Shisen Hanten’s signature steamed sliced kurobuta pork with chilli

Michelin-Star Singaporean Restaurant – renowned for high levels of food, and a view of Singapore from 35 levels high. LUX checks it out

Muted chandeliers, an almost debonair charm welcome one in – and the lights across night sky waving from fellow tall buildings, silhouetting the Singapore skyline.

Shisen Hanten’s Executive Chef, Chen Kentaro

We were served what is called the ‘Opulent Menu’ – something that Chef Kentaro likes to nimbly stretch across Szechwan cuisine with an embition menu, celebrating signature flavours of Shisen Hanten – a fusion, if you like – and traditional Cantonese flavours.

A fine Devaux Cuvée to start, to accompany a selection of (particularly succulent) prawn, pork and specially delicious bang bang chicken.

Next a Foie Gras Chawanmushi with Crab Roe soup. And the crab was so fresh that some guests, who didn’t like tripe, enjoyed these just fine.

Shisen Hanten’s Foie Gras Chawanmushi with Crab Roe Soup

But the freshness of a Wagyu Beef rose above itself, complimented by a glass of Torbreck. Tender, and served across an array of dishes.

Shisen Hanten is located on the thirty-fifth floor in Orchard, Singapore

Steamed lobster was cooked confidently, amply seasoned with its Yuzu soya sauce – retaining its juicy tenderness, and matched confidently by an Australian Chardonnay of a calm dry and the stir-fried tofu had a signature Singaporean fire unmatched.

Chef Chen’s Original Spicy Noodle Soup

Night was closing in, lights were beginning to turn out in the disciplined buildings of Singapore, but time for just one Szechwan jelly with delicious fresh fruit. One last sip of Chardonnay, before descending the many flights to the heart of the city below.

Sakshi Chhabra Mittal is the founder and CEO of FoodHak, a startup revolutionising the food industry by combining science, tech and traditional Ayurvedic principles to make healthier meals more accessible to all. Here Sakshi, speaks to Samantha Welsh about starting an innovating company and the potential for food science

LUX: What were your first entrepreneurial steps?
Sakshi Chhabra Mittal: I started working with doctors while in a full time job, to create a health-focussed line of food that was anti-inflammatory, low glycaemic index, gluten-free, dairy-free and free from refined sugars. Their patients heard about this and asked to subscribe. This pushed me to do a soft launch from my home kitchen; intended to be one week, it stretched to over four months with strong demand (purely word of mouth) and nearly 100% retention. I then found a kitchen near my office, woke every day at 5am to start operations with a part-time chef, kitchen assistant and an operations team. We learned a lot, most importantly, if you are building a business in the D2C space, your product becomes your life!

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LUX: How did this evolve into a tech specialism?
SM: While I was studying for my MBA at Wharton in US, I was fascinated how tech can help scale science and business innovation. After graduating, I joined an early-stage tech VC where I invested in Babylon, Deliveroo and Darktrace, and was then invited to join SoftBank in Silicon Valley where I used my biotech training to invest in companies innovating in oncology, immunology, data science.

LUX: What brought about the pivot to food science?
SM: I had studied diseases professionally but personally I developed a rare liver breakdown during my first pregnancy. Known as OC, Obstetric Cholestasis recurs in subsequent pregnancies in more than 90% of cases. There is no known cause or cure but as our bodies are machines, science can offer answers, so I did clinical research into food types, changed my diet and managed to avoid OC recurring. I had found a gap in the market! Food science can help us potentially reduce chronic disease, relieve government healthcare budgets, live more sustainably, foster education in nutrition.

LUX: Clinical evidence links poor gut health with inflammation and disease; how does FoodHak’s proprietary tech bespoke complementary dietary solutions?
SM: We have built proprietary data models, taking all published clinical research on food, and making ingredient-disease links. This is our personalisation engine. We are launching personalisation features on our website, where people select meals according to their health goals, for example, to aid in adjusting cholesterol, blood pressure, immunity. We are also developing a personalised AI recipe generator App.

LUX: Tech or taste, what comes first?
SM: TASTE! Food is an experience, you have to get the taste right, everything else like lifestyle changes and customer retention follow on.

LUX: How does FoodHak fit within the fast-growing plant-based nutrition market and what is your USP?
SM: We are a first mover in the ‘food as medicine’ space. We bring clinical research to the table via delicious dishes that can help people live a long, disease-free life. Tech companies tell you what you should and shouldn’t eat based on data sets but none completes the loop and personalises food. Our proprietary data models create bespoke recipes, our AI recipe generator varies and extends choices. The market opportunity is the vast population suffering allergies, inflammation, sugar-related issues etc. FoodHak’s dishes are plant-based using around 30 varieties with superfoods. We focus on a low glycaemic index, being gluten free, dairy free, free from refined sugars, we use science and tech, and we deliver bespoked gourmet meals to your door!

LUX: How do you achieve operational efficiencies with this model?
SM: We use sophisticated food packaging technology where we heat seal food in pouches. This gives us a naturally longer shelf life on fresh food and helps us with our zero-food waste policy. Our customers enjoy the extra flexibility in the shelf life as well. This enables us to run large-scale batches in food manufacturing, which reduces workshifts, encourages less frequent deliveries, and so saves on operational costs.

LUX: How has working in diverse industries influenced your leadership style?
SM: We make a deliberate effort to interview women to join the company. I learnt from working in finance that if you don’t seek out women to join the company you will never have an equal opportunities workforce. Over 50% of our employees are women. I am also proud that virtually 100% of our workforce is diverse, including minorities and people from developing nations. Diversity of opinion around the table is critical to making the right decisions.

LUX: Has Covid changed corporate culture at FoodHak?
SM: I believe to build a strong culture and values from day 1 in a start-up is impossible with people working from home (WFH). The feeling of connection and ownership comes when you sit with your team and see them problem-solve in their respective areas. You see your product being made and packaged with love. You see the values exhibited by the senior leadership on a day-to-day basis. There is no reason to be WFH unless you really need to. It’s also important that each employee at FoodHak has equity from Day 1. They have a sense of ownership over the business, the product they are making, they want to come into work and give it their best shot to make the company succeed. We believe that the early employees have sacrificed so much to help build the product and they should be growing their wealth as the company grows.

LUX: How successful have you been in attracting investment?
SM: We went out to raise $5M but were oversubscribed and ended up extending the round. It became clear that our proposition is strong, the product is differentiated, and the time is now to lead the future development of food, which is not into fake meats or other processed alternatives. It is real food powered by science and tech. We have one of the best cap tables (possibly) in Europe, with Venture Capital firms like First Minute Capital, Urania Ventures, strategics like Holland and Barrett, and influential business angels like CEO of the Vision Fund, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, Jim Mellon, Jeremy Collar, Mervyn Davies, Lydia Jett and others!

Read more: Chef Rasmus Kofoed: The Vegetable King

LUX: How do you see tech continue to drive FoodHak’s success forward?
SM: We can use this tech to create any food in any category really quickly, while continuously adding variety on a weekly / monthly basis. We can also use ingredient swaps to create personalised recipes at scale. So, think of us as the new age, health-focussed, food conglomerate that’s powered by science and tech!

Find our more: foodhak.com

‘Meat Fruit (c.1430)’ is a signature dish of chicken-liver parfait set in mandarin gel, by Heston Blumenthal. Photo by John Scott Blackwell

As one of the world’s most recognised chefs, it’s easy to forget that Heston Blumenthal is the proprietor of two three-Michelin-star restaurants. He is a leader in resurrecting historic culinary dishes, and his equally famous approach to scientific cooking has led him to become an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry

LUX: How did you become interested in historic cuisine?
Heston Blumenthal: I went to Books for Cooks, the cookbook shop in Portobello in west London, to look at kids books, when I noticed a yellow paperback called The Vivendier. It was by Taillevent, who was the chef to the Palais-Royal in Paris in the 14th century; I only picked it off the shelf because Taillevent was the name of a three Michelin-star restaurant in Paris. The book fell open to a recipe on how to roast a chicken and bring it back to life.

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You take the chicken, you pluck it while it’s alive, then you pack it with wheat, German saffron and dripping, and apparently it makes it look like it’s cooked. You then put his head under its belly and rock it to sleep. Then you put it on a roasting platter with two roasted chickens and bring it into the great hall of your master – maybe a court jester’s jumping around – and you start carving the roasted chicken. Then you kill this poor thing and before you roast it, you stuff sulphur and mercury down its neck and – according to the recipe – when you roast it, it makes a clucking noise. So, you’d bring it back to life. I thought, “Well, my God, this is brilliant.” But I later learned that it was fake. The chefs in the châteaux were showing off to each other, so they’d just make up these recipes – there’s no evidence that anyone ever did them.

Chef Heston Blumenthal. Photo by John Scott Blackwell

So wouldn’t it be amazing if a modern chef with modern techniques didn’t actually replicate these recipes but took ideas from them? We started working with historians at Hampton Court Palace. The food historian Marc Meltonville said to me, “You might be interested in this: it’s called ‘Pommes d’Or’.” It was minced pork and veal formed into a ball, put on a spit, then basted with a parsley custard so it looked like an apple. That was where my inspiration for ‘meat fruit’ came from.

Eggs in Verjuice, after an 18th-century recipe

LUX: With so many options, can chefs be more creative now than in the past?
HB: I think our creativity is actually in danger. We live in a world where we’re so distracted and the paradox is that we invent things like the iPhone to make our lives easier, then we become slaves to them. They are incredible but they’re not as incredible as human beings. We’re in danger of losing the very essence of being human – and that’s imagination.

The dining-room at The Fat Duck

LUX: How does sustainability figure in your businesses?
HB: We go to see every farm and we make sure we’re carbon neutral. Everything gets used. All of the bits that we don’t serve goes to staff food.

Read more: Chef Yannick Alléno: The Innovator

We were one of the first restaurants ever to use day boats, because a couple of blokes on a fishing boat with a rod and line are not going to do any harm to the sea, unlike a big trawler with a net destroying the ocean floor. But the solution is not to stop eating fish.

The chef’s Botrytis Cinerea dessert. Photo by Jose Luis Lopez de Zubiria

LUX: Who do you cook for?
HB: Who am I cooking for? Me. The big-me to cook for the mini-me and the mini-me to cook for the big-me, both at the same time.

Heston Blumenthal is proprietor of two three-star restaurants, The Fat Duck, in the Berkshire village of Bray, and Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, in London. His other restaurants include The Hind’s Head, in Bray, and The Perfectionists’ Café, at Heathrow Terminal 2

Find out more: dinnerbyheston.co.uk

This article appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX

The entrance of Pavillon Ledoyen with an installation by Tadashi Kawamata

Yannick Alléno is one of France’s top chefs, famous as much for his drive and ambition as he is for his expertise with sauces. He is redefining haute cuisine with a combination of playful and seriously researched innovations while challenging the classics. Alléno is also introducing a revolutionary new concept of bespoke dining at his flagship restaurant, Pavillon Ledoyen, in Paris.

LUX: Tell us about what is going to change at your restaurants.
Yannick Alléno: I think that the luxury, first-class restaurant has to think about the way it picks its customer, so I created the ‘conciergerie de table’. The Michelin concept is that for three stars, it’s worth making the trip, taking the plane, but the restaurant with a ‘no choice menu’ is over. Today, the customer’s freedom is very important. Of course, the creativity is fantastic, but when you are a customer, you would like to make your own choices.

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LUX: Is this thinking just for you or is it going to be a trend everywhere?
YA: I think we need new models, even for the staff. Pastry chefs are stars now, but you miss 30 per cent of the restaurant when you say that – you are missing out the service staff and it is the service that has to be at the centre of the conversation today. Our vision is to push them. We have to work on the education of service staff in their schools. We are changing the way we cook for our customers. They often want the menu dégustation, but we must go deeper with their choices. For example, the concierge calls you and introduces himself as your host when you come to Paris. He needs to know why you’re coming – it could be a special occasion, such as your wife’s birthday. He would ask what type of flower she likes, and we would arrange to have some for her. You could say that your son is allergic to certain things, which needs to be discussed. It is easier to speak about these things in private and knowing them in advance means the chefs can work on them. These are the fine details you can get with this new way.

