All 'molecular gastronomy' Posts on Grub Street - New York Magazine's Daily Food Blog

NewsFeed

4/16/08

2:05 PM

George Mendes Finally Finds a Space for His Solo Restaurant

George Mendes now cooks at Wallsé.Photo: Patrick McMullan

After more than eighteen months of searching, George Mendes has found the perfect spot for his still-unnamed new restaurant: 31 West 17th Street. The veteran of Bouley, Wallsé, and Tocqueville plans a September opening. Morimoto and Buddakan architect Stephanie Goto will design the space around Mendes’s menu: “Mediterranean food based on my heritage from the Iberian Peninsula: the food of Portugal, Spain, and France,” he says. Mendes avoids the “progressive” label — and don’t even think of calling him a molecular gastronomist — but he’s a fair hand with immersion circulators, syringes, and other tools of the 21st-century kitchen. Expect original food, at the very least.

More: NewsFeed »george mendes, molecular gastronomy, stepani goto

NewsFeed

4/11/08

9:00 AM

Two Spanish Chefs Drop Into Mercat for a Week

A portal to Spain?Photo: Carmen E. Lopez and AJ Wilhelm

The greatness of Spanish restaurant cooking is, like NASCAR, something New Yorkers hear about more than experience. So Mercat is providing a service to us by bringing in two talented young cooks from among the best restaurants in Spain this month, as Food & Wine's Mouthing Off blog reports. “Oriol Sala Colomer, who was most recently cooking at the avant-garde El Bulli in Roses, Spain, and Roger Montana, who was in the kitchen at 3-star Michelin Restaurant Can Fabes in Barcelona” will be creating separate menus for a week starting on April 17, the restaurant's one-year anniversary. We don't know boo about the two cooks, other than the reputation of their home kitchens. El Bulli, of course, is the world capital and wellspring of molecular gastronomy, and Can Fabes has a classical, rustic Spanish aesthetic. But you can bet we'll be hitting Mercat to find out more.

Kitchen Cameos at Mercat in New York City [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]

More: NewsFeed »mercat, molecular gastronomy, spanish

Mediavore

4/ 7/08

10:00 AM

Bye-bye, Bottled Water; Cheyenne Diner Closed

• Au revoir, Evian: Restaurants like Gemma and the Waverly Inn — not to mention banks, hotels, and just about everyone else — are banning bottled water. [NYP]
Related: Quenching an Ecofriendly Thirst [NYM]

• Gossip columnist Cindy Adams appeared in court on Friday as a witness in the Patsy’s-vs.-Patsy’s trial to pledge her loyalty to the midtown restaurant. [NYP]

• The Cheyenne Diner closed last night, with some of its most loyal customers sitting down for a nostalgic last meal. [NYDN]
Related: Pour One Out (a Milk Shake, That Is) for the Cheyenne

NewsFeed

3/26/08

4:40 PM

Has Molecular Gastronomy Jumped the Shark?

Ferran Adrià and his capsulized olive oil.Photos: Jason Perlow

Molecular gastronomy has never quite caught on here in the U.S.; apart from a handful of superstars in Chicago and New York, most Americans only know about it from failed Top Chef contestants. But even in Spain, where it originated, the movement is no longer the hot thing it once was. Or is it? Lisa Abend’s essay in Slate makes the case for MG having jumped the shark, but the lazy arguments — reporters are tired of writing about it, its methods are now too well known — are actually red herring. Abend’s point is that modern Spanish food, as she calls it, isn’t going anywhere, any more than nouvelle cuisine disappeared when its most laughable extremes were widely mocked. “What lies at its heart is not a particular dish — not even the emblematic foam. Rather, it's a spirit — a vigorous, often intellectual search for new flavors that takes place not just in gardens and pantries but in landscapes and art exhibitions and, yes, in the laboratory.” That, we think, is the heart of the dispute. The MG crowd believes in new flavors. Traditional cooks don’t. For our part, we’ll admit that there are new flavors. It’s just that we like the old ones better.

