Champagne - losing its fizz? For years champagne ran the most sophisticated and effective public relations machine in the world of wine. Consumers were convinced that champagne and only champagne was the socially acceptable lubricant for celebrations and smart dinner parties. Food 3.0: It's Time For A Food Revolution: Picture this. You’re born into a family of immense wealth. The family business is one of the most well-liked and popular companies in America. You’re the heir to the throne. All you need to do is take the keys and you’ll enjoy unbounded success and admiration. You’d probably take that gig, right? You wouldn’t dedicate your life to helping people avoid the very thing your family is known for. That would be crazy. The Next Great Age of Peruvian Cuisine: Trinidad Huamani and Francisco Quico are making an oven out of the earth. They collect stones and chunks of clay from the farmland around them, then form a small dome, held together by the shear force of gravity, with … [Read more...]
What impact does social media have on creativity and our restaurant experience?
Social media and the smartphone may be creating havoc not only in how we experience a restaurant but also in how chefs approach food and how they innovate. People are busy looking at their phones wherever I look. I am interested not only in what they are doing but also in how they are using their phones. Some have their earphones on and are listening to music or their latest favourite podcast. Most are using social media from Instagram to Facebook. There is also a lot of Messaging going on whether its through SMS, WhatsApp or Snapchat. It is difficult to keep up amid this ‘noise’. I am writing this piece from a cafe and while I have my laptop which keeps me focused on writing, it takes an effort to not pick up my phone and ‘follow the crowd’. On the way to the place where I decided to write this piece, I lost count of the number of people that were playing with their phones while driving, walking or even riding their bicycles. It seems like no place is safe from the greatest … [Read more...]
Largest food truck festival in the world to take place in Brussels next month
Brussels will welcome the largest food truck festival in the world on 5, 6 and 7 May. 103 food trucks from around Europe are expected to welcome around 150,000 people in the park of Tour et Taxis. At the Brussels Food Truck Festival, visitors will be able to choose from the cuisines of Morocco, Armenia, Lebanon, Belgium, Britanny, Ireland, Alsace, Italy, Creole, African, Thailand, Vietnam, Venezuela, Cuba and Mexico among others. There will be cocktails and artisanal beers, gourmet burgers and hot-dogs, mussels, oysters, snails, smoked and roast meat, raw meat, fish, shellfish, lobster, crocodile, swordfish, salty and sweet croquettes, banh mi, grilled cheese, vegan and vegetarian food, ice-creams, yogurts and much more. This is the fourth edition of the Brussels Food Truck Festival. The organisers received over 1,200 applications from owners of food truck wanting to participate. On Sunday afternoon, the European Food Trucks award will be announced. This is the first time … [Read more...]
Cooking on the film set of The Dinner was more challenging than cooking in a restaurant – Jae Song
It is not often that a chef has to create a menu for an important dinner where the focus is not the taste but rather the visual aspect and the consistency. While in a restaurant you have to work with one dish at a time, for a movie there need to be a series of dishes that are exactly the same and which are served in rapid succession as a scene is shot repeatedly. “It is like serving 50 people when in reality there are 12,” chef Jae Song told Food and Wine Gazette about the experience of creating a meal for the film The Dinner which is being released next month.. Jae Song and Paul Yee were the brains behind the food creations of the meal for the film. It is based on Herman Koch’s international bestselling novel The Dinner. Directed by Oren Moverman, this is a dark psychological thriller that features a fierce showdown between two couples during the course of an ornately prepared meal at a fancy restaurant. When Stan Lohman (Richard Gere), a popular congressman running for … [Read more...]
Weekly roundup of great reads on food and wine #112
A job for life: the ‘new economy’ and the rise of the artisan career: Whatever you think of the gig economy, it does throw up some amusingly bizarre jobs. Set Sar, of Providence, Rhode Island, told this paper in 2015 that he earns a crust by looking at videos and web pages on his computer while having his eyeball movements tracked via webcam. The information this provides is valuable to advertisers — and earns him a dollar every few minutes. In its higher echelons, the gig economy has led to an array of jobs with “consultant” in their title, as people find ingenious ways to peddle niche services to the rich. In New York, for example, “play date consultants” charge up to $400 an hour to teach the progeny of millionaires to share their toys. The Real Cost and Benefit of (Temporarily) Moving an Entire Restaurant to the Other Side of the Globe: In less than a year, the restaurant Olmsted has become something of a fixture in its Prospect Heights neighborhood, with the dining experience … [Read more...]
