Christophe Hardiquest, chef of two Michelin star restaurant Bon Bon is fulfilling his dream of opening a bistro this summer albeit for just two months. He is opening Mon Bistro d'été by Christophe Hardiquest in the old Chez Marie restaurant in the Flagey area of Brussels. The restaurant had been closed for over two years. "A bistro is something fun. It is a great opportunity to work with new suppliers and produce new recipes away from the constraints and expectations of a fine dining restaurant. We don't want to raise expectations though we will use high quality products but differently. My aim is to work with new products which I am not accustomed to use at Bon Bon," the Belgian chef told Food and Wine Gazette in an interview. The chef has decided to open this pop-up restaurant instead of going for a two-month vacation while the restaurant kitchen of Bon Bon is completely refurbished in July and August. The new Bon Bon kitchen, which welcomed 19 chefs from across the whole of … [Read more...]
‘The possibilities are endless if we open the doors to fermented juices in restaurants’ – André Chiang
André Chiang is a chef that is revolutionising the way people drink at restaurants. While he has not necessarily set himself the goal of replacing what people drink at his restaurant André, he certainty wants to provide clients with something different. "The current restaurant system is not perfect. When you dine out in a fine-dining restaurant you want to enjoy the experience as much as you can. Normally I would choose a wine pairing because that is something I am familiar with. But when you are served wine with every dish, you end up skipping the wine because it is too much. And what do you have instead? The system is not perfect. If you have one wine and one fermented juice you feel better," he says. In an interview with Food and Wine Gazette, André said that when he started working on fermented juices four years ago he did it out of realisation that restaurant owners were spending so much effort on cutlery, music, tables, napkins, silverware but what do you drink in the best … [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...]
Rasmus Kofoed: You need to look for what is not obvious
Michelin inspectors have arrived at a restaurant in the Danish capital Copenhagen. Usually they would get away with anonymity but this time, Rasmus Kofoed and his team know that the persons dining at table are from the Michelin guide. How they realised is a story that has yet to be told but on that day, somehow, the staff at Geranium, the three Michelin star restaurant in Copenhagen knew they were serving Michelin inspectors. The tension must have been palpable. Not knowing that you are being inspected may keep you on tenterhooks every day but there is probably no feeling more intense for a chef to know that he is being tested on the spot particularly when so much is at stake. They serve razor clams and when the plate returns back to the kitchen, the chef and cooks realise that the edible clam shell has been left intact. So they ask the service team to send another set of razor clams to tell them that the shells are edible. Rasmus Kofoed tells Food and Wine Gazette in an … [Read more...]
Interview with Fulvio Pierangelini: ‘It is time to relearn everything’
Among food lovers of a certain age, Fulvio Pierangelini needs no introduction. Only a few years ago, he was considered to be one of the most influential if not the most influential Italian chef of the 2000s. He has left a very important impact on the food world and has advocated collaboration and exchange between chefs for at least 10 years at a time when this was unheard of. So when Fulvio says that it is time for us to relearn everything about food we should sit and listen and also reflect on the state of the food and wine world today. "In history, there was a time when the rich were fat and the poor were thin. Today, the opposite is the case and we need to ask ourselves why this is the case and whether this is good because clearly we have a problem," he says. "We have reached a stage where we need to relearn everything. We need to have more respect for ingredients, all ingredients. People may feel sorry for a lobster or a lamb but ultimately we need to remember that even a … [Read more...]
Albert Adrià and the new Enigma restaurant: ‘An enigma for me, for my staff and for my clients’
Mention the surname Adrià to any food lover and they will immediately think of el Bulli, the iconic restaurant of Ferran Adrià near the town of Roses, in Catalonia, Spain. In that same restaurant, his brother Albert was working magic in the pastry section. Together they helped put Spanish cuisine on the world gastronomy map creating what is probably the most famous restaurant in the world. At its peak, it had 400 requests for every table in the restaurant which opened for only six months per year. They shocked the culinary world when they decided to close the restaurant in 2011 but as Albert says, "we had to kill the monster before it killed us". That restaurant, which defined molecular gastronomy and influenced most of the leading chefs in the world today closed its doors in 2011 and was running at a loss each year. The roles today have changed. Albert, is the face of el Barri, their restaurant empire in Barcelona that has opened a number of highly successful including the … [Read more...]
