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Chef Sache – a great first day

October 26, 2014 by Ivan Brincat Leave a Comment

The first day of Chef Sache 2014 in Cologne, Germany, was a huge success with some great live cooking presentations by some of the world's best chefs including Kobe Desramaults, Christian Humbs, Tim Raue, Mauro Colagreco among others, as well as a very interesting discussion about what is networking. Desramaults, the Belgian chef behind the In de Wulf restaurant is considered to be today's Marco Pierre White with his inventive cuisine and respect for ingredients. Focusing on the most humble ingredients such as a potato and celeriac, he does his best to bring out the best in even the most humble of ingredients. Questioned about where he finds inspiration he says that he does not find inspiration in books though these are important because they inform him. "To be inspired you need to think and cook like a child, you need to play around with food," he said. He also spoke about the fact that people are waking up to food scandals in supermarkets. "This is a really important issue. We need … [Read more...]

Weekly roundup of great reads on food and wine #3

September 27, 2014 by Ivan Brincat Leave a Comment

Creativity was the theme of our post yesterday and if you have missed it, we recommend that you read it. For this week's round-up we would like to start with another chef that epitomises the word creativity. No one has had an impact on today's cuisine as much as el Bulli, the iconic Spanish restaurant which closed its doors a few years ago. His brother Albert Adria, who was also heavily involved in el Bulli is interviewed here about creativity. This is a really interesting interview. He says what really motivates people is fear. And he has a very interesting perspective about meetings, which seem to be the greatest problem of the corporate world today. "At el Bulli we only had the winter to create the menu for next season. That’s why we were very pragmatic and efficient when it came to deciding on new crockery, products… We never had long meetings. Whatever you say after half an hour or 40 minutes is unnecessary." Bruges is one of the most picturesque Belgian cities and sometimes … [Read more...]

Weekly roundup of great reads on food and wine

September 21, 2014 by Ivan Brincat Leave a Comment

You will have seen if you followed this website earlier this week that food waste was one of the major themes at Chefs Revolution in Zwolle with two of the world's best chefs Rene Redzepi and Massimo Bottura making it a point to highlight the problem in their separate presentations. Now, we are not great fans of the very large supermarkets which have over the years made us forget about crooked carrots or not perfectly shaped apples. But at the same time, this initiative to turn fruit and vegetables that is too ugly to sell into something edible should be lauded. A new concept in retailing is being tested in Germany. In this article in the Guardian we find a Berlin duo that has launched a supermarket with no packaging. You take your own containers and have them weighed. You shop, you take them to the till and the weight of your containers is subtracted and you pay for the net weight of your groceries. Supermarkets in many parts of the world have killed many small stores, … [Read more...]

Two Brussels food events on first weekend of October

September 19, 2014 by Ivan Brincat Leave a Comment

Brussels foodies will be spoilt for choice on the first weekend of October with two food events which have become an annual fixture. Slow Food Brussels organises "Taste Walks" with a chance to visit some of the best artisan producers in the Brussels regions. On the other hand, Saveurs Toscanes celebrates its 10th anniversary during that weekend with an exposition of the best producers from Tuscany. "Fresh and local" are the basic pillars behind the concept of slow food. The weekend event inaugurates the Slow Food Brussels season. During this weekend, it is possible to participate in workshops organised by local artisans who are passionate about high-quality food and use local products. Some of the visits require advance registration. You can look at the list of events here. In particular I would highlight the presentation on authentic bread being held at Le Saint Aulaye in Rue Vanderkindere, an initiation to Belgian cheeses and beers with a tasting session at Julien Hazard, a … [Read more...]

Grant Achatz (Alinea): A genius of molecular cuisine

September 18, 2014 by Ivan Brincat Leave a Comment

When Grant Achatz, chef and restauranteur of Alinea walked onto the stage at Chefs Revolution in Zwolle there was a sense of anticipation among the audience. Two days of great presentations by some of the world's most avant-garde chefs was coming to a close. In that situation, anyone standing in front of a packed theatre might panic. But then again, it must have been obvious that the organisers would leave something special as the last act? It was not even a question of time. Achatz did not fly in all the way from Chicago for the presentation and leave. Chefs have a very busy schedule but Achatz and his team had been in the Netherlands for four days and were in no hurry to leave though they were then heading to Rene Redzepi's Noma a day later and then to Frantzen in Sweden. Achatz and his team made a spectacular presentation but you cannot expect anything less from this American chef and restaurateur who is often considered as one of the leaders in molecular gastronomy or … [Read more...]

