What happens when you take Brussels and Brabant classic dishes, deconstruct them and then reinvent them? Can tradition meet modernity? Can humble ingredients steal the show in a top class restaurant? And what happens if you get two foreign chefs from France and Portugal to help you reinterpret these dishes at a six hands dinner. That is what happened last Tuesday at Bon Bon restaurant in Woluwe Saint Pierre, a commune in Brussels.Two Michelin star chef Christophe Hardiquest invited the inventive Inaki Azipitarte, chef of the famous Parisian restaurant Le Chateaubriand and Leonardo Perreira, formerly at Noma and now about to embark on a new journey in Porto as he prepares to open his restaurant there. Bon Bon was recently in the news as it will host 20 of the world's best chefs at the first ever Gelinaz! Headquarters event taking place on 10 November. Inaki certainty needed no introduction. He is famed for starting off the bistronomy movement in Paris which was considered one … [Read more...]
Archives for September 2016
Dan Brennan: ‘Time makes the wine’ and time makes a wine career
Isabel Gilbert Palmer interviews Daniel Brennan, an American who has settled in New Zealand and is working to do something different with wines in Hawkes Bay. His advice to anyone taking a step towards a winemaking career is to be ready to work hard and not make much money for a very long time. He says its important to work with people who have the same mindset as yours and are passionate. Here is his story. Lets begin with a timeline Dan. What year did you come to New Zealand and specifically why? 2008 to study Wine Science at the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) in Hawkes Bay. Where do you live and from where did you come from originally ? I live in Hawkes Bay. I am New York-born, and grew up in Philadelphia in a Sicilian-Irish family. What brought you from the East Coast of USA not exactly known for wine growing to the East Coast of New Zealand and Hawkes Bay, well known for it? I can answer that partly with a question for you. Do you think tasting a wine … [Read more...]
Innovation and new trends are the main themes of final day of Chef Sache
Many people sometimes tend to forget that the most essential element of cooking is time. And for Taiwanese chef Andre Chiang of Restaurant Andre, time means fermentation. He is on a mission to try and create a new experience in the restaurant by serving fermented juice for those who don't feel like drinking wine. "All the best restaurants in the world have invested so much on produce, technique, cutlery, equipment, service, wine and interior design but we have forgotten those who don't want to drink wine in a restaurant for one reason or another," he said. His presentation was one of the highlights of the second day of Chef Sache, the avantgarde Cologne cuisine festival which celebrated its 10th anniversary this edition. The day focused on innovations taking place in the different restaurants around the world. The lineup on the second day included Albert Adria of El Bulli fame as well as the first ever French chef to make a presentation at Chef Sache, Alexandre Gauthier from … [Read more...]
Jordi Roca takes centre stage at Chef Sache on first day
Jordi Roca, one of the three Roca brothers of the world renowned restaurant El Celler de Can Roca in Girona took centre stage at Chef Sache, the Cologne avant garde cuisine festival. He spoke about what goes into the creative process at El Celler de Can Roca and the importance they attach to innovation and creativity and was the highlight of the day as could be seen from the crowd that gathered to take photos with the pastry chef at the end of his presentation on creativity and the creative process at the restaurant that is celebrating 30 years this year. Also on stage on the first day of Chef Sache was Poul Andrias Zizka, chef of Faroe Islands restaurant KOKS and Jonnie and Therese Boer from De Librije. The first international chef to take the stage was Poul who spoke about his cuisine in the Faroe Islands, a remote group of islands north of Denmark where as he himself said has more sheep than people. Here he focuses mainly on seafood and fish which reaches the restaurant 15 … [Read more...]
Weekly roundup of great reads on food and wine #89
How Tech Companies Disrupted Silicon Valley’s Restaurant Scene: It wasn’t so long ago that the aroma of Moroccan spiced prawns and wood-oven pizzas wafted out to a downtown street here from the open-air patio of a once popular eatery called Zibibbo. Today that patio is behind locked doors, obscured by frosted glass. The pizza oven is gone. The formerly crowded bar has been converted into a sparsely populated start-up space of a dozen engineers, their bikes and whiteboards. After 17 years in operation, the restaurant closed in 2014. The space is now an American Express venture capital office and a start-up incubator. The building blocks of Japanese cuisine: When it comes to Japanese food, we’ve reached beyond the fifties-era soy sauce, sukiyaki, and tempura and the seventies-era sushi, sashimi, and miso. Now, in this fermentation-crazed time, we are ready to step up our understanding of the building blocks of Japanese cuisine on our way to appreciate how the sauces used in Japanese … [Read more...]
