "a month in advance", or the day before?

I remember once going to a French bistro in London where my (French) dad knew the owner, and the food that the French patrons and ourselves received was very much different (better!) than that served to those who didn't speak French. More fries, better bread, faster service, wine that doesn't taste like vinegar... Also when I go back over the Channel there is this perception that the English will "eat anything". Perhaps you have been victim to this? It would be a great shame, but my countrymen are notorious for this kind of thing. I just spotted things like "Both the blackboard specials and menu are written in English and French" and "All his staff seem to be French. Many of the diners, too."

I tried it yesterday, and unfortunately it was fully booked. Do you know how early in advance one needs to reserve to get a seat in the Library/Lecture room for that lunch?