Chef Yannick Alléno

LUX: Can this only happen at three Michelin-star-level service?
YA: For the moment it’s a premier-class treatment. There is another advantage in that the same food is ordered for each table – you don’t have multiple preparations. The écologie, the financial way of the restaurant is very important.

LUX: Why hasn’t this happened before?
YA: There was a development in the 1970s and ’80s, which was a time of new ways of making food and plates became more and more sophisticated. Now, it is a time to think differently again and create the next generation of those kinds of restaurants. Service in the service of taste – this is how I would explain what we have to do.

LUX: So, you could have 60 couverts, each of them with a different dish?
YA: Yes, but the difference is that the energy in the kitchen is more controlled – you know in advance what you have to do, you have the right information. Instead of different information for 12–15 tables, and the chef going crazy, now they have in advance any details and know the situation for tables. When people arrive at 8.45pm, immediately the food is on the table, and you’re happy that the champagne is ready at the perfect temperature. You know it is all in good hands.

A dish created by Alléno for the Pavillon Ledoyen

LUX: Do you expect that you will start to invent new dishes in response?
YA: Yes. Let’s talk about a chicken dish. I can say to a chef, “Roast that chicken for our customers”, so two days before the customer dines I put cognac and vin jeune in the chicken’s mouth, and the inside becomes very perfumed. I don’t take anything out, I preserve everything in the kitchen. Before, I wouldn’t know how many chickens I’d have to save for one night, so I’d have to prepare it in advance. Today, I have time to cook the chicken for you. I want you to tell me it was the best chicken of your life – this is the key. In some restaurants, you don’t remember the taste – maybe the show, but not the taste. I prefer to give you a memory of the taste.

LUX: Can a new sauce be created by instruction, or is it completely personal?
YA: Sauce is the ‘verb’ of French cuisine. If you don’t have the verb, you can’t write the sentence. Without sauces, we can’t do any of our dishes. Sauces, for me, are 80 per cent of the success of your plate. You have to know how to make sauces, like a grand béarnaise. Creativity has to be founded on the real basics – the chef has to know how to create a fantastic base. We have just created the École de la Sauce. I say to the chefs and the professeur, it’s better that the young chefs learn the sauces first. A fantastic sauce will make a fantastic memory. This is the key to creativity.

The dining-room at Pavillon Ledoyen

LUX: When you were 15 and you started working, what did you dream of?
YA: I just wanted to cook. Nothing else. You have to remember it wasn’t the same as today – now you have TV, Instagram, and chefs are stars. I just wanted to work and my parents were happy because in that job you never missed food. In this city, this job allows you to do something with your life.

Today, I have to give young chefs and young female chefs a chance. I come from the Paris suburbs and it wasn’t easy to come to the middle of Champs-Élysées. I was not from that world. Today, it’s even harder. We have to tell them that they can actually do something and that we will help.

I have said to my team that I want 50/50 women and men on my team by 2023. We have to be open to anyone coming to enjoy their life in our restaurant. Of course, we have to take care of our business, but they are free to say: “Friday night, I can’t be here”, so we tell them they can come on Friday lunch and they have the opportunity to do their shift and take a night off. This is the key to helping a woman become a grand chef. There are not enough grand chefs because it is very tough to acquire the knowledge. But you can have a normal life and become a grand chef. Three days a week you can work at the three- star restaurant. I think this will be a big evolution for our business.

Read more: Chef Rasmus Kofoed: The Vegetable King

LUX: Has this last year, with the pandemic, softened you?
YA: Yes. How can I accommodate disabled people in my restaurants? We have to be a better restaurant. Not in terms of food, but in terms of social consideration. We have a lot of young chefs with motorbikes and one of them could have an accident and end up in a wheelchair. I’d never thought of making a space for him. Being disabled doesn’t mean that he can’t learn to cook. Why don’t we make a space for him to create his dishes? If we were to close the door because he’d had an accident, what kind of people would we be?

A dessert created by Alléno for the Pavillon Ledoyen

LUX: Do you think that sustainability is becoming more important?
YA: Yes. We have to push in that direction. We have to tell people we won’t buy their food because it’s not made naturally. If you sell it, you have to produce it correctly. Customers place their trust in us, and they want to be sure we can take care of this for them. It is our responsibility to do this.

Yannick Alléno is chef patron of the three- starred Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen in the French capital. His other restaurants include L’Abysse, in Paris, La Table, in Marrakech, Stay, in Seoul and Dubai, Le 1947 at Cheval Blanc, in Courchevel, and Pavyllon Monte-Carlo at the Hôtel Hermitage, in Monte-Carlo

Find out more: yannick-alleno.com

This article appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX

Chef Elena Arzak

Award-winning Basque chef Elena Arzak is the latest in a long line of chefs from the same family. Working in the same eponymous restaurant that her great-grandparents began as a tavern in San Sebastián, she creates innovative yet traditional dishes alongside her father, Juan Mari Arzak, who pioneered the New Basque cuisine in the 1970s

LUX: Tell us about your restaurant’s history.
Elena Arzak: The restaurant has existed since 1897, and I am a fourth generation chef. The restaurant has been in the same building in San Sebastián. When I was a little girl, I lived next to the restaurant, and I used to come round a lot during the summer holidays to visit my grandmother who was a chef, and my mother who also worked here. And to be with my father, who I have now worked with for 25 years.

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LUX: You travelled a lot. Has your cooking been inspired by any particular place?
EA: I’ve always maintained my family’s philosophy that travelling is a constant source of new ideas. You can get so many ideas in a small neighbouring village, as well as abroad. I like to visit other cultures because the food and ingredients that for them are familiar, for us they are new. And Basque cuisine has a code of flavours. I can pick up ideas and adapt them to my own code of flavours.

Elena Arzak’s ‘vacuno selado’, a salt beef dish

LUX: Is it correct that your father started the New Basque cuisine?
EA: Well, he started serving nouvelle cuisine in 1976 in Madrid. The Gourmet Review organised a round table where they invited young chefs from Spain and the French chefs Paul Bocuse and Raymond Oliver. My father and his colleague from the three-star restaurant Akelarre in San Sebastián were so impressed with what they heard that they came back to the Basque Country and started a cuisine revolution with a group of chefs. They corrected Basque recipes that were overcooked or made with poor ingredients. They started to introduce new flavours like exotic fruits and ones that were not Basque. And they wanted to get closer to the people in San Sebastián, who love to eat – they went round small villages speaking and giving cooking demonstrations, and sometimes they introduced special prices in the restaurants so that ordinary people could come.

LUX: Do you feel that you have a duty to encourage women?
EA: In Basque culture, women are very strong. When I was growing up, my grandmother was a chef, my mother worked in the restaurant and three quarters of the staff were women. I grew up thinking that this was normal. When I went abroad and I saw I was the only woman in a team of 40, I thought, what happened? Perhaps if I’d been born in another part of the world, I wouldn’t be talking with you now.

The restaurant building in San Sebastián

LUX: Has the core philosophy of Arzak changed much over the years?
EA: Yes. In the beginning, it was a popular traditional restaurant, a tavern. They served wine, Basque cider and a little bit of Basque food. Then my grandmother changed that style to modern Basque while always thinking of local traditions and flavours. We always like to be up to date – we don’t cook like we did 10 years ago, and we won’t cook the same in 10 years.

LUX: What trends do you see emerging in the next 20 years?
EA: Everybody wants to be eco-social and to be helping producers. For me, the future is going to be about a cuisine that looks simple but is not. There are trends in cuisine – before, we wanted “Wow”, “It’s spectacular”, we needed lights, and now it’s going to be calmer but very interesting.

LUX: How has the rise of sustainability affected you?
EA: Well, here we are very lucky because in San Sebastián there are many farmers who live nearby. But we don’t have curry in the Basque area, or Himalayan salt, and I like to use things like that, so what can I do? Spices have always been traded around the world. But for me, the most important thing is to support the local suppliers.

The dessert call ‘Enigma’

LUX: How has the pandemic affected your creativity in the kitchen?
EA: It affected our way of thinking, sleeping, behaving; everybody was in shock. I was so frightened, and if you are frightened you cannot create. But I said to myself that I am a chef and creating is what really makes me relax, so I will create, because it’s the one thing that is mine. I got a lot of positive ideas during this pandemic. My children like to drink infusions so I drank rooibos tea with vanilla with them, and now I want to do an ice cream.

Read more: Chef Ángel León: Ocean Sustainability Supremo

LUX: Which is your favourite of the dishes you’ve made?
EA: I remember the first plate I presented to my father. It was a tuna salad with strings of vegetables. I was 19 years old. For me it was a challenge and I was so nervous, and when he accepted my plate, that for me was the beginning of everything.

The restaurant’s dining room

LUX: Is there a favourite dish you have by another chef?
EA: The last plate that has really impressed me was by chef Andoni Luis Aduriz at his restaurant Mugaritz. He let me taste a dish called ‘How Long a Kiss Lasts?’ It’s a tongue of ice with sea-urchin cream at the tip.

LUX: Arzak has a strong family dynamic. What has that added to the restaurant?
EA: It has added personality and identity, and people know us. And there is, of course, a super team. Some of the staff worked with my grandmother – imagine that! Being a family business is a plus.

Find out more: www.arzak.es

This article appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX

Geranium Head Chef, Co-owner, Rasmus Kofoed. Photo Credit Claes Bech-Poulsen

Rasmus Kofoed, star chef of three Michelin-starred Geranium in Copenhagen, is influencing an entire generation of young chefs to feel confident in offering haute cuisine based on strictly vegetarian principles. During the pandemic, he temporarily opened Angelika, a restaurant within Geranium, with a wholly plant-based menu.

LUX: After bronze and silver, how important was it to you to finally win the Bocuse d’Or?
Rasmus Kofoed: I did it because I wanted to win; that was the first priority. Winning was great, but I enjoyed the process leading up to the competition very much. You develop, you create new ideas, you optimise what you do. It was everything around the competition that I enjoyed.

LUX: What did you change between winning the bronze in 2005 and the gold in 2011?
RK: I think I was more confident with what I loved to cook and eat myself. It was totally based on Nordic and Danish ingredients, like wild forest garlic, elderflowers and lump fish roe. We had just opened Geranium at the same time as I won the competition and a lot of the elements that I made at Geranium I used in the competition, just combining them in a new way.

desserts at Geranium including milk chocolate and rose hip petals, and chocolate egg and pine

LUX: Having won the gold, and with a three Michelin-star restaurant, do you have any unfulfilled ambitions left?
RK: Not really. Of course, I enjoy achieving those prizes, and the motivation is very good for the team as well, but I enjoy the training. I also enjoy the days which focus on the work leading up to creating a great experience for the guests. I don’t think about the awards when I’m here. I think more about how we can optimise everything and how we can work better with the team, and create a better work–life balance. That’s the priority. If you’re happy, it’s easier to make others happy.

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LUX: What does a better work–life balance for the team look like?
RK: We just focus on it a bit more. We did not let anyone go because we wanted to keep them; they are a part of the future and we believe in them. Another thing is to try to balance all the working hours, eat a lot of vegetables. They also have gym memberships and that’s very important. It’s not a secret – if you feel good, it’s easier to make others feel good.

The dining room at Geranium

LUX: Do you think that vegetarian restaurants like Angelika will be the way forward, given the climate crisis and the pressure to reduce meat?
RK: I think so, and that’s why I opened Angelika. It was a year ago and I could not just go back and open Geranium like we normally did. I felt that, after the first lockdown, we needed to do something different. I’d been on a plant-based diet for the last year and a half, so I was very much into that way of cooking, which is not easy, but when you can do it, it just feels good. I also wanted to pass on my love and care for the planet, and health, to other people. That’s why we opened Angelika: to inspire people to eat more vegetables.

LUX: How has your relationship with sustainability evolved over the years?
RK: I live in the countryside, so I am very close to the forest and to the sea, the ocean and nature, which I really enjoy. It’s very peaceful to go out there and I think it’s something we all need to do sometimes.

I focus a lot more on it at home, but it’s something we care a lot about at Geranium. You can always be better, but we use a lot of biodynamically farmed vegetables, and in that way of farming you give good energy and vitamins back to the soil, not just take them out, and that’s a good mentality, to treat Mother Earth with respect.

