Molecular gastronomy in London

[adt]

Which London restaurants are taking the most radical and innovative approaches to cooking techniques and flavour combinations?

It seems a bit odd to me, given the level of interest in MG and such like, that it’s the provinces that seem to get the more radical-sounding menus: the fat duck is the glaringly obvious example that is associated with trends such as MG and culinary constructivism (El Bulli, Alinea, etc.) but we also have Midsummer House, taking a perhaps imitative scientific and deconstructive path, and Anthony’s, L’Enclume, Juniper and so on, that whilst not having laboratory kitchens certainly have some pretty unusual combinations and preparations on offer.

Of course there is lots of innovation, and no shortage of foams and jellies, to be had in London, but generally with pointedly classical French associations (GR, Tom Aikens), or Eastern fusion approaches. Perhaps Sketch is a candidate? Am I missing some places, or just missing the point?

[Dirk Wheelan]

Molecular Gastronomy seems, in general, to be the preserve of chef-patrons. By focussing on technique it deflects attention from the ingredients onto the chef. This kind of narcissism is not popular with backers for the simple reason that they are not in the business of manufacturing star-chefs who once they get famous pack up and leave. Given that London restaurants require start-up capital far in excess of the provinces that necessitates investors, then what appeals to financial backers tends to dictate the style of restaurants in the area.

On the other hand, it could just be that MG is load of old cobblers.

[Suzi Edwards]

It's a Pavlovian response with you, isn't it Dirk?

[Dirk Wheelan]

It's a Pavlovian response with you, isn't it Dirk?

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Years from now you'll look back and say, "did I really eat that?".

Or maybe 'you' won't, but either way MG is the culinary world's Kipper-Tie.

[jackal10]

So you are not interested in the science that describes the how and why of what happens when you cook, the Dirk? I can see you are a magic and mystery person, ascribing chefs mystical skills...

[Dirk Wheelan]

I'm interested in food. Whether it can be explained in terms of God or Darwin doesn't really alter the steak for me.

Unfortunately, I'm old enough to remember that Gastronomy was not broken before MG came along to fix it.

[jackal10]

I find I cook my steak much better now that I understand how muscle fibres degrade with heat. Long time low temperature cooking is a revelation in tenderness, juiciness and flavour, since the intercellular fluid is not squeezed out. MG has done this. No fad.

You might like your steak charred on the outside and raw within. Perhaps you feel sympathy with primitive man, charring his meat in the cave. Me, I'll take the MG approach anytime.

Like anything new, some chefs emphasise the novelty and tricks, but that doesn't detract from the underlying soundness.

[Dirk Wheelan]

We could go on about this all day, but, to take your steak example, MG, or its practitioners, rely on presuppositions about results. You say that the best steak is the juiciest, whereas I'm happy to trade some juice for grill flavour. Now who are you or I to say that our steak is better?

Technology always has served, and always will serve, chefs, the only difference with MG is that the technology has become fetishized. In the end, it's just another way of talking about food, and one that no doubt will soon disappear as soon as the next 'big thing' arrives.

[jackal10]

I can have the grill flavour and the succulance; they are two seperate processes. For example I can flash the outside with a hot iron or with a blowtorch before or after the LTLT phase.

What is more I can understand (or know people who do) the Maillard reactions that lead to that grill flavour, and for example how it depends on the ph of the outside of the meat, all of which lets me cook more precisely and reproduceably.

Edited June 20, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[Andy Lynes]

It's a Pavlovian response with you, isn't it Dirk?

←

Lets keep this about food and not personalities - that way madness lays.

The topic is about MG in London - if this strays to a more general debate about MG itself then I will need to move it to the general food topics forum.

[Dirk Wheelan]

Again, you assume that know how a good steak should be.

You used the term 'underlying' in an earlier post, and that's really where MG should be. Likewise, I imagine you'd feel the same way if a chef constantly talked about his whisk; it's an irrelevance.

Good food is about conception, and then designing a reliable system of execution in order achieve that conception. MG does not aid the conceptual process, although I admit it might contribute to the execution. However, good food existed before MG, and most of the problems that MG purports to solve were never problems for competent cooks in the first place. Good food can exist without MG, therefore MG is not a pre-requisite of good food.