Interview with Jeremiah Tower: ‘You have to look to the past to figure out the future’
Few people have had an impact on the United States culinary scene like Jeremiah Tower. Yet, for nearly 20 years, he disappeared from the scene and few people seemed to know what had happened to him before he took up the challenge to become chef of New York legendary restaurant Tavern on the Green. Having accepted to take part in a documentary about his journey, Jeremiah was in the middle of filming when he accepted what many considered to be an an impossible task. Why would he do something like this particularly having been away from the cooking scene for so long. What did he want to prove? Did he do it to add a dramatic effect to the film? In an interview with Food and Wine Gazette, Jeremiah says that when he accepted to return back to cook at Tavern on the Green he believed that he could turn it around and was close to achieving this. “I thought that the filming was over when I accepted the challenge. I looked at the owners, the staff and thought that while the challenge was … [Read more...]
‘Jeremiah Tower had to let go for the documentary to work’- Lydia Tenaglia (film director)
Jeremiah Tower’s impact on the gastronomic world, particularly in the United States has been huge for those in the know. But for many, he was just a forgotten figure and most people interested in the food scene today would probably never have heard of the name before. This is because until 2014 he was mostly forgotten because he was on what many viewed as a self-imposed exile. So it must not have been an easy task for Director Lydia Tenaglia and executive producer Anthony Bourdain to get the US chef to reveal his story from his childhood to the years at the legendary Chez Panisse and then Stars while also depicting what happened since he left Stars. When I interviewed director Lydia Tenaglia on her documentary film Jeremiah Tower, the Last Magnificent which will be released in cinemas this week in New York and LA on 21 April after its success at the Tribeca film festival last year, I was curious to how she had managed to convince someone who had disappeared from the limelight to … [Read more...]
Weekly roundup of great reads on food and wine #111
If you’re a European, your body requires more vegetables and grains: A new study of hundreds of human genomes has revealed that groups in various regions of the world have evolved for diets with different amounts of meat and vegetables. People from Europe, particularly its southern regions, are optimized for a high-plant diet. But people from other areas, such as the Inuit of Greenland, have a biochemistry that is better able to process lots of meat fat. We can learn a lot from how the French do lunch: For many of us, a work lunch means clearing space between your keyboard and mouse for some hastily-eaten snacks. One 2014 study found that of those who did manage to get a lunch break, half ate at their desks. But, while it may seem more productive to catch up on emails while you eat, there’s plenty of research that suggests the opposite. Rene Redzepi on the new Noma: It’s a fair bet that come summer 2017, the eyes of the food world—always ready for the next, the new, and the … [Read more...]
New Kobe Desramaults restaurant in Gent to open in June
The new restaurant by Kobe Desramaults in Gent is expected to open in June, the Belgian chef has said on his instagram feed. He said that the restaurant will be small but very ambitious and would welcome two trainees every two months. Those interested should send a resume and motivational letter (Check out his instagram feed for more details). Desramaults has not cooked professionally for 4 months and is missing it. In an Instagram post he said he couldn't wait to open the new restaurant and "was keeping the mojo flowing by cooking at home." The talented and world renowned Belgian chef rose to fame with his unique cooking style and was pure and natural with no classic dishes or traditional sauces. In December 2016, he closed a 12-year-old chapter as he and his team cooked the last dinner at In De Wulf in Dranouter. Desramaults also had another restaurant De Vitrine in Gent which closed in December and made way for a Mexican pop-up restaurant, La Chaparrita until May as … [Read more...]
A year of planning: Noma Mexico pop-up restaurant is now open
Noma Mexico has just opened its doors. The pop-up restaurant which took one year of planning has come into fruition. Rene Redzepi, chef of the Copenhagen world renowned restaurant that closed its doors at the end of 2016 to reinvent itself later this year in a new format said on his Instagram feed that "the restaurant is looking amazing". The staff have transformed a plot of jungle into an outdoor restaurant. They have built a 32 metre long kitchen and settled 145 staff members, including spouses and children. Redzepi said: "Thank you Mexico for having us and making us feel so incredibly welcome." The restaurant, in Tulum, Mexico will run for seven weeks and is open until May 27 during which time they will be open for dinner from Wednesday to Sunday. The outdoor open-air restaurant is nestled between the jungle and the Caribbean Sea in Tulum. Exposed to the climate, it will be hot, steaming and unpredictable. It will be wild like the Mexican landscape as we share our … [Read more...]