Crispy Jerusalem artichoke leaves and pickled walnut leaves

LUX: Where did your love of working with vegetables stem from?
RK: I was raised eating biodynamic vegetables because my mother was vegetarian and she wanted to give the best and healthiest food to her kids. It’s something I’ve been using for a long time, not because it’s trendy, or for PR. I do it because I care and think it’s important to look after the planet. At Angelika, the idea was very much ‘from kitchen to table’, not spending a lot of time plating. At first, it was difficult for the chefs, because they’re used to working with tweezers and taking their time, but you need to be faster, otherwise you lose the energy in the food.

Grilled lobster, elderflower and dried onion

LUX: How did the pandemic affect you professionally?
RK: If it wasn’t for the pandemic, we would have never opened Angelika. It was because of the lockdown that I was saying that we need to open a plant-based restaurant. Since I was on a plant-based diet myself, I wanted to show people that plant-based cooking can be delicious and healthy at the same time, and that you can actually have a great meal, and feel good in your body after. A lot of horrible things happened because of the lockdowns and the coronavirus, but Angelika was this green shoot growing out of the dark times.

Read more: Chef Clare Smyth: Core Célèbre

LUX: What legacy do you hope to leave on the culinary world?
RK: I do it because I love my craft. I love to be in the kitchen, with the energy, the flavours. I love creating new ideas, new ways to serving things. I enjoy cooking delicious food, but I also enjoy eating something which is good for my spirit, my body. As the ancient Greeks said: “Food should be your medicine, and let the medicine be your food.” I love to inspire with my love for the green kitchen.

Rasmus Kofoed is head chef and co-owner of Geranium in Copenhagen. Angelika is temporarily opening on special dates.

geranium.dk

This article appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX

Chef Clare Smyth at work in the kitchen of her London restaurant, Core by Clare Smyth

As the first British female chef to acquire three Michelin stars, Clare Smyth is demonstrating to women all round the world that it is indeed possible to be a leading chef in the 21st century. She’s fearless in the kitchen, having worked under the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Alain Ducasse, and is now not only sharing her talent in London, but in Sydney, too.

LUX: You have previously mentioned that if you weren’t a chef, you would have been a showjumper. So, what attracted you to the culinary world over the equestrian one?
Clare Smyth: I started cooking at a young age and loved it. I decided it was more attractive to me because I wanted to travel and see the world, rather than being a showjumper training in one place all the time.

LUX: Gordon Ramsay famously once said that he didn’t think you would last a week in his kitchen. What do you make of this? And what were the biggest challenges you faced early on in your career?
CS: That’s always misconstrued, because most people didn’t last a week in his kitchen! It was tough, but I chose to work at the most difficult places so I could challenge myself. I knew that if I wanted to be the best, I needed to work with the best. It was long, intense hours and a lot of pressure, but I thrived in that environment.

Scottish langoustine, served at Core by Clare Smyth

LUX: Is it true that sexism is still rife in the culinary industry?
CS: There is a lot of work to do everywhere you look, not just in our industry. It’s part of society and awareness of it is what will help change it. Going back 10 or 15 years, I would often be the only woman in the kitchen. Half of my team now, front of house and in the kitchen, is female. I’m hoping that in the next 10 years there’ll be plenty of women at the top level.

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LUX: You have noted before that it’s the punishing working hours of the culinary industry that accounts for so few women running the world’s best restaurants. Do you still believe this to be the case?
CS: Yes and no. It’s not that women can’t do it; a lot of women choose not to. The profession is generally not conducive to a work-life balance, especially right at the top level.

A view of the dining room at Core by Clare Smyth

LUX: What’s your take on British cuisine?
CS: British food is hearty and rustic, but I approach it in a very fine dining, skilful way. We are so lucky to have phenomenal produce here – the most incredible shellfish, game and beef. At Core, we take British ingredients and elevate them to a fine level.

LUX: You catered for the royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – what’s your favourite memory of this experience?
CS: The stealthiness of the project. It was going on for months and our team managed to keep it all quiet. They were great fun to work with and are brilliant people. They made it fun for all the team.

Potato and roe, served at Core by Clare Smyth

LUX: How do you approach sustainability at Core?

CS: We approach it more than just environmentally. We do it culturally, economically, paying fair prices, working with people who farm in ethical ways and being creative in limiting food waste.

LUX: How do you think the fine dining industry can, as a whole, be more sustainable?
CS: We can help educate people and our staff to be more aware of where the produce comes from and where you are buying it from.

Morel tarts, served at Core by Clare Smyth

LUX: Your new restaurant, Oncore, opened in Sydney in November last year. What led you to open a restaurant on the other side of the world?
CS: I lived in Sydney when I was younger and fell in love with the city. It was a fantastic opportunity to open a flagship restaurant in a new building overlooking one of the most incredible views of the harbour, near the Opera House.

Read more: Chef Ángel León: Ocean Sustainability Supremo

LUX: How did you tackle opening a new restaurant amid a pandemic?
CS: It was incredibly difficult – there were lots of challenges. I have a phenomenal team in Sydney who took, and still take, everything in their stride.

Clare Smyth is the owner and head chef at Core by Clare Smyth in London and Oncore in Sydney. Her debut cookbook, Core by Clare Smyth (Phaidon), is out this summer.

Corebyclaresmyth.com

This article appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX

Chef Ángel León

Ángel León is most famously known for his innovative use of seafood at his three Michelin-star restaurant, Aponiente, in his home province of Cádiz, Spain. He is an environmentally minded forager of the sea, leading him to find a quinoa-like grain in eelgrass, known as zostera marina. As well as being a superfood, seagrass is a natural solution for capturing carbon and a hotbed of biodiversity – meaning cultivated seagrass forests could benefit us and the planet

LUX: Why are you known as ‘The Chef of the Sea’?
Ángel León: Actually, the nickname was coined for the first time by the press. And later became the name of a television mini-series about our work. It defines me. My cuisine focuses on the sea, especially on products that others do not want or do not see. However, my kitchen has also opened up to my closest environment, the marsh and those intertidal zones with halophytic vegetation (saline plants), which fascinate me.

LUX: Where did your interest in ocean conservation come from?
AL: My passion for the sea was instilled in me by my father when I was little. My father loves sailing and fishing, and we always used to do it round the Bay of Cádiz. I was never a good student, and the sea was my escape route, where my diagnosed hyperactivity rests. When we went out fishing and came home with everything we had caught, it was my job to clean it up. I appreciated the smoothness of the fish scales and would cut their bellies to find out what they ate, and therefore know what bait to use.

LUX: What is more important to you, the innovation behind your cooking or the taste and presentation of your food?
AL: There was a turning point in my cooking career when I decided to cook only seafood. I never thought of it as a sacrifice to stop cooking other products from the land. Some predicted that our journey would be limited because we would run out of resources, the most apparent raw materials of the sea, but quite the opposite. Earth is covered by 75 per cent salt water, and we only know 40 per cent of the marine supply.

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However, on a menu where there are only products from the sea, we like to include trompe-l’oeil ‘meat’ options for our customers. We must open our minds – we are very selective and limited to unknown flavours. That is why we ‘dress up’ meat dishes with marine products. A perfect example of this idea is our marine charcuterie. Everyone is used to pork charcuterie, so what we do is make those same sausages, but with fish. We give it the same shape, the same colour, but we use fish. Sea bass mortadella, mullet chorizo…

LUX: What are the benefits of using your sea grain in your dishes?
AL: We’re not cooking with it yet – this project is still in the research and development (R&D) phase. But I did have the opportunity to cook it in the limited harvest that we achieved. Gastronomically speaking, it is very similar to a grain of quinoa in the mouth. After more than three years developing this project and analysing the seeds, we can affirm that the nutritional qualities of the zostera marina are superior to those of rice or wheat. It has glucose. It has more dietary fibre than pasta. It contains protein, carbohydrates and fats that are assimilated more slowly than those in rice, wheat or semolina. It’s also high in fibre and complex carbohydrates.

LUX: Having worked in various regions of Spain and also in France, which area has had the greatest impact on your cooking and why?
AL: Certainly France. My character as a cook was forged there, and I was able to understand the reality, the discipline and the sacrifice of this profession.

LUX: How has your culinary approach changed since you studied at the Taberna del Alabardero?
AL: My approach from then until now has nothing to do with it. Actually, at that time, aspiring to have three Michelin stars did not even cross my mind, and I had already mentally defined what I wanted my philosophy to be. I am grateful for all the stages that I have had and for forging ahead to make the Aponiente project a reality. Not even in my wildest dreams did I imagine having a restaurant with a crew as committed as we have. Everything has fallen into place little by little. We have certainly been through challenging times. Many years of swimming against the current, because the client did not understand our concept, but now we see how the client has grasped it.

LUX: With regards to sustainability and saving the planet, what is the biggest change the hospitality industry needs to make in the next 10 years?
AL: Dependence, in all senses, on products that are not from our environment. We must look at our local environment with hunger and take advantage of the resources that we have closest to hand. From the farm to the fork, from the sea to the plate. We must be less erratic. We must be less selective.

Read more: Kishwar Chowdhury On The Bengali Influences Within Her Cuisine

LUX: If you weren’t a chef, what would you be?
AL: A marine biologist.

LUX: If you could choose any chef to prepare a meal for you, who would it be and why?
AL: I am a man of simple tastes. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a restaurant on my favourite beach in Cádiz, Bolonia. There is a restaurant there called Las Rejas, where I am happy eating whole fried fish, and happy spending time with the owners. I love going out fishing with them and then cooking. Nobody fries fish like them.

LUX: Have you got any exciting projects
or discoveries coming up?
AL: I am restless, and Aponiente develops many research projects. But, today, our main effort is focused on the research and development of our marine cereal.

Ángel León is the owner and head chef of Aponiente in El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, in southern Spain. Since 2016 he has also been the gastronomic director of the nearby Alevante restaurant.

aponiente.com

This article appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX

Kishwar Chowdhury’s Bengali heritage is a crucial part of her approach to cuisine

Australia based Bengali chef Kishwar Chowdhury was a finalist in the 2021 series of Masterchef Australia. Here she speaks to LUX Contributing Editor, Samantha Welsh about the ways her heritage influences her cooking

LUX: Dhaka, London, Heidelberg, Las Vegas, how has living in all these very different locations shaped your outlook?
Kishwar Chowdhury: Having lived on a few different continents and constantly traveling through my work has definitely shaped who I am. When I finish my kitchen projects in a city, I’m often roaming the markets, finding where the locals eat and befriending anyone who’s love language is food! I find that you can get to know people and learn about cultures very intimately, in a very short space of time by immersing yourself in their food. I carry these encounters with me and it definitely shapes my creative process.

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LUX: You had several career options but you seem drawn to something beyond personal ambition. How did you find this back home?
KC: Before moving into the world of food I was happily immersed in the printing, packaging and design industry. But food allowed me to express the deeper inquisitions and thoughts I had about the world. I feel very fortunate that I have an audience that is interested in that voice, whether it’s about ethnicity and ownership or ecology and waste. I feel I can wholly express myself through this medium and in doing so, found a collective global audience that resonated with me. I can see the impact that this has on the next generation, including my children and that to me is reason enough to be here.

Chowdhury takes pride in using techniques from many different cultures in her cuisine

LUX: Congratulations on having the drive and talent to make it to the final of Australian Masterchef! What made you do it and what have you learned along the way?
KC: The short answer to that is my son, Mika, made me do it. During the lockdown, we were living on a farm outside of my hometown of Melbourne. Like many others, it was a time that made me reflect on what I really wanted to do with myself and what it was I would be leaving behind. It became integral to me to pass down to my children all the things my parents had spent a lifetime teaching me. I spent a lot of that time cooking, writing and drawing. My son was the one who urged me to apply for Masterchef after seeing an ad on TV and the rest is history.

Kishwar Chowdhury came third place in the 2021 series of Masterchef Australia

My biggest takeaway from the Masterchef experience was finding who I am as an Australian-Bengali. I think many of us around the world who belong to minority cultural diasporas live with their feet planted in two boats. Masterchef gave me an opportunity to express who I am through my dishes and represent both the Australian and Bengali sides of my identity.

LUX: Your recipes have reached an international platform and you champion your Bengali culture, as distinct from ethnicity or religion; is that important to you?
KC: Being born and bought up in Australia to Bengali migrants from both India and Bangladesh meant that I grew up identifying with Bengali food and culture beyond national borders. My food reflects the history and cross cultural influences that landed in the Bay of Bengal. Being a major trade port for the British East India Company, Mughals who bought their Persian cuisine and sharing porous borders with South East Asia, the layered food tapestry in this region is incredibly diverse, delicious and largely undiscovered. It’s impossible to write about Bengali cuisine and confine it to a certain ethnic group or religion.

