Graham Elliot Bowles:"Molecular gastronomy is like the culinary version of Emo…"

http://www.blackbookmag.com/ee/images/uploads2/Graham_Headshot_Closer.jpg
this guy is pretty cool, dudes

I ate at Graham Elliot for NYE 2008. Pretty good stuff. Most memorable was the deconstructed Caesar salad, with whole anchovies and Twinkie brioche.

poor motherfucker had his own restaurant before he was 30

in the case of most chefs, "had his own restaurant" very rarely means "owned his own restaurant"

is molecular gastronomy like that foam shit?

poor motherfucker had his own restaurant before he was 30

Chuy Valencia opened Chilam Balam (in Lakeview) last year when he was 23.

more like the culinary version of the The Knife opera

does this mean that they are just more 'omg what happened to that dude?' later in life when they end up dead in a pile of coke?

re Chuy Valencia-
prolly leveraged to the gills
but will be in the black in a couple of years perhaps

yes molecular gastronomy is that foam shit
but also it can be many things, mostly 'deconstruction' approaches to familiar flavors
i think of jose andres as a good example but i can't find any vids that showcase his excellence

Molecular gastromony = I think Grant Achatz, Wylie Dufresne, Homaro Cantu.

god, Homaro Cantu is possibly the worst high-end chef on the planet

yea it's like "this dude is not just a chef, he's an artist"
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/files/2009/04/alinea_opt.jpg

all cooking uses molecules so everyone jus simmer down

"The term molecular gastronomy was originally intended to refer only to the scientific investigation of cooking[30], though it has been adopted by a number of people and applied to cooking itself or to describe a style of cuisine."

yeah the name annoys me because it's like they invented a fake science, the science of foam

btw im not rich enough to be goin to any of these type restaurants but i fully support their avant ways - totally feelin the whimsical inovation

i feel like food would be better if chefs thought a lil more artistic - theres way too much 'look at these sweet lil fuckin ribs' culture even in fancy places

of note: chicago is home to many of these 'molecular gastronomists'

how did foam become the near universal focus of complaints about molecular gastronomy?

totally in the mood for a foam sandwich rite now

because it's in every newspaper article about food trends and no one who reads those actually goes to "real" restaurants? (including me)

People complain about foam like it's an epidemic infecting the whole food world when it's not even on 90%+ of the dishes at these kind of restaurants.

dude cheetos are foam basicly and they fuckin rule.

I guess I thought it was because foam is the most common example of molecular gastronomy on menus that otherwise aren't focused on it.

Or maybe it's because people are like, "It's not even FOOD, it's just FOAM!!! Like THAT's gonna fill me up sdkfjafjk;"

i wouldn't be worried about it filling me up it just sounds like a disgusting texture for something that tastes like food. it also reminds me of charlie and the chocolate factory.

of note: chicago is home to many of these 'molecular gastronomists'

― Anton Levain (jdchurchill), Monday, February 15, 2010 5:49 PM (7 minutes ago)

qft, if you replace chicago with spain

tho nothing says "2004" to me as much "molecular gastronomy"

How about "Molecular gastronomy is like the culinary version of micro-house..."?

one time i was at a bar standing there holding a fresh pint of guinness when this lil fuckin dog head comes over my shoulder and starts lapping at my beer and i was all WTFFF turned around where i apparently had been standing back to back w/this girl holding a pug over her shoulder and she spins around and goes OMG SO SORRY HE LOVES FOAM!!

so basically that lil guy invented molecular gastronomy

ugh I am sick of all these molecular beers served with foam

wtf dont want molecules in my brew bro

Math rock would be a better comparison.

otm

Molecular gastronomy is like the culinary version of Battles

god, Homaro Cantu is possibly the worst high-end chef on the planet

― I DIED, Monday, February 15, 2010 8:41 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

thems fightin words

I'll gladly fight over this one - I had the grand tasting menu at Moto in 2004 and it was, at the very least, the worst meal I've ever had for that amount of money. The service was overly precious without being at all personal (it's not a "gift from the kitchen" if it's listed on the menu you ordered) and the food was repetitive (didn't need corn chip ice cream with one course and dorito ice cream with another). The meal leaned far too much on novelty dinnerware instead of interesting presentations of the food itself and Cantu seemed to lack an understanding that all these techniques don't mean anything without a delicious end result. I've had meals in a similar vein at minibar and wd~50 that blew away moto in terms of concept, presentation, and taste at a lower price.

i've done the tasting menu at Moto, WD~50 and Fat Duck. It's hard for me to really rank them since they all had their pluses and minuses. I will kind of agree with you that Moto def puts presentation over taste sometimes, but that really doesn't bother me, because I think they have some of the best presentations--ie, sometimes i'm probably getting something more "fun" than "divine" or whatev, but i like fun! I didn't get the repeating thing when I went (2008), and plus they made me some bomb-ass non-alcoholic drinks.