Fish Foam and Spherified Mango Juice [Slate]
Related: Molecular Gastronomy Made Complicated via PowerPoint

More: NewsFeed »lisa abend, molecular gastronomy, slate

NewsFeed

3/ 3/08

1:56 PM

Learn All the Food Science You Can Hold, in Just Three Days

Come with Harold McGee, on a journey to the land of science!Photo: AFP/ Getty Images

The nation's most influential food scientist, Harold McGee, is going to be giving a three-day seminar at the French Culinary Institute from March 15 to 17, but we were at first a little hesitant about going. The last time we attended such a talk, by molecular gastronomist Hervé This, the great man’s pronouncements were so profound, and his insights into the nature of matter so complex, that we were stymied and had to be woken up by security guards long after everyone else departed. McGee, though, will be giving practical demonstrations for three days, including six ways of searing a steak, everything you wanted to know about eggs and emulsions, and, on day three, a futuristic tour of enzymes, hydrocolloids, and “equipment such as freeze dryer’s vacuum packaging, and rotary evaporators.” Who could resist such a curriculum? For three days and $1,200, you can be the chef of the future!

Harold McGee Lecture Series [French Culinary Institute]
Related: Molecular Gastronomy Made Complicated via PowerPoint

More: NewsFeed »french culinary institute, harold mcgee, molecular gastronomy

Back of the House

2/ 7/08

12:15 PM

Paul Liebrandt Stuns Web With Most Banal Blog Ever

Paul Liebrandt gives it to you straight.Photo: Patrick McMullan

Wonder chef Paul Liebrandt, presumably having some time on his hands while he keeps the world waiting for his restaurant to open, has started a blog, we read in The Feed today, and what a blog it is! The usually garrulous and acerbic Liebrandt’s posts are so brief, pointless, and banal that they can only be read as a middle finger extended into the blogosphere. Among the bombshells dropped:

More: Back of the House »blogs, molecular gastronomy, montrachet, paul liebrandt

Back of the House

12/20/07

9:00 AM

Fernando Navas Brings El Bulli’s ‘Cheese Air’ to SushiSamba

Fernando Navas makes cheese air.
What can you do?Photo: Melissa Hom

About a year ago, Argentine-born Fernando Navas, then a sous-chef at Nobu Miami, got the news that he was one of the 50 applicants out of 6,000 chosen for a four-month stage at Spain’s El Bulli, the stomping grounds of hallowed molecular gastronomist Ferran Adrià and pretty much the most famous restaurant in the world. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays in January, Navas will present an Adrià-influenced $110 tasting menu at his current restaurant, SushiSamba. We’re not saying it’ll be as hard as scoring a table at El Bulli, but only twelve people will be accommodated per night. We asked Navas what it was like to fulfill every young chef’s dream.

More: Back of the House »el bulli, fernando navas, molecular gastronomy, sushisamba

Back of the House

11/29/07

9:00 AM

Molecular Gastronomy Made Complicated via PowerPoint

If you look closely at this graph, you can understand even less.Photo: Josh Ozersky

The genius of Hervé This, the molecular gastronomist whose lecture we attended the other day, is so far beyond our ken that we were unable to understand what the hell he was talking about. Clearly, closer study was needed. So in the interest of furthering gastronomic knowledge, here are a few highlights from This's PowerPoint presentation, in all their intellectual splendor. It would no doubt be more edifying if you had This speaking while looking at the slides, but then again maybe it wouldn’t be. We can’t say for sure. But just the knowledge that someone is thinking this deeply keeps us encouraged. About something.

More: Back of the House »herve this, molecular gastronomy

NewsFeed

11/27/07

12:16 PM

Molecular Gastronomist Wows Them in Rare New York Appearance

Hervé This explains it all… we think.Photo: Josh Ozersky

Hervé This, the famous French scientist who coined the term “molecular gastronomy,” yesterday made a rare New York appearance, lecturing first at the Institute of Culinary Education, then at NYU before the Experimental Cuisine Collective, and finally before the Culinary Historians of America at the soon-to-open Astor Center downtown. We were fascinated by This’s PowerPoint presentation, which featured food images, mathematical formulas, Venn diagrams, and images of classical artwork, all accompanied by gnomic, rambling commentary on the nature of things edible. (There seemed to be a lot of stuff about emulsification in there as well.) The truth is that we could make neither head nor tail of the talk, which apparently was totally different at each of the three appearances.