Kishwar Chowdhury has worked closely with the UN World Food Programme and ASCR to combat issues of hunger and food distribution

LUX: You could be said to subvert tropes about women’s work and women’s place in South East Asian society. How has this been received?
KC: I always say cooking has been a privilege for me. I get to approach it from a creative space and head kitchens, which is still, across the world, an anomaly. I do find frustrations in breaking stereotypes when people think cooking is a natural skillset for women or something that should be imparted on girls. I grew up in a household where both my mother and father cooked and believe that cooking is a basic life skill that every person should acquire. The burden of cooking still predominantly rests on South Asian women and women across all cultures in general. It is twice as difficult in that space to break that mould and to be seen as a chef rather than a cook.

LUX: How do you deal with preconceptions about how and where it is appropriate to serve South East Asian food?
KC: There has definitely been a hierarchy of cuisines that have been considered worthy of fine dining spaces. I do think that mould is being broken and we see a rise of restaurants showcasing heritage cuisines taking out Michelin stars and getting global accolades.

Durjoy Rahman with Kishwar Chowdhury

I find that the hardest preconceptions to break are within one’s own cultural confines. Often, I recreate dishes that are historically peasant dishes or “Andarkhanna” food that is served at home. People who have never come across these dishes are receptive to the incredible techniques and subtle flavours that exist in heritage Bengali cuisine. But often the beauty and rarity of these dishes are overlooked when they’re cooked at home.

LUX: How did you come up with the controversial concept to repurpose leftovers to haute cuisine?
KC: Some of the greatest restaurants in the world, notably the famous René Redzepi’s Noma, have been exploring this concept for years and shed a global light on the importance of sustainability in this industry. This, together with the cultural significance of eating nose to tail, repurposing food scraps and using every part of an ingredient, whether it be a fruit, vegetable or a whole animal, led me to carry that ethos into my kitchens.

LUX: Tell us about your activism, particularly the UN World Food Programme and Feast for Freedom.
KC: I’ve never considered myself an activist, but feel a deep sense of responsibility to do something about the disparity in food distribution. Whilst one side of my work is about creating magical experiences, there is also a very real side of the food industry that entails waste, hunger and lack of access to basic nutrition for millions. Through working with the UN WFP and ASRC and having the platform and the ability to shed light on these matters is how I push for change.

Preservation and legacy are at the core of Kishwar Chowdhury’s cuisine

LUX: How can you capture a cultural legacy and preserve it for the next generation?
KC: It starts with preservation through practice and the written word. In my case, recipes, particularly from this part of the world, are difficult to preserve, as they are not scientific, like baking. They require a tactile understanding of spices and ingredients, seasonality and also locality. I’m currently writing my book on recipes from the Bay of Bengal and trying to pass on more than just recipes, but a way of life. As for the next generation, I think immersing my children, as I was, in art, cultural experiences, rituals and festivals, creates a muscle memory so that they too will want to recreate all this as they get older.

Read more: Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation: Bridging Global South And North

LUX: What would you tell a young chef embarking on their career?
KC: I would say find your voice in food. What is it you want to share with the world through your food, find the people and kitchens that will help you attain the skill set you need and always follow your stomach!

Find out more: @kishwar_chowdhury

This interview was conducted in association with the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation

Photograph by Jennifer Sosa

As Christmas fast approaches, Los Angeles-based chef and entrepreneur Olivia Muniak shares her tips on curating a successful festive party for family and friends

For me, the holiday season revolves around dreaming up new and exciting menus that reinvent classic favourites with seasonal ingredients and unexpected flavours. Admittedly, hosting is in my job description, but I take the same pleasure in putting on a magical evening for my friends as I do in designing an event for clients. Below, are a few tricks I’ve learnt over the years to reduce stress and ensure success.

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1. Atmosphere & Music

Curating a successful event in your home is about all achieving the perfect balance of food, drink, atmosphere and music. Personally, I like to use lots of unscented candles dotted around the house and assembled on the dining table. It’s a quick and easy way to create a warm, magical atmosphere.

In terms of music, I usually prepare playlist of my favourite artists such as Cesaria Evora, Amanz, Buena Vista Social Club and Rhye. Random pop or rock songs playing from your Spotify “like” list can make for a bumpy night.

Right now, I can’t stop listening to… Orchestra Baobab.

Olivia mixing cocktails in her home. Photograph by Jennifer Sosa

2. Aperitivo Hour

Building in time to greet your guests with cocktails is the warmest way to welcome someone into your home. I find that if you can allow time to enjoy conversation and a drink with friends, it sets the tone for a more fun and relaxed evening. Having a large batch of cocktails pre-mixed so that you can pour the liquid over ice makes your job as bartender even easier.

Try this cocktail… Bianco (White) Negroni 

Read more: Alain Ducasse & Dom Pérignon’s Ephemeral Dining Experience

3. Wine & Food Pairings

Even the simplest wine pairing can really elevate an event. While some guests or family members might prefer stick to their preference of white or red, try offering different varieties of grapes that enhance the flavours of your dish. It might sound obvious, but I find the best place to start is often the local wine shop. It can be really helpful to get some expert advice based both on what you’re cooking and the kind of atmosphere you’d like to create.

This Christmas I’ll be drinking… a Barolo in Tuscany.

Photograph by Jennifer Sosa

4. Approaching Cooking Like a Pro

People always ask how I make cooking and entertaining look and feel so easy, my answer is always prep! I begin the shopping and the cooking days before the party so that when it comes to the evening, I get to actually enjoy the event.

I start by reading the recipe through a few times to make sure I’m not missing any specific produce or complicated processes – you don’t want your guests arriving just after you’ve discovered the main dish needs 3hrs in the oven. Then, I prepare my mis-en-place (a French culinary term that refers to a chef’s “set” station) so that I have each ingredient pre-measured and ready at my fingertips.

Read more: Prince Robert de Luxembourg on Art & Fine Wine

There are often things that can be done the morning of the event, or even the day before, which will, again, save you time and stress when your guests arrive. Vegetables, for example, can often be precooked and a salad (undressed) can be ready in the fridge. Personally, I like to make the dessert a day or two prior to the party.

I also highly recommend trying to stay on top of your washing up during the cooking process – having an empty dishwasher is a lifesaver for that late-night clean up. Or else, opt for a glamorous approach (it’s Christmas, after all) and hire someone to help out with serving food, pouring wine and clearing away dishes.

The most thumbed cookbook in my kitchen… Gjelina: Cooking from Venice, California by Travis Lett

Photograph by Jennifer Sosa

5. Decor

I’m a collector by nature. Over the years, I have amassed all sorts of dishes, serving platters,  vintage glassware and eclectic trinkets. Personally, I think life’s too short to be precious about Grandma’s china, but if you have a slim collection at home, there are numerous rental companies from which you can source beautiful dishes, glassware and flatware (and most let you return it dirty).

Outside of the necessary items on the table, I like to add small vases with delicate florals, or larger clusters of sparse branches arranged in clear vases so guests can still see each other across the table. A simple, dark velvet ribbon tied around a napkin is a quick way to add texture, colour and sensuality to a table.

My favourite homeware shop… Il Buco Vita in New York City.

Olivia Muniak is the founder of La Cura, a Los Angeles-based catering and events company. For more information, visit: thisislacura.com

Markus Neff in the kitchen at Gütsch. Image by Valentin Luthiger

At the top of the 2,300 metre-high Gütsch-Express mountain station in the Swiss ski resort of Andermatt resides Markus Neff’s Michelin-starred restaurant Gütsch. Ahead of the resort’s reopening for the summer season, we speak to the chef about the challenges of running a high altitude restaurant and his childhood memories of family cooking

1. Tell us more about your dining concept “From Valley Low to Mountain High” – what does that mean exactly?

It means using everything that the mountains and the valley have to offer, preferably regional and Swiss products, but also everything else if the quality is right. Cuisine for everyone.

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2. Who or what has influenced your tastes in food and cooking?

My mother’s cuisine, childhood memories (back then without fast food), my father’s Sunday roasts, and a lot of curiosity.

3. What’s your typical process for developing a new dish?

It starts by having an idea, then bringing it to the plate. It often comes from the gut, but can also be triggered by regular customers who want something new or new products.

Gütsch boasts spectacular views over the Alps

4. How do you think your cooking style has evolved over the years?

I’m always looking for something new, and try to be open to everything, but at the same time, I preserve the signature of my kitchen and avoid jumping on every trend.

Read more: Meet the new generation of artisanal producers

5. What are some of the challenges of running a fine dining restaurant at high altitude?

The transport of goods, the height at which we work, weather conditions and sometimes, time pressure (but that last one has nothing to do with altitude).

6. Can you give us any clues of what to expect from the new season menu at Gütsch?

The menu will only be done at the beginning of the season, but you can certainly except fresh products, homemade pasta, dishes adapted to the summer. Let us surprise you!

Gütsch reopens for the season on 3 July 2021. For the latest updates and more information visit: guetsch.com

A sushi platter from Zuma’s menu

When chef Rainer Becker opened the first Zuma restaurant in Knightsbridge in 2002, it set a new benchmark for informal high end dining. Sven Koch joined the restaurant group Azumi Ltd Worldwide in 2011 and now, their portfolio includes ROKA, ETARU, Oblix at The Shard and INKO NITO, with locations spread across the globe. Here, Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai speaks to Sven Koch, the group’s CEO, about embracing competition, working collaboratively and handling the challenges of Covid-19

Sven Koch

LUX: You opened Zuma in Boston last year. How is that going?
Sven Koch: Zuma Boston has done very well; I am pleased to say it was an instant success. We have a beautiful bar area at the front of the restaurant which quickly turned into “the place to be” within the city.

Obviously, Covid-19 has affected things hugely and the restaurant has been closed for a significant amount of time, but we are positive about building the business back up once we reopen.

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LUX: You have a number of different brands in the portfolio. Do they all have different customer bases, or is the idea that clients can flip between them?
Sven Koch: It’s a mix really. We have some crossover between the brands, in fact individual locations more so, like Zuma and ROKA Mayfair, due to the proximity a lot of guests dine at both. Other than that, I would largely say they have their own customer bases. The ROKA locations have more a neighbourhood vibe, a lot of people frequent specific locations because it’s close to where they live or work, although obviously there are destination diners. Both INKO NITO locations, in London and LA, are young, vibrant area’s and very much represents the type of clients that the brand is aimed at. Oblix at The Shard, has a vastly different clientele as its our only non-Japanese restaurant and due to the restaurants location.

Zuma Boston is the brand’s latest opening

LUX: Which is the more powerful brand, between Zuma and Roka, and why?
Sven Koch: It’s hard to say if one is more powerful than the other, they are both strong in their own right but obviously different. Zuma has more international recognition due to its global footprint and the nature of the clientele who travel a great deal and regularly will eat in our locations in other countries. ROKA is predominantly based in London, with four locations, and has a huge following locally but this is also growing. We recently opened ROKA Dubai which has been very successful, and we have plans for other international locations. Ask me again in a year or two and I may be able to give you a more concrete answer!

LUX: It is famously hard to create a group of restaurants operating around the world. Why have you succeeded where others have failed?
Sven Koch: Honestly, it’s down to the people – our teams! We have always operated on the philosophy that it’s important to nurture and grow good people within the business. We have a lot of staff that have worked in multiple locations around the world for us and we really support these internal transfers as it helps to spread the company’s DNA, they are effectively like ambassadors. Additionally, we try to empower the teams in individual restaurants, they are on the ground and understand customers the best.

Read more: SKIN co-founder Lauren Lozano Ziol on creating inspiring homes

LUX: You are one of the first pioneers of informal high end dining. Is the scene moving on? If so, to what?
Sven Koch: I don’t think so, you only have to look at the influx of international restaurant brands opening in London to realise that the trend is not going anywhere. That is not to say that the industry is not diversifying because I believe it is. The lifestyle element is key, people don’t simply want to go out for a meal anymore, they want to be able to spend an evening in that location; enjoy drinks before and/or after dinner, music, atmosphere… We are fortunate that all of those elements have always been part of our concept and that Japanese food is timeless as many other cuisines go in and out of fashion.