While I will say that the Fat Duck was a better meal, Moto served me the single most delicious piece of food I've ever had in my life (a white chocolate truffle with buttered-popcorn syrup and pop rocks). And yeah, the pop rocks probably added more fun than flavor, but sometimes it's better to be Blue Man Group than Laurie Anderson, nahmean.

Bought the Fat Duck cookbook over the weekend on clearance at Anthropologie: lots of great essays in there, even if the recipes would be pretty impossible to reproduce.

Don’t call it molecular gastronomy. Like hippie or Tex-Mex, the term molecular gastronomy has stuck in the public consciousness as the de facto name for the science-lab brand of cooking we’re talking about here, thanks to French scientist Hervé This. However, the chefs who cook this way think it’s a dumb name and have said that “molecular gastronomy is dead.”

For years, so-called molecular gastronomy, an avant-garde culinary movement best known for its gels and emulsions and its wild chemical experiments with food, has teased the palates of diners.

I think I'll start calling myself a molecular audiologist

"With molecular gastronomy we were trying to be too clever and were starting to be out of touch."
-Simon Rogan

I haven't eaten at any of the places you guys (Whiney, I DIED) are talking about but I definitely lean much more to I DIED's "taste > presentation" position. If I shell out $$$ for food, I want something that tastes good; I would rather have an ugly-looking piece of impeccably-cooked, succulent meat than something that is gorgeous but inedible.

Having said that, the pic jdchurchill posted upthread is stunning and I would order that in a heartbeat but I would complain my tits off if it ended up being nasty.

This pronounced Tees came up with the formula for this confection in 1995 to prove that a scientific approach to cuisine can lead to all kinds of tasty new dishes.
http://www.wired.com/images/article/wide/2007/08/080607_ps_foodchemist_600x.jpg

As This guides me through the comfortably cluttered halls around his AgroParis Tech lab, he reviews his to-do list. His team is using nuclear magnetic resonance to analyze carrot-based soup stocks and studying why green beans change color when cooked. But he says that the next big idea he wants to tackle is the role that love — of the cook for the diners, the diners for the cook, and of everyone for each other — plays in determining tastes. "Cooking for someone is a way of telling them, 'I love you.' This has to be understood, of course," This says before pausing for a second. "But first, I do my job with the carrots."

http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2009/0901/madrid_fusion_0123.jpg
Ferran Adrià holds up bread

"Molecular gastronomy sounds scary," said Harold McGee, who writes regularly on the science of cooking for The New York Times, and, along with physicist Davide Cassi, also participated in the panel. "If it were called something else, it wouldn't make you think there's something there you don't know or can't trust. But the moment you start talking about molecules, about these particles that you can't see, people begin to get concerned."

Molecular Gastronomy heralds the end of food

right, cuz we don't have to eat to live or anything . . .

I couldn't make it past the first two paragraphs because the baseline thesis is so stupid

Herve This even wrote a piece for Nature

http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2010/09/why-i-hate-molecular-gastronomy-1.html

The truth is, I haven't eaten at the temples of the avant-garde - Alinea, El Bulli, The Fat Duck or wd-50 - so you could say I'm judging it all too prematurely. But I have heard quite a number of leading chefs and experts lecture on the topic and I am always left feeling somewhat depressed.

Yeah, I think if the writer hasn't actually eaten at ANY of the most discussed and acclaimed examples of this style of cooking then they're not real qualified to pass judgment on it.

"I haven't eaten burritos. But I have been to a number of lectures about burritos and based on that I'll write an article about hating them."

I've also tried dishes made by just about all of them.

i don't think she really knows what she's talking about

Trying a dish at a food conference is pretty much a guarantee that it's going to be a crappy version of whatever you're getting.