As I said before, Kipper-Tie.

[Andy Lynes]

So where can you get "kipper tie" food in London then? Sketch is a good call as Gagnaire has ties (no pun intended) with Herve This. Other than that, I can't think of anywhere really. Atherton at Maze did time at el Bulli - does he have an MG slant to his food (doesn't look like it from the menus and reviews I have seen)?

[Gary Marshall]

Molecular Gastronomy seems, in general, to be the preserve of chef-patrons. By focussing on technique it deflects attention from the ingredients onto the chef. This kind of narcissism is not popular with backers for the simple reason that they are not in the business of manufacturing star-chefs who once they get famous pack up and leave. Given that London restaurants require start-up capital far in excess of the provinces that necessitates investors, then what appeals to financial backers tends to dictate the style of restaurants in the area.

On the other hand, it could just be that MG is load of old cobblers.

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whatever you may think of dirk's view on MG, his explantion of the lack of MG in london sounds pretty coherent to me.

[MobyP]

Perhaps the reasoning is similar in Chicago - the centre for the MG-type approach in the US, rather than NYC. Ditto El Bulli.

[adt]

Alinea is hardly a low-budget undertaking, though.

narcissism is not popular with backers for the simple reason that they are not in the business of manufacturing star-chefs

The explanation is a nice way of exploiting the absence of MG in London to taint it with aggrandisment of the chef over the ingredients, but London has a large number of venues that succeed with extremely well-known chefs, plenty going so far as to be named after them (Tom Aikens, Locanda Locatelli, Richard Corrigan @, Morgan M... not to mention the eponymous Ramsays and his flotilla of Angela Hartnett @, etc.).

[MobyP]

But would they have been able to afford alinea at NYC prices - that's the question.

[adt]

Mmm... I'm not qualified to guess about that. But it's a pity if cosmopolitan London stifles the sort of innovation that can flourish in the provinces.

I'd have thought that if west end locations are presently out of the question then something less central might be plausible.

Re. Maze, although sounding neither particularly MG nor challengingly outlandish, Atherton has, as Andy mentions, touched the hem of the Spanish garment, and Maze certainly has an innovative take on the tasting menu concept. I'm looking forward to seeing how this well-funded west end restaurant compares with the some of the, er, provincial innovators.

Edited June 21, 2005 by adt (log)

[PassionateChefsDie]

Hasn't Philip Howard got a degree in this? Perhaps Andy can pipe in here and he hasn't taken this route just applies it with out making it a concept.

But back to the need to know whats going on when cooking, chefs have been using copper bowls for years before they knew the science that caused it to work. The first book I really remember was Raymond Blanc talking about the science of cookery in application.

I think we need a new thread this seems to have some depth leaving the subject of London restaurants. We stopped at Sketch and a few others.

[seanw]

Interestingly enough, Philip Howard has a BSc in Microbiology from Kent Uni, however his most formative influences have been MPW & Simon Hopkinson. Howard, like many sensitive; thinking chefs uses science to better understand the ingredient, yet realises the value of sensual cooking, how many chefs can deconstruct fresh ingredients & then reassemble into whatever form successfully i.e considering the constraints such as paying your staff reasonably, maintaining freshness & quality etc.(Gagnaire struggles, recent reviews have highlighted concerns with his elemental ingredient approach that utilizes different preps on a theme ingredient)????

[Dirk Wheelan]

Philip Howard has a degree in microbiology from Kent University. Interestingly, he chooses not talk about food in terms of molecules, but in the everyday terminology that has always served diners (humanity) in undertaking this most fundamental of social activities.

No doubt, his academic training serves his craft, but, probably because he's a real scientist, he seems to feel uncomfortable using the tricksy jargon of MG.

[CheGuevara]

a trip to argentina would have sorted out your meat cooking techniques long before MG did. we've been cooking meat gently and slowly for centuries now - and no one down there even needed a book, or an academic education for that matter to tell them about intercellular fluid, they learned by obesrving and tasting.

on the contrary, the revelation is that MG provides nothing new to cooking - it's similar to the study of management; you give processes and events fancy acronyms in order to ease the grasping of said concepts.