LUX: How will the coronavirus crisis affect dining out in general and your group in particular?
Sven Koch: Sadly, it seems to have affected everyone, although the hospitality industry has been particularly badly hit. We had to close all of our locations internationally, bar one (Hong Kong), at the peak of the crisis. Slowly we have been able to reopen the majority, but some cities or areas are still suffering from the aftermath so we have made the choice to wait. I think we’ve been very fortunate on the whole with government support in the countries we have restaurants in, additionally our landlords have been very understanding during this difficult time.

LUX: For years, we have seen an expansion of global travelling young wealthy people – are these your base? Is that now changing, with political and global uncertainties?
Sven Koch: Yes, they definitely are the Zuma customer base. Obviously Covid-19 has had huge effects on travel both nationally and internationally and I think it is too early to determine the long-term effects at this stage.

Having said that I just returned from the South of France for work and it was packed. It almost felt like Covid had never happened, international travellers everywhere… Prior to this trip I would have said it will take some time for travel to recover but now, you tell me?!

Oblix at the Shard is the group’s only non-Japanese restaurant, offering a rotisserie and grill menu

LUX: Is food miles an issue? Will it be?
Sven Koch: Food miles is certainly something that we need to be conscious of. It is a tricky one for our restaurants as so many of the speciality products we use can only be sourced from Japan. You obviously try and buy as locally as we can but in some cases its just not possible. In recent years we have experimented with making our own products, like soy sauce for example which was fantastic. I think that this and the resurgence of smaller artisanal producers are the way forward…If anyone knows people producing miso in the UK then let us know?!

Read more: Two new buildings offer contemporary Alpine living in Andermatt

LUX: Is the food offering at Zuma and ROKA evergreen, or does it involve constantly? Would a diner from 12 years ago recognise the menu now?
Sven Koch: I would say 70% of the menu is evergreen but honestly that’s dictated by our customers who sometimes uproar if we take dishes off. We have several new seasonal dishes that are added to the menu and change quarterly which are developed by the individual restaurant teams. If one of those dishes happens to sell exceptionally well then, we add it to the menu permanently. In answer to your questions, yes, they would recognise it 12 years on.

LUX: You have a lot more competition now. How has that affected things? Do you get irritated by imitators?
Sven Koch: Competition is good, it keeps you on your toes and pushes you to keep evolving. When new restaurants open in competition with us we generally feel it for the first month or so. Customers love to try the latest new thing and we do see a small downturn in business which is always a little difficult to deal with, but they soon return to us, which is a testament to the quality of our product and our team.

Ha! Do we get irritated by imitators?… Good question! I must be honest; it is irritating when you see another restaurant directly ripping us off, it happens regularly that I go to another restaurant, open the menu and its surprisingly so familiar! I always just think: why don’t you make it your own? Be a bit creative, work a little harder – fundamentally I think it’s a very lazy approach.

ROKA Aldwych. Image by Richard Southall/Agi Ch

LUX: Are we facing a speed bump or a new paradigm?
Sven Koch: 2020 has been a difficult year to say the least and things have certainly shifted but I would love to think this a speed bump and we are approaching as such. We are pushing ahead with plans, albeit a bit more cautiously from a budget perspective. Between Zuma, ROKA and Oblix, we aim to open in excess of 15 new locations in the next 3  years.

LUX: What cities or countries would you like to be in, which you are not in currently?
Sven Koch: As I mentioned we have substantial expansion plans in the not too distant future and are looking at sites in Europe such as Paris, Cannes, Saint Tropez, Monaco, Madrid and Capri, and further afield in Cabo, Mexico, and Morocco… I don’t think that leaves much left! From a personal perspective, I would love to open something in Germany – as would Rainer [Becker] – given that it’s our home country but so far, the right opportunity hasn’t presented itself. Watch this space!

Sliced yellowtail with green chilli relish, ponzu and pickled garlic from Zuma’s menu

LUX: How do you and Rainer Becker share duties?
Sven Koch: We don’t really share duties to be honest, we have never sat down formally and assigned roles as it has always been a lot more natural and organic than that.

Obviously, Rainer created the restaurant concepts and he is still heavily involved in the creative side of things including the food and design. I tend to take care of the day to day running of the company including the expansion and growth. We are very collaborative however and always tend to bounce ideas off each other.

LUX: What has been your greatest challenge, and how did you overcome it?
Sven Koch: For sure Covid-19 has been the biggest challenge both personally and professionally. The pandemic has hit everyone hard and its devastating to see people’s families effected and being so hard hit financially. As a business we are working hard to ensure we can bring as many members of staff back into the business as possible. It really is a frightening time.

Find out more: azumirestaurants.com

Steam cooking can preserve the nutritional value and flavour of delicate vegetables such as mushrooms

The ancient art of steam cooking has gained new impetus with the revolution in healthy and mindful cuisine. Lisa Jayne Harris looks at the artful kitchen innovations from design-led German luxury appliance maker, and chefs’ favourite, Gaggenau

Alice B. Toklas, the celebrated 20th-century literary salon hostess, had one golden rule for cooking: “one must respect the quality and flavour of the ingredients”. Steaming is the most direct way to achieve her objective; it is an efficient way to cook that leaves the food tasting exclusively of itself. Just consider the simple excellence of steamed asparagus with French butter, one of Toklas’s stand-by dishes for entertaining.

Phil Fanning, the executive chef and owner of restaurant Paris House in Woburn and Gaggenau culinary partner, agrees: “You’ve got nowhere to hide with steam: It’s all about the quality of ingredients.” This is essential when you are working with delicate seasonal vegetables like asparagus, new potatoes or peas, but it is just as significant with good quality meat, baked goods or pastry.

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However, healthier eating is another powerful motivator behind the steamed food trend. Boiling vegetables reduces much of their nutritional qualities, such as vitamins C and B1, and other mineral salts readily dissolve in water. Lightly steaming does not disturb the food’s cellular structure or its aromatic compositions the way boiling does, so you preserve more vitamins as well as the colour and texture for a more health-conscious cuisine. “Gentle steam cooking can actually improve the nutrient status of food like asparagus, spinach and tomatoes,” advises registered nutritional therapist, Catherine Arnold, “It makes their nutrients more bio-available to the body.”

Gaggenau’s 400 and 200 series combi-steam ovens are ideal for the precise cooking of seafood

Gaggenau has pioneered steam cooking in the home for the past 20 years and continues to do so, including combination steam ovens: “Whether you’re cooking in pure steam, or in combination with traditional heat, you’re getting the health benefits of steam cooking, as it maintains food’s nutrients, colour and shape,” says Gaggenau’s category manager, Simon Plumbridge. Steam can improve other healthy eating habits such as juicing, too: “Our juice extraction setting gently steams hard-skinned citrus fruit such as oranges, so you get a much higher juice yield without impacting nutrients.”

Steam cooking is also gaining traction with chefs and home cooks because of the innovations in steam-cooking technology. For all its benefits – puffed soufflés, sumptuous bread, those crisp layers in a croissant – mastering the technique used to require an intimidating level of precision. Today, keen cooks are investing in internal temperature probes, gadgets and state-of-the-art appliances to emulate high-end restaurants at home. “The UK’s food scene has massively improved in the past 30 to 40 years, and this growth in skill and quality is reflected in passionate home chefs’ kitchens too,” Fanning reflects. Our private kitchens are becoming more technologically advanced, and ovens that enable amateurs to cook like professionals are both a luxury and an enabler of creativity.

Embracing both the old and the new makes us all better cooks. “Lots of traditional techniques benefit from having precise control over the humidity,” says Fanning. “Take bread for example. For the perfect crusty baguette, you need about 30 per cent humidity for the first five minutes and then very little for the remaining bake. In a traditional convection oven that requires guesswork, but it’s easily and consistently achieved in a combi-steam oven.” Brands like Gaggenau are making this trend for precision steam cooking more accessible. Their combi-steam ovens can be controlled to within one degree, which continually revises the estimated cooking time based on temperature-probe readings from three different sensors. There is no more guessing: “Steam in its basic principle is an ancient way of cooking,” says Plumbridge. “But controlling the level of steam in combination with a fan is only achieved by modern technology – and that’s what brings professional results into the domestic home.”

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Steam is also about convenience; rather than waiting for an oven to preheat, a good steam oven heats to temperature immediately. When you combine that with smart, Wi-Fi-enabled technology that lets you control the oven remotely from your office, or even set the bread to prove whilst you’re watching TV, you have all the benefits of ancient cooking just a voice command away. “Connectivity in the home has a lot of momentum at the moment,” Plumbridge observes, “But we’re more interested in future-proofing, so our ovens have the capacity to integrate with apps on any system such as Alexa or Cornflake smart homes.”

As much as new food trends are about keeping pace with technology, steam cooking also allows you to take your time. Next generation combi-steam ovens can sous-vide for up to almost 24 hours on a mains-connected water system or 11 hours with a tank, and cooking meat low and slow with a good level of humidity means it won’t be subjected to heat expansion and contraction, allowing for a more tender and juicy dish. Chefs also use steam to impart more subtle flavours into a dish, laying herbs under a piece of salmon to infuse the fish or steaming couscous in a traditional couscoussier, in which spices, onions and meat cook in the lower compartment and impart their flavour to the grains above.

“Remember that with a combi oven, steam doesn’t have to be 100ºC,” Fanning advises. “You want to cook vegetables as quickly as possible at that temperature, but steaming a piece of turbot at 60ºC or even lower will give you a much more delicate result. Oxtail or lamb shanks can be very gently cooked sous-vide in a combi-steam oven for hours with virtually no chance of overcooking, and duck legs, pork belly, haricot beans or lentils – if vacuum packed with a fat or oil – can be very gently and accurately made as a confit.”

Icelanders have steamed their bread buried next to hot springs for generations and Chinese steaming baskets have been piled with fluffy rice buns and hot dumplings for thousands of years. Steam cooking might be an ancient art, but revolutionary technology, a modern regard for putting ingredients first and a drive to lighten up our diets means that the technique is equally relevant today. True innovation combines the heritage of centuries of steam cooking with precision and performance that inspires. “That’s why Gaggenau ovens are all hand finished,” Plumbridge says. “Only when you piece a product together by hand, the good old-fashioned way, are you actually putting soul into a product. And that’s what really means something to people.”

Gaggenau’s factory on the French-German border

Precision Engineering

Darius Sanai takes a rare tour of the Gaggenau factory, pictured above, on the French-German border, and is struck by the melding of industry and creativity

The huge sheet of matte-silver metal looks, somehow, tempting and edible as it sits on the machine bed, like a giant slice of space-age food about to be sliced and diced. Lasers home in on a pattern of points on the sheet, and an instant later, it has a precise latticework of holes and is being washed clean. A few metres away, an operator is in charge of a machine that bends metal. It bends it a tiny bit, almost invisibly, but the bend makes all the difference, our guide explains, as it allows the finished product a smooth, textured finish with no sharp edges.

There is a lot of this in the Gaggenau factory; a lot of working with metal, bending and shaping it, machining it, turning it from sheets, delivered through an entry doorway in one building, into the slick kitchen appliances so beloved by professional chefs.

Yet metalwork was not what I expected when walking into the factory of a manufacturer of the world’s leading kitchens. It’s hard to know exactly what to expect; my experience of factories is confined to manufacturers of cars and watches. Both of these are very obviously made of metal in a way high-end ovens, cloaked in a kitchen design and so proud of their electronics and technology, are not. Yet there is far more metalworking going on at Gaggenau than in, for example, the Mercedes-Benz factory at Sindelfingen an hour’s drive to the east, or the IWC watch manufacture at Schaffhausen an hour’s drive to the south.

Read more: Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar & the artistic revival of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

Perhaps this ought not to be surprising. We are after all in a real factory, rather than a mere assembly plant where components made elsewhere are put together. Gaggenau may now be synonymous with expensive homes, but, as a timeline in the visitor experience centre where we had arrived earlier demonstrated, it has a history in metal. It was founded in 1683 as Eisenwerke Gaggenau, an ironworks which made everything from agricultural machinery to road signs, by Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden. Gaggenau itself is a town in the Black Forest of Germany, which, catalysed by von Baden, became a significant industrial centre and still houses one of the biggest Mercedes-Benz factories.