Q&A with Christophe Hardiquest (Bon Bon)
Christophe Hardiquest, chef of Brussels 2 Michelin star restaurant Bon Bon will this week be hosting 19 chefs from across Europe from Albert Adria to Fulvio Pierangelini, Davide Scabin to Enrico Crippa, Mauro Colagreco to Magnus Ek. Following our extensive interview which you can read here, this is a question and answer interview from our series where we get to know a bit more about the chefs we interview. Who would you consider to be your mentors? Alain Passard. He is a good friend of mine. I would describe him as a genius of simplicity. I love his power. He works with contrast. I really like him and his personality. I also like Pierre Gagnaire. He is a real artist, a crazy artist. His career is crazy. When you read his book and where he is coming from, you can understand his story. Your best meal ever? Alain Passard. With several simple things. Who are the new chefs to watch in Belgium I would mention three young chefs from the Flemish part of Belgium. Tim … [Read more...]
‘A chef is an artist with sensibility’ – Christophe Hardiquest
When Christophe Hardiquest moved his restaurant from Uccle to Woluwe Saint Pierre in Brussels six years ago, little did he know the difficulty he would face in the first few months to replicate the cuisine that clients were accustomed to at his old restaurant. That story still gives him goosebumps though he has benefitted from that experience. Today, six years later, the Belgian chef is embarking on a new approach to his cuisine with the aim of restoring the identity of Brussels cuisine, of rebuilding the tastes and flavours that are synonymous with the Belgian capital city, while reinventing them as you would expect from the chef of a high-end restaurant. “I started to think that we had lost our identity but it is now coming back. I do not want to offer a Parisian cuisine in Brussels just because we are close to Paris. I don’t want to do this anymore,” Christophe told Food and Wine Gazette in an interview. Like many others, Christophe realised that the more you travel and the … [Read more...]
Vladimir Mukhin (White Rabbit): The future of gastronomy is glocalisation
Vladimir Mukhin, Russian chef of White Rabbit, the Moscow restaurant that has taken the gastronomic world by storm over the past years is on a mission to make Russian tastes known globally. Born to a family of chefs, he jokes that he was born in the kitchen. Both his mother and father were chefs and so was his grandmother. His grandfather was a teacher in a culinary school and the Russian chef recalls how he started to cook with his grandfather from 5pm to 7pm after school. Mukhin is on a mission to showcase the best of Russian traditions. "The national culture for chefs is the future of gastronomy. We will be going towards what I call glocalisation," he says. "The cooking techniques may be global but we need to find the best recipes and the best tastes of Russia and share it," he says. That is not easy for a young chef born in 1983. "The taste of the Soviet Union in the 1980s was mayonnaise. The people of the Soviet Union only remember this one taste and it killed Russian … [Read more...]
Virgilio Martinez (Central): ‘I find inspiration by listening. We need to listen more’
In today's fast world we do not listen enough. And that is a problem for people in all walks of life. Virgilio Martinez, chef of Central, the restaurant in Lima, Peru says he finds inspiration from people. "I find inspiration by listening. We don't listen enough but listening is very healthy. We listen too much to ourselves. As a chef, you sometimes start to take decisions without listening to people," the Peruvian chef told Food and Wine Gazette in an interview at Chef's Revolution in Zwolle recently. Virgilio is the chef of Central, the restaurant in Lima that is the 'Best restaurant' in Latin America and 4th restaurant in the World's 50 Best Restaurants list. The Peruvian chef is considered to be one of the most influential chefs in Latin America if not the world and is known for using modern cooking techniques to make the best use of Peruvian ingredients. He is also heavily influenced by the landscape and ecosystem. With Peru's dramatic changes in its terrain in a relatively … [Read more...]