saturday, september 20th, 2008

Chef Carlo Cracco, of Milan's Ristorante Cracco: Seafood Salad

This week I attended the International Starchefs Congress which took place in the Park Avenue Armory in New York. The space is raw and massive and I thought it a fitting reflection for what the organizers were trying to capture: a kitchen without boundaries. It was a dynamic conference to be sure, with a shiny celebrity chef around every corner. The lineup on the main stage included, among others, Heston Blumenthal, Marco Pierre White, Anthony Bourdain, Grant Achatz, Charlie Trotter, Masaharu Morimoto, Daniel Boulud, Carlo Cracco, Enrique Olvera, Rick Moonen and Marcus Samuelsson.

Main Stage discussions included Blumenthal's demo of Bacon and Egg Ice Cream along with Sound of the Sea, two dishes that I helped bring to The Fat Duck's tables when I was a stage there. Sound of the Sea includes a conch shell accompaniment with an Ipod tucked inside that plays a melody of crashing waves and screaming gulls as the customer eats their course of seaweed, shellfish and foam, suspended on a glass rectangle above a layer of edible sand. I always thought it a bit gimicky to see the waiters rush to the tables with massive conch shells in their hands during service, but it plays into the restaurant's exploration of providing their guests a multi-sensory experience. Heston played a show previously aired on the BBC that explored his quest for Christmas; particularly, the search for frankincense, gold and myhr.

His journey took him to the far reaches of the world and culminated in a holiday dinner that included a spoon carved out of the myhr tree (the chef found myhr too bitter to incorporate as a taste element into the meal), a bar of gold leaf that dissolved into a sparkling soup, and a garnish of frankincense. Not wanting the audience to feel left out, the chef sent the aroma of frankincense out into the crowd with the help of dry ice. He also tucked a packet under each chair containing a sheet of frankincense that dissolved on the tongue and must be how it tastes to lick the flesh of a tree dripping with sap (not that I've ever done this, or at least would ever admit to having done this). The packet also contained an ivory disc that resembled a communion wafer. Having had more than my share of these pasted to the roof of my mouth when I got bored as a kid and started playing around with them at church after communion, it was a bit disconcerting that the wafer was meant to smell and taste like a freshly washed baby. If a freshly washed baby tastes like soap stirred up with silly putty, dusted with talcum powder, than this is exactly what it tasted like.

Heston Blumenthal of Bray's The Fat Duck: Sending Aroma Into the Crowd

Workshops were also woven into the agenda and were broken down into Savory, Pastry, Tasting, Mixology and Business themes. I registered for the business classes but as I watched my friend Liz-whose arm I twisted to attend the conference with me- sit down to a field of wine glasses or shot glasses for her classes, I must admit to a little jealousy. That being said, the floor of the conference hall included enough wine and liquor tastings, along with a free-flowing Belgian beer garden, to satiate a group consisting mainly of chefs-enough said. My favorite thing on the floor during the conference-besides what I suspect was every cheese wheel contained in the whole of France, and Spain too-was a gorgeous leg of Iberico. I could have stood there all day consuming the grapefruit hued slices of ham that melted elegantly into acorn silk the moment they met the tongue's heat. I loved that man with his knives and his porky limb of bliss.

Hi Pretty: Iberico

Lunch was hosted by a different chef each day, including a Spanish tapas theme from Jose Andres and his team. Missing my days in the kitchen, Liz and I hopped in to help the Andres group with lunch prep and while it left my poor friend with a pool of watermelon juice in her shoe, due to my mad rush to prep 1200 servings of tomato and watermelon cubes for a gazpacho, it was fun to be back in the thick of it again.

One of the themes of this year's conference was sustainability-a welcome buzz word if ever there was one-and while it was virtuous of them to promote it, I found is a bit hypocritical that even as chefs such as Rick Moonen and Barton Seaver spoke eloquently about the global seafood crisis we currently face, all of our lunch boxes, serving utensils, plastic plates and plastic cups were thrown away without a thought to recycling. It seemed an ideal metaphor for the cheapness of words, without action to back them up.

