Putty Man

La Tour d'Argent.

You just know that he's got a cape in the wardrobe.

Can't help thinking that Flinn was a victim of the Matthew Effect. While Heston rose vertiginously to become the demiurge, Flinn, inversely vertiginously, slid into national obscurity. Shame really since, on paper at least, there wasn't much between the two.

Is it just me, or is Adriá a total wanker?

Indeed it does. In fact it tells us that merely doing something well is not only insufficient to get oneself noticed and hence generate the necessary trade, but also arguably detrimental. The UK restaurant scene is driven by novelty and gimmickry. Novelty is great since it goes out of its way to avoid comparison. Consequently, it often serves as a mask for mediocrity. Gimmickry is the food-writer's 'readymade'. Foie gras parfait is hard to write about, but if disguised as mandarin it becomes an unstoppable meme.

Not doubt it will be criticized for being retro and basic, but it is nice to have a food show that is about the food rather than about the presenter.

Sous-vide has been used in top kitchens since the 80s. However, it is modernist cuisine that has fetishised outré techniques. You may claim not to be impressed, but MG's most lauded exponents never shut up about the extent gadgetry plays in their cooking. Indeed, scientism has given an added value of food for over a decade.

Unlike JP, I couldn't give a monkey's what people do at home (dinner parties have always been about having one's culinary sensibilities offended), but I have a serious problem with the degree with which culinary accolades are accorded to professionals who practice 'modernism' for the simple reason that they practice modernism (cf San Pellegrino's top 50 ). An Adriá fanboy once tried to argue that this kind of food 'isn't supposed to taste nice'; to which there is little response except to stop paying attention.

Probably. This site seems to be a nexus for gastro-geekery. Personally, what I dislike about 'modernism' is that its practitioners define themselves as somehow apart and above gastronomy, when in actual fact the only fundamental difference is a self-consciousness about what happens to food at a molecular level. What's missing from modernist cuisine are such things as restraint, good-taste, knowledge of culinary history, vision and imagination. Hence so much of its output is characterised by the infantile appeal of brightly-coloured and over-flavoured pap. I can see its appeal for young and gastronomically ignorant technophiles, but credibility requires that the movement achieves a lot more than making stuff very, very soft.

Nice to see Ramsay in this list. Was GR@RHR last month and, it pains me to this, it was outstanding.

This is what I mean by non-problem. Sous-vide did not make this possible since braising and slow-cooking had already been available techniques for millennia.

Great example of a false dichotomy.

I think this might be the hang up that's confusing you. The issue with much (not all or even most) food is not in 'solving problems' but in creating art. Thanks, but I'm not at all confused. I have no problem if individuals want to have fun messing around with food. The problem comes in the posturing by many 'modernist' chefs as something other, and vastly more important, than mere chefs. Ferran Adriá may have changed the food scene, but that doesn't mean that he isn't/wasn't a pretentious pseudo-intellectual, or that it was a change for the better. Indeed, 'new' is not a synonym for 'progress'. If there is to be any progress at all, it comes from those not so arrogant to rubbish everything that came before them and who don't make grandiose claims and publish inane manifestos. I can see the appeal for the intellectually challenged, but that doesn't mean that I need share it.

The tendency to not serve bottled water with ice is predicated on the observation that it seems somewhat absurd to select a beverage precisely because it does not come from the the mains water supply and then add frozen cubes of mains water.

[this] point couldn't be more wrong, as many eG threads, restaurants and chefs can attest. Don't dis what you don't understand. Everything new isn't a bad thing. Progress happens, my friend. Your concept of progress is endearing, and of course, sous-vide is certainly new (well, relatively), but in order to demonstrate progress novelty is not a sufficient condition. The type of question that needs to be answered is, "is making meat as soft as butter an improvement?". The answer, at least my answer, is that it is not. Perhaps, if you have dental issues, infantile feeding habits or are under the impression that turning food into brightly coloured paps and wobbly gels is clever, you might get excited about some of the solutions to the non-problems that have been 'solved' by modernist cuisine. However, I fall into none of the former categories and am thus left unimpressed. The fact that, as you correctly note, "many eG threads, restaurants and chefs can attest" to the wonder of sous-vide may have more to do with the fact that many of these individuals are highly susceptible to fads and hopping on bandwagons.