Gaggenau also made stoves, and eventually specialised in the high-end, highly designed, highly technical kitchen appliances it creates today, eventually moving to its current site from its original home. From the sloping road leading to the current factory in Lipsheim, you can see the curved outline of the Black Forest clearly. “I live there, it takes 30 minutes to cycle in every day,” one of our hosts tells me cheerily. The fact that he lives in Germany and we are just across the border in France’s Alsace is irrelevant: this is the new Europe, and there is, in effect, no border.

It’s a scenic setting for a factory, and also an interesting one: just down the road is Bugatti’s factory (really, a very chic assembly plant), so you could in theory pick up your Chiron and then watch your new steam oven being made. (Actually, the factory tours are not yet open to the public, which makes it even more special.)

The factory is a series of buildings each of which is filled with numerous sections and stations doing different creative activities. Gaggenau’s production process is still very manual; there are 350 workers, many of them trained in astonishingly particular skills pertaining to components or electronics of particular products. There is an air of extreme concentration among the small pods of workers, but unlike in watch manufactures, you don’t get the sense that you are the nth tour to visit that day. Workers are not slickly trained to respond to your questions; some of them are so lost in concentration in operating a particular piece of hot, huge or smelly machinery that they seem surprised to see you there.

What does remind me of a watch factory, or perhaps a pharmaceutical firm, is a ‘clean room’, which we observe from the outside. The room, which sits in a corner of the factory, and the people inside, assembling delicate electrical components of Gaggenau ovens, look like characters in a sci-fi movie of their own.

There is, in another section of the factory, a testing station, where every creation is subject to testing on its accuracy, function, and so on. I lingered a minute or two here, eager to see a malfunctioning multi-thousand-euro oven chucked on a scrapheap (or actually, returned to production to be corrected), but it didn’t happen.

The tour ended and we walked back to the Experience Centre, with its view of the Vosges and walls of the latest steam ovens, slick and architectural, beauty made out of, if not exactly chaos in the factory but certainly industrial creativity. More interesting than any watch manufacture I have been to.

Find out more: gaggenau.com/gb

This article was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue, out now.

is new high-end delivery service provided by private-jet catering company On Air Dining

With restaurants still closed across the UK, One Fine Dine offers an easy and creative alternative to enjoying a fine dining experience at home

One Fine Dine is a new high-end food delivery service provided by On Air Dining, but don’t let the name put you off. Headed up by Daniel Hulme (who has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants across London and catered for superyachts), On Air Dining provides luxury dining experiences for private jets. This latest initiative aims to bring the same level of quality and finesse into UK residents’ homes.

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The menus span breakfast, lunch, dinner and canapés along with options for wine pairings and dietary requirements. Different from a traditional recipe delivery box, the separate elements of each dish are cooked and prepared by expert chefs, and then boxed up and delivered with instructions for heating up (if required) and plating. It’s not exactly ‘cooking’, but it still provides some level of creative satisfaction as you carefully arrange edible flowers, delicate dollops of purée and zig-zags of balsamic glaze to create the perfect-looking dish. It doesn’t really feel like cheating as the dishes are complex and would be difficult to make unless you’re highly-skilled in the kitchen.

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Our favourite picks from include the vegetarian scotch egg served with truffle, seaweed wrapped cured salmon with pickled radish, North Atlantic blackened miso cod with a rich and earthy shiitake broth, and for dessert, granny smith apple pie with crème anglaise followed by the chef’s handmade petit fours.

For more information visit: onefinedine.com

Gaggenau’s new combi-steam ovens 400 and 200 series

Last week, LUX attended the launch of Gaggenau’s new combi-steam ovens, presented alongside underwater artworks by artist Jason deCaires Taylor and food prepared by executive chef Phil Fanning

Steaming food might be the latest trend in healthy eating, but it’s also a way of enhancing the natural flavours of ingredients. With an increased capacity of 50 litres, Gaggenau’s new combi-steam ovens offer chefs – both budding and professional – the opportunity to get creative with their steaming.

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At the brand’s launch event in Fitzrovia, London, executive chef and owner of restaurant Paris House Phil Fanning showed guests the kind of results that a Gaggenau combi-steam oven can achieve with not just vegetables, but also meats, baked goods or pastry.

Chef Phil Fanning preparing dessert using a Gaggenau combi-steam oven

Gaggenau’s ovens work by combining hot air with varying percentages of humidity (ranging from 100 to 0%), whilst an in-built probe monitors the temperature and continually revises the estimated cooking time to ensure best results and the preservation of nutrients.

Read more: Chef Alain Ducasse on the importance of telling your own story

Gaggenau’s new ovens shown alongside artworks by Jason deCaires Taylor

Strikingly sleek and minimalist in design, the ovens were presented alongside a series of intriguing glass-encased underwater sculptures by British artist Jason deCaires Taylor. Made from pH-neutral cement, deCaires Taylor’s sculptures are ordinarily encountered on the seabeds where they transform into coral reefs as they are consumed and naturally transformed by aquatic microorganisms. Viewed in this new setting, the artworks appeared even more otherworldly, whilst also inviting guests to reflect on the poeticism of the steaming process.

For more information visit: gaggenau.com/gb/

Wiltons is one of London’s oldest restaurants, serving high-end British cuisine

Wiltons first opened its doors in Mayfair 1742, offering a menu focused on fresh British produce. Whilst the restaurant remains true to its origins, Head Chef Daniel Kent is set on progressing tradition with a new focus on sustainability. Here, we speak to the chef about his mission to reduce plastic waste, finding ways to innovate and cooking at home

Daniel Kent

1. Did you always dream of becoming a chef and how did your career evolve?

Growing up I had many dreams of what I thought I wanted to do later in life but none of them involved being a chef! It all occurred almost by accident and serendipity took its course. When I left school, I took a job as a pot washer in a local restaurant to earn some pocket money. It was here that the chef asked me if I was interested in being part of the kitchen crew as he thought I might be good at it.

Curious of what this would involve I took him up on his offer and found that I really enjoyed working with food. My parents encouraged me to go to university and study hospitality, so I applied to Manchester University and completed the degree in Hospitality Management.

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Although I had enjoyed working with food so much university was guiding me to an operational role, however the creative aspect of working with food kept calling me and I continued working in kitchens.
Over the years I’ve had the opportunity and privilege to work with several very talented head chefs, all of which have taught me something new and gave me a different perspective. I have used their wise words and knowledge to develop my own management style which I comfortable and happy with.

Some of my mentors have included Rowley Leigh at Kensington Place, Chris Galvin, Jeremy King and Chris Corbin at The Wolseley. Their collective positive influence has assisted me in developing the skills required to run a kitchen in the way that I’ve always desired.

Over the years I have developed a team around me that allows me to coach and mentor new chefs coming into the industry and pass on all the skills I’ve learnt rising up through the ranks. At Wiltons I am exceptionally fortunate to have the incredible opportunity to use the finest, seasonal produce from all over Britain.

Wiltons is known for its oysters and runs monthly oyster masterclasses, designed to teach diners shucking techniques

2. What defines your cooking style?

My true passion is using the very best British products to create dishes that reflect and do justice to their provenance. I would say that I like to develop dishes with modern European cooking techniques, which I can use to great effect with the dishes on our weekly set menus.

While the majority of Wiltons menu does not change, something our guests appreciate and expect we also like to introduce various specials on a daily basis which keep the brigade on their toes and creative. Wiltons is a great British classic and the food we serve needs to reflect this, but by implementing contemporary twists, keeps it relevant.

The menu at Wiltons focuses on seasonal British produce

3. Which is your favourite dish on the Wilton’s menu and why?

Skrei cod, morels and fish veloute is on the menu at the moment and it’s delicious. This cod comes in season at the end of January and we’ve just introduced a wonderful fish dashi consommé. The main course dish we use a fillet of Skrei cod, finished with a classic bonne femme sauce and serve it alongside baby leeks and morel mushrooms. It’s a classic but we’ve collectively adapted it with ideas and techniques we’ve learnt from our travels and working in other restaurants and the guests are thoroughly enjoying it!

Read more: Comme des Garçons protégé Kei Ninomiya’s cult fashion label Noir

4. How are you tackling sustainability issues in the kitchen?

This is a gradual process. Wiltons was the very first restaurant in the UK to join the ‘Chefs Against Plastic Waste Campaign’. All of our chefs’ jackets are made from recycled plastic bottles that have been pulled from the shores of the British Isles. I requested that suppliers use reusable crates to deliver produce and this has been adhered to and we are very mindful of food waste. Bit by bit, we can all do our part. Sustainable practices are key, and we are addressing these.

Wiltons offers a formal dining experience with stately interiors

5. What are your everyday essential ingredients?

Without a doubt, salt and butter! They can change a sauce, elevate a dish and are so basic, yet very versatile!

6. What’s your go to when you want to cook something quick and easy at home?

Chicken schnitzel and cucumber salad. It’s nutritious, quick and delicious and light too! I also enjoy preparing it.

Find out more: wiltons.co.uk

The White Millefeuille is chef Anne-Sophie Pic’s ‘masterdish’ at her restaurant inside the Four Seasons Ten Trinity Square London

Anne-Sophie Pic’s London restaurant La Dame de Pic has already been awarded two Michelin stars for its innovative French cuisine, but there’s one dish that everyone’s talking about – and Instagramming. LUX visits Four Seasons Ten Trinity Square to try the infamous White Millefeuille

Chef Anne-Sophie Pic

Millefeuille is one of the most classic French desserts – even if you don’t recognise the name, you’ve probably eaten, or at least seen it in the window window of a smart pastry shop. Traditionally, a millefeuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry divided by layers of crème pâtissière. French chef Anne-Sophie Pic‘s millefeuille, however, is something quite different.

The dessert arrives on our table in the shape of a perfectly seamless white cube. If you’re active on Instagram, you’ve most likely seen hundreds of pictures, but for those of you who haven’t: it looks a little bit like a giant marshmallow surrounded by foamy white puffs (see above).

We’re anxious as to how to actually eat it. Which side are you supposed to start with? Will it collapse? Will something jump out?

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Fork in and it holds its cubic form perfectly to reveal layers of thin pastry interspersed with Jasmine jelly and vanilla cream. More importantly though, it’s completely delicious: light and sweet with an unexpected hint of spice from Madagascar pepper.

‘The desire of this dessert was to make a monochrome dish, which is as elegant in its visual approach as it is in its taste,’ Anne-Sophie Pic says. ‘And for me, elegance, then and now, is white. ‘

La Dame de Pic is Anne-Sophie Pic’s two Michelin-starred restaurant at Four Seasons Ten Trinity Square

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It’s an elegance that resonates throughout the restaurant from its glassy, bright interiors and crisp table settings to the service and inventive presentation of each dish. The bread, for example, comes as a complete miniature round loaf, served on a bed of smooth white pebbles, which we mistake for dough balls and almost eat.

‘The White Millefeuille lends itself to playfulness: deriving from its perfect shape a signature dessert for each of my restaurants is a game, both for me in creation, and for the customer taking a tour of the Dame de Pic,’ says Pic, whose culinary creations have recently earned the restaurant its second Michelin star and Pic’s seventh.

If you haven’t made it to the restaurant yet, now is the time to go.

For more information visit: fourseasons.com/tentrinity/dining/restaurants/la-dame-de-pic-london/

Thomas Keller at pictured at his Napa restaurant, The French Laundry. Image by Deborah Jones

Ever since legendary chef Thomas Keller opened his restaurant The French Laundry in California’s Napa Valley more than twenty years ago, he has been inspiring diners – and chefs – with his forward-thinking food. Keller tells Emma Love about his latest plans for fine dining without the fuss

Three years ago, American chef Thomas Keller reached a milestone in his illustrious career. The French Laundry, the Napa Valley restaurant he opened in 1994 and which quickly garnered international acclaim as well as three Michelin stars, reached its 20th anniversary. Some might use an occasion such as that as an excuse for throwing a party but Keller decided to spend $10 million on completely re-designing the kitchen and restaurant grounds. “There is a time that comes in life to push the envelope and explore new methods to stay relevant,” he says, citing the new state-of-the-art kitchen equipment and the 15,000-bottle wine cellar as examples of the changes that were unveiled in April this year. “That quest for evolution and wanting to shake things up has always been part of my DNA.”