More: NewsFeed »herve this, hill country, institute of culinary education, molecular gastronomy, nyu

The Annotated Dish

8/ 2/07

5:00 PM

Wd-50’s Trout Dish Starts With Forbidden Rice

Wd-50’s kitchen, headed by chef Wylie Dufresne, is the locus of cutting-edge New York cookery. But for all their originality, the dishes are still nice to eat. This ocean trout, with fava bean, forbidden rice, and root-beer-date purée, is especially easy to love. “We started with the rice,” Dufresne tells us, “and then figured out where to go from there.” As always, mouse over the different elements of the dish to read them described in the chef’s own words.

More: The Annotated Dish »lower east side, molecular gastronomy, seafood, wd-50, wylie dufresne

The In-box

5/17/07

5:03 PM

If Wylie Dufresne Is So Original, Why Didn’t He Write a Book?

In our book, one guy is a genius and the other is a goniff.Illustration by Everett Bogue

Note: Readers with only a limited appetite for endless Talmudic hairsplitting over chef etiquette might want to quickly scan this exchange between us and the Gurgling Cod, a blogger even more fascinated by the Marcel Egg Scandal than we are.

Grub Street,
While Marcel Vigneron certainly rips off Wylie Dufresne, the charge of plagiarism does not make sense. There’s no assertion of the work's origination with Vigneron anywhere in the Wired piece that started this whole fuss. If you attend a musical performance, there is no such expectation that, say, Yo-Yo Ma wrote the cello suite he is performing. In this context, cooking is more like playing the cello than writing a book. If Dufresne wants to protect his intellectual property, he should write a book, which would be copyright protected. Like all artists, cooks rip each other off all the time. I suspect that the current mania for molecular gastronomy may work to create a notion of the molecular chef as auteur, rather than artisan, and thus these allegations of plagiarism.
The Gurgling Cod

More: The In-box »marcel vigneron, molecular gastronomy, top chef, wd-50, wired, wylie dufresne

Beef

5/15/07

9:00 AM

Did Marcel From ‘Top Chef’ Really Just Rip Off Wylie Dufresne?

Really, it's just a coincidence! wd-50's egg, left, and, Vigneron's.Photos courtesy wd-50 and Wired Magazine

Marcel Vigneron, the memorably unpopular molecular gastronomist from last year’s Top Chef, can add the staff of wd-50 to the long list of people that can't stand him. The place is agog at the effrontery of Vigneron, since they believe he has brazenly ripped off one of chef Wylie Dufresne’s best-known dishes. By the looks of a feature in the current issue of Wired, Vigneron has created a showpiece dish of a “cyber egg,” the yolk of which is made of carrot-cardamom purée, surrounded by a white of hardened coconut milk. Very interesting, given that almost the exact same dish (minus a garnish of foam and carrot) has been served often at wd-50, is featured on the restaurant’s website, and, we are told by members of the staff, has been eaten by Vigneron at least twice. “It’s one thing to be inspired by a dish and to change the flavors to make it your own,” says line cook John Bignelli. “But to just steal everything? How can you do that?” Dufresne, staying above the fray, declined to comment.

Tasty Molecules From a Top Chef [Wired]

More: Beef »marcel vigneron, molecular gastronomy, top chef, wd-50, wylie dufresne

In the Magazine

4/26/07

11:00 AM

Modern Spanish Comes (Back) to New York

Not your typical tapas: octopus and arctic char.Photo: RJ Mickelson/Veras for New York Magazine

Given how large Spain looms in modern cooking, it’s a wonder we don’t see more openings, or rather reopenings, like Suba, announced by Rob and Robin in this week’s issue. Recently, S. Pellegrino again pronounced El Bulli the best restaurant in the world, and the kind of food that chef Seamus Mullen is introducing on Suba’s ambitious new menu shows off that world-conquering energy. (Mullen, before opening Boqueria and Suba, worked in some of the best restaurants in Spain.) “We're trying for something a little more complex than we do at Boqueria,” he says. Modern Spanish food has been here before but never really took off. Suba may be the one to finally make it happen.

Restaurant Openings: FR.OG, Suba, Móle, and Paradou Marché. [NYM]
Suba's Menu

More: In the Magazine »boqueria, lower east side, molecular gastronomy, openings, seamus mullen, spanish, suba

The Launch

4/12/07

9:00 AM

Sam Mason Joins a Molecular Secret Society

Three mad scientists: from left, Sam Mason, Wylie Dufresne, and Will Goldfarb.Photo: Melissa Hom

Welcome to the latest installment of the Launch, where Sam Mason, former pastry chef at wd-50, relates the ups and downs of preparing to open Tailor, the swanky restaurant and lounge coming together at 525 Broome Street.