Chefs (R)evolution finale – a feast of creativity and inspiration

September 15, 2014 by Ivan Brincat Leave a Comment

The second and last day of Chef's (R)evolution was a great finale to the Dutch avant-garde cuisine festival. Organised by Jonnie and Therese Boer of De Librije together with publisher Port Culinaire, yesterday's line-up was a spectacular array of creative chefs from Noma's Rene Redzepi's to Alinea's Grant Achatz, Bjorn Frantzen, Sang-Hoon Degeimbre and Spanish Quique Dacosta. Redzepi kickstarted the day with a brilliant presentation of some of the dishes that are currently being prepared at Noma, the world's number one restaurant in the World's Top 50 San Pellegrino list. He spoke about the difficulty of preserving food when they had opened the restaurant 11 years ago as they faced a terrible winter and went on to speak about how this had led them to study the art of fermentation. Like Massimo Bottura the previous day, Redzepi spoke about the importance of eliminating food waste saying that this is one of the greatest problems and challenges facing the food industry. He said it is … [Read more...]

Chefs (R)evolution – superb first day

September 15, 2014 by Ivan Brincat Leave a Comment

The first day of Chefs (R)evolution in Zwolle, Netherlands was a huge success. Presentations by some of the world's top chefs including Massimo Bottura, Jonnie Boer, Richard Ekkebus, Tim Raue and Dave Beran were incredibly well received by a very attentive audience. Bottura, the renowned Italian chef of Osteria Francescana stole the limelight with a passionate one hour presentation on fostering creativity. Aimed mainly at young chefs, many of whom were in the audience, he spoke of the importance of following one's passion, of being oneself and of being authentic. His rallying call, which was welcomed by the audience and which drew huge applause was "Study, read, follow your interest whatever this may be." Taking inspiration from music and contemporary art, Massimo Bottura announced that he would be working at the Milan Expo to raise awareness about global food waste. Boer spoke about the importance of producers. "Chefs are always in the limelight but it is the producers and the … [Read more...]

Chefs Revolution in Zwolle – follow us during the week for reportage on this gastronomic festival

September 13, 2014 by Ivan Brincat Leave a Comment

Food and Wine Gazette will be at Chefs Revolution in Zwolle, The Netherlands for the first day of the Dutch Avant Garde Cuisine Festival on Sunday. This gastronomic festival provides among other activities cooking demonstrations supervised by international chefs such as Rene Redzepi, Massimo Bottura, Grant Achatz and Quique Dacosta among others. The festival is organised by Jonnie and Therese Boer of de Librije, one of the top 50 restaurants in the World. The cooking programme tomorrow (Sunday) includes Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana, Jonnie and Therese Boer the organisers, Richard Ekkebus of two Michelin starred Amber in Hong Kong. There  is also Tim Raue of two Michelin-starred Restaurant Tim Raue Germany and Dave Beran of Restaurant Next in Chicago USA. Apart from that there is also a farmers market where we can get acquainted with the rich variety of Dutch products and ingredients used by some of the best chefs in the Netherlands. We will also watch an interesting … [Read more...]

Pistolet Original – the not so dangerous Belgian sandwich place

September 9, 2014 by Ivan Brincat 2 Comments

Are you allowed to rave about a 'sandwich' shop? Difficult to say but Pistolet Original seems to be one of the places you wish you had next-door to your office (wherever that may be). I am sure that the thought of grabbing such a great sandwich for lunch would put a smile on many faces. If there were a top 50 places list of great sandwich bars, I would say this would probably be very high up on that list. So despite having seen the name around over the past months, I had never really looked into it thinking what could be so exciting about a sandwich place? What changed everything was the trip to Dierendonck, easily one of the best butchers we have visited in Belgium. We picked up Dierendonck's newspaper the Summer Times and  in it was a small snippet about how Pistolet Original in Brussels uses his meat for some sandwiches. A quick visit to the Pistolet Original website confirmed our expectations. We became more and more excited when we read the list of suppliers. Cheese from … [Read more...]

Weekly roundup of great reads on food and wine

September 7, 2014 by Ivan Brincat Leave a Comment

A very popular feature on www.ivanbrincat.com was on what I enjoyed reading this week. However, some links were not necessarily related to food, wine or travel. Here, the focus will be more on what is happening in the food and wine world. We hope that you enjoy this collection of links as much as we do. Obviously we cannot spot everything, so feel free to send us your favourite links. Your favourite link or blogpost could make it to the weekly roundup. There is a back to school feeling as September starts (at least in many countries where school has already started) but with September there are new beginnings. So this week you will read about new places that have opened in London and Brussels among others. And if you are heading to Paris, you might want to save the link below to the best places selling 'pain au chocolat' in Paris. But the first link of the week is France's Michelin starred chef Alain Ducasse to ban meat from his restaurant in Paris. Being vegetarian in France is … [Read more...]

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