-che

I find I cook my steak much better now that I understand how muscle fibres degrade with heat. Long time low temperature cooking is a revelation in tenderness, juiciness and flavour, since the intercellular fluid is not squeezed out. MG has done this. No fad.

You might like your steak charred on the outside and raw within. Perhaps you feel sympathy with primitive man, charring his meat in the cave. Me,  I'll take the MG approach anytime.

Like anything new, some chefs emphasise the novelty and tricks, but that doesn't detract from the underlying soundness.

←

Edited June 21, 2005 by CheGuevara (log)

[adt]

a trip to argentina would have sorted out your meat cooking techniques long before MG did. we've been cooking meat gently and slowly for centuries now

But not sous vide in a thermostatically controlled water bath.

Off-topic, of course, er... so would Philip Howard use such a device?

Edited June 22, 2005 by adt (log)

[Jonathan Day]

As ever, we're confusing avant garde with molecular gastronomy. It's possible to prepare perfectly "normal" food (fish & chips, blanquette de veau, etc.) using MG methods. Tom Aikens does all sorts of crazy things on a plate, but my impression is that his techniques aren't particularly influenced by MG. A few avant garde chefs (Blumenthal, Adria, Gagnaire) have been heavily influenced by MG, particularly via Herve This. The two aren't the same. Some chefs have found inspiration in using chemistry to change the appearance of foods -- see, e.g., the recent posts in the El Bulli thread.

On location in London: my guess is that it's no accident that Grant Achatz didn't start in the centre of Chicago until he had established a reputation in the suburbs. On the back of that, and the acclaim that Trio brought him, it must have been easier for his backers to stump up the money for Alinea. The avant garde idea seems to have caught on in Chicago, which on its way to becoming something of a "cluster" for this kind of restaurant. Ultimately there will be staff moving from one restaurant to another, customers coming to Chicago to try several avant garde restaurants -- this is already happening. Think of Silicon Valley. I'll bet that the next avant garde restaurant would find it easier to get backing in Chicago.

London restaurants, as pointed out above, bear heavy costs, and they have to cater to hungry tourists. And, the beginnings of a "cluster" haven't yet formed. So there are lots of Aberdeen Angus steakhouses here; but if you want avant garde food, you go to a place like Leeds or Bray.

[PassionateChefsDie]

As ever, we're confusing avant garde with molecular gastronomy.  It's possible to prepare perfectly "normal" food (fish & chips, blanquette de veau, etc.) using MG methods.  Tom Aikens does all sorts of crazy things on a plate, but my impression is that his techniques aren't particularly influenced by MG.  A few avant garde chefs (Blumenthal, Adria, Gagnaire) have been heavily influenced by MG, particularly via Herve This.  The two aren't the same.  Some chefs have found inspiration in using chemistry to change the appearance of foods -- see, e.g., the recent posts in the El Bulli thread.

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So are you sort of agreeing with Dirk that this is not a concept as such, just an application of science? Or have I missed the point are you saying that MG is used all the time but is a concept when it's applied to an ingredient to change it i.e. cauliflower cous cous?

Surely MG is applied from the moment we start preparation whether its knowingly done or not, my example earlier about copper bowls comes to mind.

I appreciate that some of these Avant garde Chefs are using these techniques but surely I could find chefs who are avant garde yet dont use MG as clearly.

[adt]

This is interesting. I've been careful to distinguish between molegular gastronomy (the scientific approach) and 'outlandish combinations', etc., but haven't used the term 'avant garde' as I'm not sure how it's interpreted in culinary circles.

Pragmatically, of course, there is bound to be a correlative tendency between chefs practising MG and somewhat outlandish menu items appearing, be they from novel technique or from novel flavour combinations.

In general usage, 'avante garde' is the invention and application of new techniques in a given artistic field (dictionary.com!), which would make MG an example of it.

It seems a surprising implication that it's not possible to get avant garde food in London at all, though. Has this always been the case, as what is 'avant garde' has changed over time?