Mediavore

4/10/07

10:18 AM

Is There a Warrant Out on Jason Neroni?

The owner of Porchetta claims that not only was Jason Neroni fired but that the termination was for misappropriation of funds — and there’s a warrant out for his arrest. (If so, the Desperate Chef is hiding in plain sight, as we just saw him last night at the TONY awards.) [Eater]

Nearly everyone got an award at last night's Time Out New York food awards, including Per Se for Best Splurge and A Voce for New Restaurant of the Year. But the Russian Tea Room for Best Reopening? Those manipulated blurbs must be working. [TONY]

Talk about gross dereliction: The Department of Health, it turns out, ignored complaints about that KFC–Taco Bell for two months before sending an inspector — who did such a bad job that she would have been fired had she not just quit. [NYP]

Mediavore

3/28/07

10:07 AM

Activists to Have It Their Way at Burger King; Classic Kitchen Pranks

Burger King swears off cage eggs and inhumanely treated pork — although it will be a while before its suppliers can catch up with the new policy. [NYT]

New York molecular-gastronomy alert: Spanish neurologist-scientist-chef Dr. Miguel Sanchez Romera is scoping out NYC locations — must have greenhouse. [NYP]

Cafe Fonduta’s ordeal with the Department of Health highlights the overall klutziness of the system. [NYO]

Mediavore

3/27/07

9:56 AM

Worst Celebrity Tip Ever; San Gennaro All Done?

If the community board’s street-events committee has its way, the San Gennaro festival may get the boot from Little Italy. [NYDN]

Jeremy Piven is now banned from all Nobu restaurants for taking a table for twelve in Aspen and then tipping the waiter with an Entourage DVD. [Jewtastic]

A morbid look, inspired by the DeMarco’s tragedy, at the history of restaurant shootings and their aftermaths. [NYS]

NewsFeed

3/23/07

2:00 PM

Matt Weingarten Bids Savoy Adieu, Brings His Lamb Sandwich to Midtown

St. Bart's terrace, future home of Matt Weingarten.Photo: Jed Egan

The last time we heard about Matt Weingarten, the bespectacled, red-bearded chef’s first restaurant, Porcupine, had gone belly up, and he had brought his checked pants and his knives to Savoy as chef de cuisine. But Weingarten, an intellectual type who thinks about food night and day, couldn’t be contained forever, and he will be leaving Savoy in early April to head up Café St. Bart’s, the terrace restaurant attached to St. Bartholomew’s Church at Park and 50th. Weingarten will be consulting on the food this summer and in the fall remaking the menu as executive chef. What can diners expect? “Well, there won’t be any foams,” he says. “I’m not a molecular-gastronomy kind of cook. Everything will be very simple and classic.” He does assure us that he will be bringing with him the leg-of-lamb sandwich with prune-hyssop butter that he has carted around with him since Porcupine. Good. We were worried.

Café St. Bart’s, 109 E. 50th St., at Park Ave.; 212-888-2664.

More: NewsFeed »cafe st. bart's, lamb, matt weingarten, midtown east, molecular gastronomy, porcupine, savoy

Mediavore

3/ 7/07

9:34 AM

City Against New Rat Weapon; Fatty Crab Gets Liquor License, Special Cocktails

Some restaurant owners want to bring in garbage disposals as a weapon in the war on rats, but the city won’t allow it, claiming that the sewer system would be overwhelmed. [Nation's Restaurant News]

Fatty Crab gets a liquor license and some original cocktails to go with it; meanwhile, McDonald’s will be giving away free coffee all day tomorrow. [NYS]

Ernest Gallo, co-founder with his brother Julio of the much-maligned but enormously successful California winery, dies at 97. [NYT]

More: Mediavore »fatty crab, josh dechellis, mcdonald's, molecular gastronomy, rats, sumile sushi, trans fats, wine

Mediavore

2/28/07

10:00 AM

KFC–Taco Bell Inspector Suspended; Whole Foods Ain’t What It Used to Be

City suspends the rookie health inspector that passed KFC–Taco Bell, promises to teach its inspectors how to recognize rodent infestation. [NYP]

Whole Foods has gotten bigger but not better, losing focus on food quality and its moral mission. [NYT]

Here’s a pretty detailed retelling of the Chodorow saga, sympathetic to the restaurateur, but also giving the critics their say. Drew Nieporent speaks on behalf of the hapless restaurant owners. [NYS]
Related: We Ask Jeffrey Chodorow If He’s Been Feeling Well Lately
The Gobbler Responds to Mr. Chodorow’s Broadside [Grub Street]

The Annotated Dish

2/27/07

11:00 AM

Varietal’s ‘Meditation in Purple’: Need We Say More?