On a brighter note, the first day ended on the main stage with a conversation between Marco Pierre White, Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman. I'm a huge fan of White Heat, Devil in the Kitchen and Kitchen Confidential-who isn't?- and could barely contain my excitement-much to poor Liz's chagrin-when Marco and Tony-who I will call by their first names in order to pretend they are close personal friends of mine-stepped onto the stage. I shamelessly took their pictures as they engaged in what I considered the best conversation of the conference.

Michael Ruhlman, Marco Pierre White, Tony Bourdain

Marco is clearly not a fan of the modern Michelin 3 star restaurant, which he referred to as a "temple of gastronomy." Ruhlman-I'm not as close to him as I am to Tony and Marco and must reference him by his last name- moderated a conversation in which Marco expressed his disgust at multi-course tasting menus. "They're ridiculous. I'm over it." He feels that a restaurant that offers a customer nothing but a tasting menu makes it easy for the chef, because they are then able to dictate to the customer what they will eat. When a menu is ala carte, the customer is put in control and dictates to the chef what he must prepare. A never-ending tasting menu makes the chef the star of the show, instead of making the guest feel that they are the most important person in the restaurant.

Marco vehemently hates this concept, recalling a time when he sat down to an 18 course tasting menu that he felt would never end. When he asked the server what course he was on, as he had lost track, the waiter said something to the effect of, "This is course 22, the chef threw in a few extra for you." He feels that a tasting menu creates a one-dimensional experience. The bottom line for him is that going to a restaurant should be about eating, not about having to impress the waiter, or about having the waiter tell the customer how they must eat their food. Accept that mother nature is the artist behind it all and don't try to manipulate food to such a degree that it's no longer recognizable.

He also lamented the three star restaurants where chefs are no longer in their kitchens cooking. Personally, I have had an experience like this, where I never saw the chef who was supposed to be the man behind the food. It frustrated me that he is celebrated even though he rarely steps into his restaurant. I could relate to Marco's point that a chef who has earned three Michelin stars should be in their kitchen cooking. Modern chefs have become more CEO than Executive Chef. Marco felt so passionately about this that when he became unbearably frustrated with the demands of upholding the three stars he himself had earned, he gave them up and stepped out of his kitchen. Quite a statement indeed.

He said that eating should be about the romance of food. The process should not intimidate, or make a customer feel uncomfortable. He gave examples of Michelin three star chefs who are still in their kitchens cooking, as they should be. He said the best advice he ever received as a young cook who stepped timidly into his first three star restaurant was that a Michelin three star stove was exactly the same as the one in a starless kitchen, and that if he wanted to get anywhere in his career, he needed to attack the stove, no matter how many stars it had.

A woman in the audience stood up and asked Marco to give an example of a chef in their 20s who has earned three stars and is still cooking in their kitchen, instead of galavanting around the world promoting themselves, and Marco, who is famously known for being a little (understatement) arrogant, replied, "There are no Michelin three star chefs in their 20s. The youngest chef to ever earn three stars was 33...and that was me."

Marco is also renowned for his temper-he's the one who named his memoir "Devil in the Kitchen" after all-and when Norman Van Aiken asked him how he felt about tyrant chefs, he replied that he doesn't feel it's necessary to be a beast in the kitchen. The crowd went silent-everyone recalling the infamous stories of some of the world's most famous chefs weeping like babies in the corner of Marco's kitchen-and as if Marco knew exactly what we were all thinking, he replied, with a wicked grin spread across his crinkled face, "Gordon made himself cry." Everyone laughed and Marco closed the discussion by reiterating his feelings about tasting menus, saying that he doesn't want to leave the restaurant a bloated gas bag after consuming a meal for four or five hours. What he wants is a single course, cooked perfectly. He wants to know the chef behind the name is in the kitchen cooking his heart out.