Chefs Revolution: Creativity and the importance of terroir the focus on final day
Creativity, innovation and the importance of the terroir where the chefs work was the main focus of the presentations that took place on the second day of Chefs Revolution that took place on Monday in Zwolle. The Dutch avant-garde festival organised by Jonnie and Therese Boer of the restaurant and hotel De Librije in Zwolle and Port Culinaire (who will also be organising Chef Sache in Cologne this weekend), this year brought together a very interesting international lineup of chefs. While the focus on the first day was the importance that vegetables are playing in today's high end kitchens, the second day brought an array of chefs who are really focusing on their terroir to create something unique and special. The first to take the stage was the Russian chef Vladimir Mukhin of Moscow based restaurant White Rabbit. The Russian chef gave a very interesting presentation of what is happening in Russia at the moment and his bid to rediscover the flavours that Russia had lost because … [Read more...]
‘I never expected to get to where I am today” – Mauro Colagreco on 10 years of Mirazur
Mauro Colagreco is celebrating 10 years of his award-winning restaurant Mirazur this year. But as he himself says, he never expected to achieve what he has managed to achieve in the past 10 years. "These 10 years have been amazing and have gone way beyond my expectations," he told Food and Wine Gazette in an interview at Chefs Revolution in Zwolle last weekend. He arrived in France with nothing except a telephone and a friend of a friend. He had trained to be a chef in Argentina. In France he went to work in Burgundy to work with Bernard Loiseau at his restaurant in the Côte d’or. He stayed there for one and a half years. After the tragic death of Bernard Loiseau in February 2003, Mauro decided to move to Paris to work at L’Arpege, the legendary restaurant run by Alain Passard. He stayed there for a year and a half and he considers this time as the one which allowed him to develop his own sense of creativity, attention to detail and imagination. Mauro also worked with Alain Ducasse … [Read more...]
Chefs focus on vegetables and sustainability on first day of Chefs Revolution in Zwolle
Vegetables took the centre stage on the first day of the third edition of Chefs Revolution, an event organised by Therese and Jonnie Boer of De Librije Restaurant in the Netherlands and the team at Port Culinaire in Zwolle. Jonnie Boer, Magnus Ek, Eneko Atxa and Mauro Colagreco delivered splendid presentations on their approach to cooking at the Spiegel Theatre in this beautiful Dutch city. On a sunny day, over 1,500 turned up to Chef's Revolution to listen to what these chefs had to say about the state of gastronomy today and also see them present their cuisine during live cooking presentations. Jonnie Boer, Magnus Ek and Mauro Colagreco put the spotlight on vegetables and they all seemed to be in agreement that in future people will have to eat less protein if we are to ensure a sustainable future. On that same theme was Eneko Atxa's presentation who spoke about the philosophy behind Azurmendi and the holistic approach of the restaurant to sustainability. Jonnie Boer, … [Read more...]
Gelinaz! headquarters descends on Brussels: 20 of world’s best chefs to cook together on 10 November
Brussels will be turned into the gastronomic capital of the world on 10 November as Gelinaz!, the collective of chefs from around the world organises what it is calling the first ever Gelinaz! Headquarters in Brussels. 20 among today's most creative culinary talents in the world will be descending in Brussels to create a 4x3 hour long dinner and much more. No details have been released except for the names of the chefs which will make food lovers in Brussels salivate at the thought of having some of the world best chefs cooking in Brussels. The chefs that will come to Brussels to join the only Brussels based chef Christophe Hardiquest of Bon Bon include the two Belgian chefs Kobe Desramaults (In De Wulf) and Geert de Mangeleer (Hertog Jan). Also participating in the event are Davide Scabin (Combal Zero, Italy), Claude Bosi (Hibiscus, London), Petter Nilsson (Spritmuseum, Sweden), Yannick Alleno (Alleno, Pavillon Ledoyen, France), Kristian Baumann (Restaurant 108, … [Read more...]
Humphrey Restaurant (Brussels): A welcome addition to the Brussels restaurant scene
Many of today's most influential chefs have one thing in common. They have all spent time working in Ferran Adria's kitchen. Massimo Bottura, Rene Redzepi, Grant Achatz to mention just a few of the most creative chefs around have spent time with the Spanish genius of el Bulli fame. Most of these chefs have gone on to develop their own style, their own philosophies and their own cuisine. There is no question that being mentored by a great chef has a lasting impact on your cooking style and also your philosophy, even if you depart from that approach. The new generation of chefs is also moving around from one restaurant to another gaining as much experience as possible benefiting from the 'globalisation' of haute cuisine. Just like the previous generation developed their own style and approach to cooking, the new generation is also making good use of the experience they have gained to take completely new directions. Chefs who were inspired by the inventiveness of Ferran Adria … [Read more...]