Jordan Kahn, the pastry chef at Varietal, is “the pastry chef in New York right now,” as one of his peers recently told us. Today's Annotated Dish, “Meditation in Purple,” was informed by the writings of the immortal French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. “Purple is the color of inspiration,” Kahn says. “I wanted to make a dessert that would inspire. And one that, if you tasted it, you could tell was purple.” Mouse over the arrows to hear about each element.

More: The Annotated Dish »molecular gastronomy, varietal

NewsFeed

2/13/07

11:00 AM

Tiptoe Through the Molecules With Me ...

Inside? Spam.Photo courtesy Chow

The phrase “molecular gastronomy” has been thrown around a lot recently, most often in reference to high-tech, high-concept cookery practiced by pointy-haired runner-up Marcel Vigneron on Top Chef. Chow’s currently showing a slideshow that breaks down the art as practiced by one of its greatest masters, Grant Achatz of Chicago restaurant Alinea.

More: NewsFeed »chow, marcel vigneron, molecular gastronomy, top chef, wd-50

Back of the House

2/ 8/07

10:00 AM

Alan Yau Isn't Coming After All; There's Always the Bronx

Ian Schrager finally admits that Alan Yau isn't coming to New York after all: "The challenges of coordinating our preparations across three continents were ultimately out of sync with our timeline." [NYP]

So it took the Poughkeepsie Journal to bring New York its first detailed feature on the current food culture of the Bronx. [Poughkeepsie Journal]

A report on the convention of the world's leading molecular gastronomists in Milan. [LAT]

More: Back of the House »alan yau, ed levine, fireside, molecular gastronomy, regina schrambling, restaurant girl, sam demarco, the bronx

Back of the House

2/ 6/07

9:56 AM

Would-Be Arepa Mogul; IRS Hungry for Restaurant Dough

As the Treasury Department starts looking around for new sources of revenue, restaurants should be afraid. Very afraid. [Foodservice Blog/Nation's Restaurant News]

Arepas: not just sold by some lady under the El tracks at midnight. A Colombian immigrant aims to make them the new bagel. [NYT]

Newsday's Erica Marcus explains this whole "molecular gastronomy" thing alluded to on Top Chef. [Newsday]

More: Back of the House »arepas, joel robuchon, koreatown, molecular gastronomy, pizza

Back of the House

1/16/07

9:56 AM

Startling Results of a Franco-American Summit; Queens Restaurant's Mob Ties

French journalists and top N.Y. chefs and food personalities meet at Franco-American gastronomy summit. The consensus? The world needs fewer haute restaurants, more steakhouses, and to go to war to protect foie gras. [Bloomberg]
Related: Le Binge, Gael Greene's account of her French eat-a-thon. [NYM]

The city contracted with the nephew of a former acting Gambino boss to run Caffe on the Green, Bayside’s answer to Tavern on the Green. This on the heels of the news that the Colombo family and the Russian mob together operate a golf course in Brooklyn. [NYP]

There are apparently a number of people who are enthusiastic about food and travel around constantly sampling it. Among these are Jane and Michael Stern, Chowhound's Jim Leff, and a guy who works for a management and technology consulting firm. Who knew? [NYT]

Chow provides a sorely needed molecular-gastronomy cheat sheet, which not only explains
spherification but even tells you how to pronounce the names of the movement’s major
exponents. [Chow]

A relatively inexpensive cooking school established in Westchester, boasting a 100 percent placement rate. Now about those wages … [7online]

The question of what constitutes “true Japanese” food to be settled once and for all, when the Japanese External Trade Organization begins certifying restaurants. [Mainichi Daily News]

More: Back of the House »caffe on the green, chowhound, foie gras, jane stern, japanese, jim leff, michael stern, molecular gastronomy, westchester

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