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This comes as no surprise: Keller is a chef who has spent years challenging the industry with his restaurants (as well as The French Laundry, he is also behind Michelin-starred outposts of Per Se and Bouchon) where his ‘law of diminishing returns’ philosophy of cooking means that tasting menus come with multiple tiny courses where ingredients are never repeated. “The less you have of something, the more you appreciate it,” he reasons sensibly. “For me, not repeating ingredients is a challenge. If you use corn more than once in a ten-course menu that’s kind of lame, don’t you think? There’s so much variety out there and so many vegetables, we don’t need to use something twice.”

His quest for evolution – and changing the way we think about food – seems to be at the heart of all his projects from his wine label Modicum, which is used as an educational tool for his sommeliers, to Finesse, the bi-annual magazine he publishes in place of a newsletter which focuses on themes he considers to be important, such as community and design. “Modicum was set up so the sommeliers could work with the winery to understand about harvesting, blending and the many different aspects that go into producing wine,” he explains. “With Finesse we are also trying to educate and inspire by giving people an insight into what we do and touching on those topics where we can tell stories. It’s another way of having an impact.”

The new kitchens at The French Laundry. Image by Michael Grimm

Then there’s Cup4Cup, which he began in 2010 in collaboration with his then research and development chef at The French Laundry, Lena Kwak. Initially offering a gluten-free flour blend which is a substitute for all-purpose flour, more recent products in the range (which is sold at Whole Foods in the US) include mixes for pizza, waffles and pie crusts. “I never thought I would produce flour,” says Keller. “When Lena started, her first task was to come up with a recipe for our signature salmon cornets. It’s the way people begin their meal at The French Laundry and they are iconic but the problem was that anyone who is food intolerant couldn’t eat them. We thought it was something that everyone should be able to enjoy so we created a gluten-free flour. The brilliance behind Cup4Cup is that you can literally replace a cup of regular flour with a cup of gluten-free flour and you can’t tell the cornets apart.”

Read next: Gucci’s Robert Triefus on how to create a sustainable fashion power house

Gluten free apple pie by Cup4Cup

As the Cup4Cup brand happened organically, so did his collaboration with friend and Italian olive oil producer Armando Manni, whose extra virgin olive oil is used at The French Laundry and Per Se. One day in 2010, the pair were in Keller’s Yountville backyard chatting about Manni’s idea for a chocolate bar made with olive oil (which preserves many of the natural antioxidants found in cocoa beans); Keller agreed to be his partner for the project on the spot. “Armando worked with the University of Florence and a laboratory in Paris on scientific trials to develop a new method that replaces cocoa butter with olive oil, but still retains the taste of chocolate,” recalls Keller. “At the eleventh hour, we realised that we couldn’t use a traditional factory because we required a fundamental change in the way the equipment was made.” Their solution? To modify the equipment and build their own factory, which added another two years to the development process. Finally, the K+M Extravirgin Chocolate bar launched in March.

Now he’s turning his attention to other projects, one of which is curating the restaurants at Hudson Yards, the largest retail, commercial and residential development in New York since the Rockefeller Center. “What we want is to create a community of neighbourhood restaurants. Not Michelin-star fine-dining necessarily, but places where you return again and again because you love their Dover sole or steak.” In other words, restaurants – such as Extebarri in Spain’s Basque country where he once ate what he described as “the most perfectly grilled sardine that I’ve ever had” – that create memories so people want to return. “If a chef executes a philosophy that gives you a positive, lasting memory, that’s what success is. That’s what we try and achieve at The French Laundry.”

thomaskeller.com

The crunchy part of lasagne. Massimo Bottura at Geneva Motor Show 2017

Massimo Bottura has the world at his feet: his three Michelin-starred Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy, achieved the ultimate award in 2016, being voted best restaurant in the world in the prestigious San Pellegrino awards. And yet, rather than open multiple clones in parts of the world where wealthy foodies cluster, he is focusing on helping the needy – and cutting down food waste. Starting at the EXPO World Fair in Milan in 2015, Bottura has been setting up mini-gastro temples using ‘recovered food’ – ingredients that other food operations would otherwise throw away – with the proceeds going to charity.

His next, and most ambitious, cultural-social project using ‘recovered food’ will be the Refettorio Felix in London in June, with the collaboration of Alain Ducasse, Angela Hartnett, Daniel Boulud, Giorgio Locatelli, Jason Atherton, Michel Roux Jr, Nuno Mendes, and numerous other star names from in and around the capital. Darius Sanai spoke to the super-chef and brand ambassador for Maserati (the luxury car company also hailing from Modena) about his passions and plans.

LUX: Your original inspiration for these projects came from a childhood recipe for food that would otherwise be thrown away..
Massimo Bottura: The one that I developed specially for the project in Milan is called ‘Bread is Gold’. It’s what I thought as a child, the best bite before going to bed was a big cup of milk with breadcrumbs, sugar and a bit of chocolate or coffee (depending on what was left). For me it was the best meal as a kid. So we developed this beautiful dessert about bread, milk and sugar that we presented.

Another very simple example that we created (in Milan) was the breadcrumb pesto. All these people were passing through and they needed energy. And they were asking for pasta. So I said okay – tomorrow I am going to cook pasta for you. And because I saw some basil, I was thinking of making pesto.

I went to the kitchen the next day, and there wasn’t a lot left, only one case, which for 100 people is nothing. So I started thinking…I took out all of the herbs thyme and mint which matched perfectly with basil, and I start putting in some Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and some extra virgin olive oil. But I was missing the pine nuts, and I couldn’t go and buy them because they were too expensive [for the project]! So, I had an idea – I put everything in the blender, with a little bit of garlic and then I started adding very cold still water. If I keep the mixer at low temperature there is no oxidation with the extra virgin olive oil. Then, instead of putting pine nuts, I used breadcrumbs by grating the leftover bread from two days before. Then I strained with a strainer, got all the impurities out, and then I re-grated it. It got very creamy but extremely light because the only fat was the extra virgin olive oil and it came out as an amazingly creamy basil pesto with breadcrumbs! Then I rescued all the herbs we had, and the mint (it was summer) gave the freshness. We served it to 100 people. It was one of the biggest hits of the summer.

“Oops I dropped the lemon tart”. Dessert at Osteria Francescana. Image by Callo Albanese & Sueo

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LUX: As a chef, you like to be innovative. Is that the right word?
Massimo Bottura: Contemporary. I think it’s more contemporary. Osteria Francescana is the place where we develop ideas. It’s like the bottega del rinascimento: the renaissance story where the master gives the ideas to develop and to the guys who are working together as a family and we create culture everyday. We develop, and we bring tradition to the future.

We are also ambassadors of agriculture. And you know in Italy we are crazy and obsessed about the quality of the ingredients. And then we also train people: we have thousands of CVs from people waiting to come and learn from Osteria. And then tourism – we developed tourism for the first time in history in Modena, tourists from all over the world. They speak English, Japanese, Chinese and Spanish. People come to see where Osteria is, matching with the people coming to see Maserati and Ferrari [in nearby Maranello]!

Massimo Bottura at Geneva Motor Show 2017

LUX: You haven’t tried to create copies of Osteria around the world. Why is that?
Massimo Bottura: Because I believe in it. Because excellence and quality is one. And when I am in Modena I have to be there and be respectful of all the people who come from all over. Of course I have to travel because I have to spread ideas and explain the word and my point of view. Yesterday at my conference in Milan there were around 5,000 people, listening to me. People like the CEO of Gucci to the Mayor of Milan from the Minister of Agriculture to the most important journalists. It’s about that too. It’s not just about the quality of the ingredients, it’s about the quality of the ideas that’s the most important thing.

Osteria Francescana. Image by Callo Albanese & Sueo

Developing different restaurants is all about making money, and we have enough. We don’t need a private jet or a helicopter on a big boat. To me personally, it is much more satisfying to give joy to people and because I am a chef you cook for others to give joy and transfer emotion. Even in this social project, it is all about culture. Knowledge consciousness and sense of responsibility. The sense of responsibility is not about to getting rich but to give back after having all of the success that I’ve had.

LUX: Tell us more about your ‘Soup Kitchen’ projects.
Massimo Bottura: They are are not a charity project, they are a cultural project because I involve all the best chefs in the world to cook the waste from supermarkets and other restaurants. It is enormous. The mayor of Tokyo said he would love a project like that in place for the Tokyo Olympics. The United Nations, hospitals in New York..we are working on all these things. The next one will be the Reffertorio Felix in London in June.

We involve artists, designers, architects to build beautiful spaces and to rebuild the dignity of the people. It’s not about serving just some hot food – that’s fine and beautiful. But this is a different project. I am doing different things, with a different perspective. For me, inside a beautiful space I can rebuild something. Dignity of people, or give pride to the food that has been considered waste for 99.99% of people. Through my knowledge, and through our knowledge, because it’s a project that involves all of the best chefs in the world.

I can see the reaction of people around the world which is so interesting. Numbers are numbers. 160 million people are starving. 1.4 billion are overweight and 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year. 33% of food production is wasted. It’s 50% in Brazil. Every single day in Rio de Janeiro 10 food trucks full of food are burnt. Vegetables and fruit. Why? Because…I don’t know. There is no explanation. It’s not about producing more, it’s about wasting less.

Refettorio Gastromotiva. Image by Angelo Dal Bo

LUX: Is the Soup Kitchen business sustainable? Do you need support? How does that work?
Massimo Bottura: We need local partners like we had in Rio, Gastromotiva; in Milan Caritas. We need a local partner that takes care of everyday life, so that every single one is sustainable. In Rio de Janeiro they are selling the space for companies to hold meetings. They donate money to sustain the dinners. Caritas too is doing that.

There is zero food waste in Osteria and we develop ideas in our everyday life and project these ideas into the soup kitchen all over the world. Now there is a beautiful movie that is coming out from the experience in Milan. There is another one that is in production for the experience in Rio. There’s Anthony Bourdain supported by the Rockefeller Foundation that is going to presented at the Tribeca film festival. There is book; we signed yesterday with Phaidon. A beautiful book about 150 recipes on waste – what you can do with an over ripe banana with some breadcrumbs or some ugly tomatoes – you can do beautiful, beautiful things. And these are ideas that have to be spread everywhere.

Read next: William Fan on the androgynous future of fashion

LUX: What is your idea of achievement? What are you satisfied with?
Massimo Bottura: Next, I want to build a university. I want to build a university in the most amazing villa outside of Modena. It’s abandoned. Now we have started restoring it with Emilia Romagna’s regional government and the Minster of Agriculture. It was an old villa with a full circle of life. There is small place to make two different wheels of parmigiano every day. There is a vineyard for the balsamic vinegar. There is the land all around for pasture.

LUX: What will the future bring for food?
Massimo Bottura: I think in the future the most important ingredient is culture. The chef will know more about soil, and the farmers of the future will know more about taste. Growing up together, studying together.

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Our thanks to Maserati for the interview www.maserati.com

Test Kitchen – A specially designed on-site ‘test kitchen’ allows for constant experimentation

Customisation continues to be the craze that consistently dominates the top of food trends and chefs are constantly challenged to satisfy and suit individual taste buds while balancing kitchen work flow and costs. Our columnist questions whether science can help and delves into the thorny issue of whether the menu is a thing of the past STACEY TEO

I had a dream.

A first-time patron walked through the door of the restaurant and immediately the kitchen knew. ‘Filets de perche, sans beurre’. Guest is ushered to the seat and after waiting for a short while without ordering, the maître d’ appears with the desired dish. Service is seamless; the diner is left totally in awe and completely satisfied. If only the dream would come true.

But what if it was actually possible? In the not-so-distant future, it is predicted that the exploration of neuroscience in food would perhaps provide a breakthrough in determining and detecting diners’ desires with exacting accuracy. Imagine: a device, like say, a gantry that scans the brain as a guest walks through the door and immediately profiles every preference, whims and fancies, known — and unknown — food allergies and transmits them on the spot into the system. But until such technology is developed — a matter of time, surely — perhaps science, though able to solve such perennial problems for the kitchen, will however still not be the best answer for restaurants because the dining experience will be impacted forever and the people behind service would lose their purpose. Let’s keep in mind, the human side of dinner service is, after all, pretty sacred.

