David Kinch, chef of Los Gatos restaurant Manresa is celebrating the 15th year anniversary of the opening of the acclaimed restaurant with a visit by Italian three Michelin star chef Niko Romito of Reale. Together they will cook a collaborative 10-course menu that showcases the styles of both chefs. The dinners will be organised on November 11 and November 12. “Easily one of the best meals I had this year was at Chef Niko Romito’s three-Michelin star Reale in Castel di Sangro, Italy. His cooking is deceptively simple in the presentation and reveals thoughtful, emotional, and provocative ideas under the surface, a style I greatly admire,” says Kinch. “I’m honored that he’s agreed to join us in our kitchen as part of our 15-year anniversary celebrations at Manresa.” A self-taught cook with deep roots in Italy, Chef Romito put aside his interest in working in finance when he took the helm at Reale in 2000, turning his late father’s bakery into a restaurant that is now highly … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2017
San opens in Gent
Sang Hoon Degeimbre, Belgian chef of L' Air du Temps in Liernu and creator of two successful Brussels restaurants called San has opened the third 'San' restaurant in Gent this week. After the successful opening of the first San restaurant in the Brussels centre and the second one in the area of Sablon, the ‘bowl’ concept is now also open in the Flemish part of Belgium for the first time. This is the third restaurant San Degeimbre has opened in as many years and it is not excluded that he will also take the concept to other Belgian cities and also outside Belgium. The chef who will be responsible for the Gent restaurant is Joël Rammelsberg. The concept is the same. Food is served in a bowl and you eat with a spoon. The concept had been created during business lunches at two Michelin star restaurant L'Air du Temps. Each bowl reflects a destination and the bowls change each month. There are two menus served at San. The lunch menu costs €28 and includes a starter, a main … [Read more...]
Food on the Edge and reinventing the food congress
Could Food on The Edge 2017 be the final nail in the coffin of the ‘Food Congress’ as we know it? If so, it’s about time. Because for 20 years the format – or should we say the frame – has always been the same. An auto-promotional, showing off, a dully TV-oriented gig on a stage starring the usual mix of techniques and dishes. A predictable playlist of chefs vogueing, making it up (to measure) for an audience of sponsors and wannabes. The Berlin Wall has fallen down, long gone are the days of Lo Mejor de la Gastronomia in the Basque Country. But something has happened since then. When the Mad Food Camp took off in 2010 a page was turned. No more mimicking with knives and forks, no more joggling with pots and pans, there you go: speak your heart out and make sense of yourself. Even make a fool of yourself. At its best, when it kept the usual big, boring names and old French farts at bay, MAD opened new doors, setting new standards, reconciling deep thoughts and emotions. And that’s … [Read more...]
Weekly roundup of great reads on food and wine #124
The Thrill of Losing Money by Investing in a Manhattan Restaurant: If you live in New York City long enough and appear to be successfully employed in an industry that Bernie Sanders dislikes, you will be asked at some point to do three things: sponsor a table at a vanity fund-raiser, become a “producer” of a Broadway play, and invest in a restaurant. I had no trouble declining the honor of hosting a benefit or helping “Hedda Gabler” back to the stage. Nuns open restaurant offering free food in London – named ‘Nundos’: An order of nuns has opened a restaurant in East London offering free food, named “Nundos”. Sisters from the Daughters of Divine Charity opened the temporary – or “pop-up” – restaurant in Shoreditch on Tuesday offering “food for the soul”, such as chicken soup and lentil broth, free of charge. John Besh restaurants fostered culture of sexual harassment, 25 women say: Madie Robison said she was done with the uninvited touching from a male colleague, the comments about … [Read more...]
Weekly roundup of great reads on food and wine #123
The Politics Of Pizza: How Italy's Flag And Food Are Deliciously Intertwined: A nation's flag embodies a defining aspect of its identity. It could be related to geography (the rising sun in Japan), nature (the maple leaf of Canada or the cedar of Lebanon), religion (the Christian cross or the Islamic crescent and star), political ideology (the hammer and sickle) or mythology (the Welsh dragon). In a new book on flags, A Flag Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of National Symbols, Tim Marshall explores how a "piece of colored cloth" can arouse profound emotions of loyalty, love and pride in the breasts of its citizens. Celebrate Autumn’s Harvest with Food Tank’s Fall Reading List: For fall, Food Tank has compiled a list of 17 books we hope will educate, inform, and inspire. As the weather cools and we turn to more savory foods, learn about the history of butter, duck season in France, and the life of Patience Gray, the visionary behind the modern slow food culture. For … [Read more...]