Burritos are fantastic but I could see a purely academic hatred of burritos being valid on some level. an anti-burrito lecture would be interesting.

this is kinda cool: photo tour of grant achatz dishes 'decoding molecular gastronomy'

http://www.life.com/image/ugc1125351/in-gallery/42842/cutting-edge-food-with-grant-achatz

also there is an article by steingarten abt noma 'the best restaurant in the world' in the september issue of vogue fyi
yo steve shasta aint yr bro taking shifts there now? howzat goin?

remember that scene in demolition man where sylvester stallone eats at the taco bell with sandra bullock

and they serve them three little pills on a tiny taco

that is the direction grant achatz is taking restaurants in

http://www.life.com/image/ugc1059781/in-gallery/42842/cutting-edge-food-with-grant-achatz

ADMIT IT, YOU WERE INSPIRED BY CANDY BUTTONS

also there is an article by steingarten abt noma 'the best restaurant in the world' in the september issue of vogue fyi
yo steve shasta aint yr bro taking shifts there now? howzat goin?

― just going through it the motions (jdchurchill), Thursday, September 30, 2010 4:47 PM (2 hours ago)

not yet, but the three of us are going out for coffee on Monday! no shit! i'm pretty stoked. i've never eaten at Noma but I've eaten at Manresa when Rene was guest chef-ing there and I will tell you it's amazing.

I also have never eaten at any of those four restaurants listed above but Grant worked with my former college roommate at TFL in the mid/late 90s and I ate many dishes that had his fingerprints on (none of it was molecgastro for the record). i have eaten at Astrid y Gaston which is famous because the chef there (non-molecgastro) beat Ferran Andria at the global cooking challenge in Spain and was considered to be a major upset (i'm fuzzy on all these details but could be obtained with a simple google i'm sure).

well in any case tell yr bro to keep a sharp eye and use all his senses when working with this noma dude, fr shizzel

Next

I ate at Alinea on my birthday two weeks ago, and not a day has gone by when I haven't thought about my meal. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons. But still, that's more than I can say for just about any other meal I've ever eaten.

one of the best meals I've ever had was last summer at Graham Elliot in Chicago

yo josh what was yr bill at the end of the night, if you don't mind saying?
also did dude come out with the rubber mat and 'plate' yr dessert?

He did the whole dessert shebang, yes, though all of us save a nursing-mom friend were too full to eat much of it. I wrote something about the experience I'll link to here in a bit, but needless to say, I've taken cheaper flights. Per person, with tax and tip, it pushed $500. Bonkers.

is it bonkers? i dunno he is kind of a big deal

I suppose, for sure. But the only place I can think of more pricey (admittedly, we got the wine pairing, too, but 80% of diners get that) is that sushi place in New York. I mean, even other high-end places in Chicago (like Trotters or whatever) are cheaper. Not much cheaper, but cheaper.

Here's something I posted about Alinea on my nascent blog:

http://fishsticksandketchup.com/2011/02/26/alinea-redux/

printing food

Thought of y'all who are really enthusiastic about #MolGas when reading this:

http://ny.eater.com/archives/2011/03/chefs_that_dont_like_molecular_gastronomy.php

"It’s not the kind of cuisine that should be important, with all the additives. I know I was really the first one to make it famous, but I have complete control of what I’m doing."
Joel Robuchon

"Molecular for molecular, cooking for the technique, I think that is over."
Eric Ripert

My wife and I visited L'enclume in Cumbria last week for our wedding anniversary. Seriously good tasting menu in a "molecular" style with a very refreshing emphasis on vegetables, we enjoyed it more than our visit to Alinea last year which was OK but didn't live up to our expectation.

Mind you we stayed in a room and they also make the best black pudding I'ved ever had for breakfast, which counteracts the vegetable emphasis a little.

havent chefs been saying we dont like that label for ages? why is this a new article

just saw this nathan myhrvold dude on charlie rose
he has just release this cookbook called Modernist Cuisine

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/March-2011/On-Grant-Achatz-Foodies-and-Food-As-Art/

omg
http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/19-03/ff_myhrvold_f.jpg

part of me is wonderng wtf dudes didn't dig

I'm going to WD50 on Friday. I've never had a full meal of MG techniques. Few things here and there. We decided to just order a couple of things off the a la carte menu instead of doing the full tasting and if we're still hungry afterwards, we'll grab a slice somewhere. We recently did the tasting and wine pairing at Benu and are also going to Blue Hill at stone farms this week. Don't want to go COMPLETELY broke.

so i went to WD50 and, although the meal was pretty good, it was very unimpressive. at least in the way i was expecting to be impressed. i was expecting whimsy and magic. deconstruction and foams and 'caviars'. i thought it was gonna be all science and not a "real" meal. when we got there, even the interior wasn't what i expected. i thought it was gonna be sterile, white, super fancy, but it was homey. lots of wood, warm colors. bad 90s art & fixtures. the meal itself seemed very "typical" of a nice restaurant. plated nicely (not crazy jungle gym apparatuses). there were a few dehydrated things that made me question what they were, but it was mostly meat, veggies and sauces.