Another final question came from the audience about arrogant chefs and Marco, as he did with the tyrant question, said he felt their was no need for it. Ruhlman wouldn't let the chef off the hook, however, and asked him, "But you're famous for being arrogant, aren't you?" The chef was stunned to silence for  a moment and then he grinned, "But at least I've never been so arrogant as to serve an 18 course meal." It was a comical end to an engaging discussion. Tony contributed a few pearls too but the hour was clearly about Marco-something I'm sure the neither chef would not object to.

I agreed with so much of what Marco had to say and while there were a few points I would object to, I agree that a chef should be cooking in their kitchen. So many seem hell-bent these days on creating mini-empires for themselves and I wonder what this says about them? Why does anyone want to create a brand? In the end, the motivation for this seems to always come down to money. I would rather have a simple meal cooked for me by a chef whose prime motivation is to create something sublime for his customer, than to pad a chef's wallet with the $175 I just left for an 18 course tasting menu-especially when he's not even in his own restaurant.

Grant Achatz of Chicago's Alinea

The conference ended with a presentation by Grant Achatz, who seemed incensed by what Marco Pierre White had to say two days earlier. He said he felt that Marco was roasting a few of the chefs in the audience, and he might have a point. Achatz also countered Marco's disdain for tasting menus, saying that he feels there is nothing wrong with creating an experience for the diner dictated by the chef ,and that food that is manipulated into something nearly unrecognizable is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it still tastes good. He believes that this is where the artistry of cooking comes in.

It was a good counterpoint to Marco, but my objection to Achatz's argument came when he said that sometimes, when a diner at his Chicago-based restaurant Alinea is presented with certain courses on the tasting menu, they feel intimidated or uncomfortable, such as when they are told to eat their food with their mouths without the use of fingers or a utensil. He said that  he sees nothing wrong with intimidating his customers and he wants them to leave their meal at Alinea feeling confused about what they just experienced.

There is no doubt that Alinea's food is inspired, is artistry on the plate, and Achatz can't be faulted for being an absent chef-he showed up at his restaurant nearly every single day during his battle with cancer-but I disagree with his point that it's alright for a diner to feel intimidated. The fact that Achatz could not explain why it's alright for a customer to feel uncomfortable after a meal at Alinea, or, for that matter, what would motivate him to want to make his customer feel this way, I felt proved Marco's point that a chef who presents theater to the diner in place of an approachable meal, wants the experience to be all about the chef, as opposed to customer focused. 

A Course from the Tasting Menu at Alinea

It was a healthy, lively debate and I can see both sides of the argument. I actually wished that the two chefs could have engaged in this dialogue face to face. After I thought about both sides of the argument for a while I decided that I feel there is room for both types of dining experiences in our food-obsessed culture. If you're looking for theater one night, head to Alinea, and if you want to tuck into a perfectly prepared venison loin on another night, set your course for Marco's restaurant The Yew Tree. We're fortunate that there is enough room in our vast gastronomic universe for both types of restaurants, but I must admit, I did love that it brought these two great chefs to the debate table.

Clo, Time Warner Center

I intended to conclude my experience at the Starchefs Congress with a little wine tasting at the wine bar Clo in the Time Warner Center. It was a festive way to wash down a three day culinary extravaganza. When a friend from the congress called and asked if I wanted to meet for dinner at Christopher Lee's restaurant Gilt in The Palace Hotel, I couldn't refuse. I adamently told Liz that I simply must head home following dinner. Knowing me too well at this point-we've shared many adventures in our short friendship-she just grinned. When Lee and his crew from Gilt asked if we were going to the Congress's after-party, I stubbornly said no, followed a minute later with a yes. Note to self: just say no to after-parties. Second note to self: just say hell no to after-after parties. But that's a story for another time...or never.