A new ‘Standard’ for sourdough pizzas in Antwerp
At the repurposed PAKT site in Antwerp you will find the largest shared roof garden in Belgium. Measuring over 1800 square metres, it has a 200 metres squared greenhouse, 150 metres squared of hay and straw bale gardens, six chickens, 30 fruit trees, beehives and much more.The site has becoming a melting pot of creative business in renovated warehouses. It is now also home to 'Standard', a food outlet that is offering sourdough pizzas baked in a wood-fired oven and salads prepared with fresh, organic herbs and vegetables grown on the roof of PAKT. This is an ambitious city farming project on the roofs of the old industrial site between Lamorinièrestraat, the Groen Kwartier and Lange Leemstraat.The team behind Standard are aiming to set a new standard for sourdough pizza and salad. To develop the perfect sourdough - a process that began two years ago - they travelled to Italy several times. “We work with sourdough because it is easy to digest and does not contain sugar, which makes it … [Read more...]
Three new books by Rene Redzepi and a bi-annual publication on MAD to look forward to
René Redzepi, founder and head chef of noma, will be publishing three books starting in October 2018 as well as a bi-annual publication called Dispatches from September 2018. The partnership with Lia Ronnen, publisher and editorial director of Artisan, has just been announced and it will build on the announced a new the pioneering work of the acclaimed Copenhagen restaurant. In October 2018, Artisan will publish the first of three new books with Redzepi, launching the Foundations of Flavour series that the chef and his team have conceived specifically to share their knowledge and techniques with home cooks. In addition, Artisan and Redzepi will launch Dispatches, a biannual series designed to further the ideas and conversations of MAD, the nonprofit established by Redzepi to galvanize the creative potential of the global cooking community. The first book by Redzepi, Foundations of Flavour: The Noma Guide to Fermentation, is a major new work and will be published in October … [Read more...]
Andre Chiang: ‘I am a perfectionist and this is perfect’ – on closing restaurant Andre
Andre Chiang, one of the most influential chefs in Asia and the world has shocked the culinary world by announcing that he would close down his award-winning restaurant ANDRE in Singapore and return his Michelin stars. In the process, the chef, who also has another restaurant in Taipei called Raw has also asked the Michelin guide to no longer feature him in the guide. In a letter he sent to clients and friends, the chef said: “I’m a perfectionist and for the past 30 years of my career, I’ve been looking for that unrealistic “moment of perfection”; Three Michelin stars, World’s Best 50 Restaurants list, until now I realized, at this moment- It is perfect as it is” The restaurant will close on 14th February. The chef said that he has a quote on the cover of his biography which states that the moment he perfects a dish is the moment he lets it go from his menu. It is for this reason that he has decided to close his restaurant in Singapore and head back to where he … [Read more...]
Eat well and stay well is the manifesto of the next LSDM
Barbara Guerra and Albert Sapere, curators of the Italian food congress LSDM or Le Strade della Mozzarella (Mozzarella Roads) have announced that the next congress to take place in Paestum, Italy on 23 and 24 May 2018 will have as its main theme eat well to stay well. "Over the past 10 years, we have had the good fortune to closely observe the cuisine of some of the best Italian restaurants. Today, cuisine has assumed a new social function because chefs are also in the spotlight. Today, It is not sufficient to just know how to produce food that is technically and stylistically correct. The wellbeing of the diners, the sustainability of ingredients used to prepare dishes, vegetables and the definition of a dietary model are all important topics which are becoming increasingly pertinent," the two curators of the congress said. Their aim is not to ostracise any particular food but rather to apply common sense, to the benefit of customers and our planet. For the event they have … [Read more...]
Lukas Nagl: “You have to love what you do”
Food writer and GELINAZ! co-curator Andrea Petrini calls Austria the new Slovenia and he is definitely on to something. To date, Austria has been shy to present itself on the podium of world cuisine and present its chefs. But that is set to change after GELINAZ! does upper Austria Leading the revival in Austria is Heinz Reitbauer, chef of the amazing Steirereck in Vienna. But behind him is a growing number of young talented chefs who are pushing the boundaries, using local produce to create magic. One such talent is 28-year-old Lukas Nagl, a young Austrian chef who you are likely to hear much more about in future. He is the executive chef of the restaurant Bootshaus at the Das Traunsee in the idyllic Lake Traunsee. After working in the kitchens of Steirereck and Per Se among others, he decided to go back to his roots in Traunseehis first son was born in 2012. “This is the region I belong to. So when the opportunity arose to work there an to be able to work in the restaurant whose … [Read more...]