i actually offended the waiter. i was a lil drunk and said something to the effect of how "normal" everything seemed. i was actually trying to ask him what techniques went into making each dish, but i have a hard time of saying things how i mean them when i've been drinking and most people don't get my humor at first. oh well.

oh, the one thing that totally stood out, that i would go back for, was the "Eggs Benedict". they made a cube of liquid hollandaise sauce inside a crust of english muffin, cylinders of firm egg yolks and super thin slices of ham. amazing tasting and looking

http://cached.brentozar.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/wd50-eggs-benedict-201x300.jpg

A few weeks ago we ate at Next, and our entire party of four (including a cooking school grad, and also a lawyer who goes to fancy-pants places all the time) was disappointed by the food (service was excellent). Of course, it's not exactly adventurous cuisine, at least not this Paris 1906 menu, though we all wondered how they were able to cleanly cut off the top of an egg shell to use to serve a savory custard.

http://cdn.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/5100/5588120126_648155957d_o.jpg

We're actually going to Graham Elliot in a couple of weeks for my wife's birthday. It was her choice; I find the dude sort of unctuous and not convinced by his experiments. But hey, I'll try to keep an open mind.

lol @ Albini zinging MoleGas:

"They used to make a frozen foamed essence of Parmigiano at El Bulli that was described in print as "a wisp of air that tasted like the cheese." I saw a demonstration of it on some cooking show. Apparently they made a broth of an entire wheel of Parmigiano, whipping air into it and collecting the foam, then froze the foam inside a serving vessel. That might be the number one example of what bugs me about molecular gastronomy, nashing* an entire wheel of beautiful cheese to make a frozen novelty wisp of nothing, and the best thing you can say about it is that it tastes like cheese. Pretty sure the cheese itself already tasted like cheese there Pepe."

http://mariobatalivoice.blogspot.com/2011/06/ham-and-apple-soup-with-pastini.html

more on myhrvold

"The “everything bagel” was actually a circle of bagel-flavored ice cream the size of a quarter, which illustrates another sense in which “molecular” could be applied to this style of cooking: the portion sizes, although, to be fair, a meal may comprise three dozen courses."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/30/el-bulli-closes-ferran-adria

jaxon, WD-50 was p rad; but if you want weirdness IN YOUR FACE you should go to Moto in Chicago. They're about equivalent in taste, but Moto goes way over the top in presentation. v whimsical imo.

Cuban sandwich from Moto:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v512/giitzgurl/moto_cigar2-1.jpg

MOTO is OTT whimsical. But GE's namesake restaurant was tops.

Tangentially related--a good read:

http://www.gq.com/food-travel/alan-richman/201109/alan-richman-m-wells-restaurant-scandal-review?mbid=social_retweet

"Never in my professional life has anyone in the restaurant business questioned my conduct. Not until I ate my third meal at M. Wells,"

haha questions about Alan Richman's conduct and ethics have been widely discussed for years!

http://chicago.grubstreet.com/2011/08/graham_elliot_spars_with_syrac.html?mid=twitter_grubstreetch

You know, I saw Graham Elliot at a concert recently, and tbf, the dude is huge. Like, I knew he was big, but he was ... lumbering.

This fat guy is such a clown. I watched Masterchef last night and both he and the equally ignorant bald guy (Joe? who claims to be Italian but pronounces "espresso" with an X... there is no X letter or sound in Italian) were commenting on one competitor's sea urchin risotto as "Japan meets Italy". Sea urchin is extremely common in Italian cuisine, where do they find these land locked yokels who consider themselves authorities on food?

http://www.google.com/search?q=ricci+di+mare+risotto&tbm=isch

@grahamelliot: You know what's funny? When life hands you lemons, then says "haha, I was just fucking with you", then takes em back. Life's funny that way

He just fired the chef at his main restaurant (who was hired specifically to help boost the spot up a Michelin star) and actually returned to the kitchen himself for the first time in eons.

http://chicago.eater.com/archives/2012/09/19/now-pastry-chef-bryce-caron-walks-out-of-graham-elliot.php

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR3f35nMrIyiPJYmLwc0Ve26LwiraQ1JYeRr8XUzt56zdg_HrNS