I firmly believe that cooking is more art than science. Wholesome cooking that titillates the senses to evoke an Anton Ego moment like in Disney favourite Ratatouille would require something rather special, a creation that is out of the blue. I recall one such ‘wow’ moment of opportunity occurred some time ago; my most memorable career challenge came in the form of a themed birthday party ‘Suzie Wong style’ (yet Dubai camels were involved) featuring an exciting modern Australian menu with a distinctly Asian influence, incorporating fresh western ingredients and cooking techniques. How then do we incorporate such specifications in a considered, detailed, quantifiable manner?

Enter stage right, the menu. Throughout the ordering process, the menu serves as a tangible tool that is part and parcel of the meal experience. However, a number of restaurants have ventured further to the extreme end of the spectrum when they decided to ditch menus altogether. Fuad’s in Houston, Texas has been successful with the ‘No Menu’ concept for 37 years and running (cheekily enough, when customers check out their ‘menu’ on their website, it would reveal itself as a blank white page). The pioneer Parisian steakhouse, Le Relais de l’Entrecôte still simply serves steak frites where you just have to indicate your desired doneness. Tetsuya Wakuda’s eponymous restaurant in Sydney surprises with his 10-course degustation menu albeit keeping a few firm favourites alive. Personalisation at these institutions are pretty much non-existent and yet they pack in a solid crowd day after day, week after week, so what gives?

Sydney Tetsuya’s consistently ranks as one of the world’s best restaurants

Customisation has and will continue to drive customer satisfaction, as guests are offered more opportunity to control what is served to their table. However, chefs would prefer to exercise that same element of control to express a certain level of creative culinary freedom, so there has to be a balanced approach. The key is to break down barriers between the kitchen and the table. In order for restaurants to understand and grasp guests’ preferences better, there has to be greater interaction and direct communication between the chef and diners.

Does that mean more restaurants ought to join the fray in exiting stage left by removing menus altogether and leave the choice to the chef completely? Or should diners dictate the dishes on their table? That will depend on how willing consumers can relinquish control and be open to surprises. I say go ahead, trust the chef. But like Fuad’s menu or a Japanese omakase, the verdict is wide open.

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Sunseeker – The craft has a capacity of up to 14 cruising guests and comes with three en-suite cabins

Have your private, personal boat party — without having to fuss over the small things. ANDREA SEIFERT shows how

There is something about a sea voyage that lends itself to a celebration. Cruising the water on a luxury yacht is a true escape, and a welcome hiatus from the drudgery of everyday life on land.

So what better way to celebrate my husband’s impending 40th than with an intimate gathering of close family and friends on the water? The occasion needed to be marked with a show-stopping celebratory event, and a tailor-made journey on the sea with luxury yacht charterers Aqua Voyage seemed the perfect solution. With a myriad of options and destinations available, an overnight stay was eschewed in favour of a day trip on a sleek Sunseeker to Riau island in Indonesia. This would allow a full day of Saturday fun without cutting into busy schedules for an entire weekend.

Being a devoted epicurean, the adventure began with the most important aspect of the party – the menu. A consultation with the Aqua Voyage Executive Chef revealed that the culinary aspect of the event could be entirely tailored to personal preference; whether it be full onboard catering by a specific restaurant, or a bespoke menu prepared by Executive Chef Stacey Teo. As this was a day to spoil my better half, we devised a menu with a mixture of his favourite dishes from all around town and a few new surprises thrown in by Chef Stacey.

Wild Diver Scallops with Orange Jam, Almonds

We set sail for Riau Island early in the morning, slightly bleary-eyed. Butlers were on hand to serve up decadent, buttery pain au chocolate and croissants from the Joel Robuchon bakery, freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and espressos. Departing from Singapore, the scene was set with a pre-programmed iPod on the stereo system playing soft bossa nova tunes, and mimosas swiftly followed the coffees to get the party going.

The cerulean waters and white sands of Riau island beckoned, and a lazy morning of swimming in the sunshine soon came to an end as the boat docked a lazy dozen or so meters from the beach, just in time for a luxe picnic lunch. There’s nothing better than an assortment of zesty salads in the tropics, and we started with a salad of handpicked crab, avocado, citrus fruits and toasted sunflower seeds from the newly opened restaurant, The Black Swan. This was accompanied by Chef Stacey’s Wild Diver Scallops with Orange Jam, Almonds and Micro-Cress Salad with Egg Dressing. Creamy, indulgent burrata and vine ripened tomatoes followed alongside home-made duck rillete and crusty baguette. The grand finale was my very own famously gooey brownies.

Nothing defines a tropical getaway like a pampering spa treatment. This was a day for sybarite excesses and pleasure, so two therapists from our favourite spa in town were recruited to come onboard and pamper us with aromatherapy oil massages and foot reflexology to ease any work week tensions. A few guests then retreated to the luxurious mastersuite complete with fine Egyptian cotton linen and fluffy duvets for a heavenly post treatment snooze. Given my husband’s provenance, Afternoon Tea at Sea was a given and served in delicate bone china cups with a selection of refreshing herbal Gryphon iced and hot tea, scones with jam and clotted cream, and an assortment of Indonesian tidbits as a tribute to the location.

Dock at the Marina – Ready to set sail for a day out on the seas

Expertly timed fireworks alongside the brilliant scarlet sunset brought the day to a dramatic and triumphant close. Our favourite mixologist from a premium cocktail bar in Singapore had been drafted as a surprise to prepare hubby’s signature drink and arrived onboard to act as our very own flair bartender, dazzling us of gravity defying bottle juggling and glass pouring set to music. The final culmination of the perfect day was a round of our Aqua Voyage cocktails to toast the birthday boy with, and a unanimous group decision, to celebrate many more birthdays on sea.

aquavoyage.com

Stacey Teo

For the conscientious chef, sustainability is more than just a fashionable catch phrase, as our columnist explains, it is both a moral obligation and our best chance for the future. STACEY TEO

I am not a professional writer, I’m a chef, but I do know that when writing an article it is good to grab the readers attention right away. How’s this for an attention grabber? According to the World Wildlife Fund, over 73 million sharks are killed each year just to feed consumer’s demand for sharks fin soup. That’s not a typo. 73…million. It’s a shocking number and the saddest part is that in most cases the shark is pulled from the water, its fin is hacked off and the rest of the majestic animal is unceremoniously dumped back into the sea.

More numbers? According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 85% of the world’s fisheries are either fully exploited, over exploited, depleted, or recovering from depletion. It’s no wonder. Singapore alone consumes an average of 100,000 tons of seafood each year and the global seafood market is expected to grow another 50 million tons by 2025. On land things aren’t much better. Millions of tons of food go to waste each year. It is estimated that in the US, 14% of food purchased at the grocery store is thrown away. This is an incredible waste of resources – not just to produce the food but also to ship, process and store it, all for nothing.

Something needs to be done and as chefs I believe that we are part of the problem but hopefully, we’re also part of the solution. For too long we have been abusing our resources and it is now time we start thinking about how we can stop destroying the raw materials we need to run our businesses. We have to set the example for our clients to follow. Yes, we face difficult questions and tough steps will need to be taken, but I am confident that if professionals and clients work together, we will not only sustain but actually begin to replenish.

This is the goal towards which we have already taken some important steps at our newly opened Montigo Resort, Nongsa. Before we opened our doors we began reaching out to area farmers to purchase as much locally produced food as possible. On the property itself we use organic fertiliser and we are planning to create our own gardens where we will grow vegetables, herbs and fruits to use in our restaurant.

We do not have items like cod and instead of industrially caught tuna we serve a locally caught variety. Salmon is occasionally served but we have replaced it on the menu with similar types of fish as often as possible.

Finally we do our very best to only buy what we will be using. Many restaurants over-buy which is not only environmentally wasteful but also bad for the bottom line. We ask our suppliers to deliver our products in minimal packaging without compromising on freshness and sanitation. Aubergine really does not need to be individually wrapped the way it is in the supermarket.

Sustainability can be achieved without compromising on flavour

When planning the menus I thought long and hard about how to make each dish sustainable. To  be truly sustainable you need to do more than just strike an item like shark fin soup from the menu. Buying locally sounds great but the reality is that not everyone starts out on an equal playing field. In Batam the main agricultural product is cassava leaves. That doesn’t give you a lot of menu options. Limited local crop variety means chefs have to become much more creative to develop a menu that offers a bit of variety but there is only so much one can do. Relying on local, seasonal harvests also means certain products are not available during certain times in the year. In consequence dishes need to be changed more often leads to more menus printed which adds to the restaurant’s overall costs and increases the carbon footprint.

It’s also difficult for a chef to select the right local farmers. Not many use organic compost these days and it’s difficult to keep track of who is using what in their growing cycles. To be sure a chef has to keep a list of farmers who support sustainable initiatives but how many of us have time to check-up on these things.

One thing we can control is the education of our staff. At Montigo, having everyone on the same page and fully understanding the reasons behind our initiatives is key. We are hopeful that some may start coming up with their own ways to help the cause and that it will carry over to their home lives and they will help spread the message if they ever decide to change jobs. Our guests also need to be aware that the future depends in great part on what they order when they are out and what they cook at home. As industry professionals, we are just the tip of the ice berg. We need to lead by example but it is up to our clients to follow. Ultimately our goal is not only to sustain but regain.

Want to help? There are a number of things you can do. First take a stand against unsustainable fishing by pledging to buy MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) certified seafood. It is still not readily available everywhere so if you can’t find seafood with the MSC label in your local store, please ask for them because businesses do listen to their customers. Next, inform yourself. You can find a lot of great information on the WWF website. There are sites for every area in the world. I love the Singapore site. It has useful information on what you can do to help preserve the area’s waters, from taking a Save the Sharks Pledge, to seeing what restaurants are shark-fin free and best of all, you can download an easy to carry guide to sustainable seafood shopping. I also like to check in at the Marine Stewardship Council’s website where apart from a lot of useful info on sustainable fishing there are some tasty recipes. Stacey Teo, Executive Chef at KOP Hospitality

wwf.org, msc.org 

Berry pie at De Kas, Amsterdam

Michelin stars are so twentieth century. Karys Webber rounds up 21 establishments around the world where you can have a meal on the wild side, whatever your tastes

MOTO, Chicago

Michelin-starred Moto in Chicago is molecular gastronomy at its best. Chef with a hint of mad scientist Homaro Cantu creates the most inventive, surprising and bizarre dishes for a multi-sensory food experience using high tech equipment and intricate techniques. The menu and ingredients change regularly and dishes are given mysterious names like ‘River’ and ‘Paradise’ that give little away. But one thing is consistent, nothing is quite as it seems: expect hard to be soft, savoury to be sweet and inedible to be edible. In a bid to avoid the use of paper in the restaurant, even the menus at Moto are edible, printed onto rice paper using a modified Canon i560 inkjet printer in which the print cartridges are filled with food-based ‘inks’, including tomatoes and purple potatoes. The science theme also extends to the laboratory style decor, which features walls of the periodic table of elements and displays of glass flasks and beakers. motorestaurant.com  

Acrobats and fine dining, Circus, London

CIRCUS, London

If you favour a side of acrobatics with your dinner then head to Circus in London’s Covent Garden, a late night cocktail bar and cabaret restaurant rolled into one. A surrealistinspired décor, dreamed up by designer Tom Dixon, is striking in black and white with gold Harlequin wallpaper and mirrors galore whilst a Pan-Asian menu offers up dishes such as Chilean sea bass, lychee and aubergine green curry and red pepper lamb chops with chilli and honey. Performances from acrobats, fire eaters, trapeze artists and burlesque dancers occur spontaneously during dinner but come into full force afterwards when the glossy white platform that dominates the main dining room transforms from communal dining table to stage and runway for the entertainment. circus-london.co.uk

DISASTER CAFÉ, Lloret de Mar

If you are someone who thinks going out for a meal is just too easy, perhaps you should make a visit to Disaster Café in Lloret de Mar, Spain where they make eating that much more of a challenge. The bizarre underground restaurant simulates an earthquake equivalent to 7.8 on the Richter scale during your dinner. Waiters don protective headgear and reflective vests and guests, unsurprisingly, are advised to wear machine washable clothing as inevitably things get messy. Even more bizarrely, the restaurant is a hit; tables are booked up weeks in advance by diners who clearly aren’t put off by the fact that the majority of the meal will end up on the floor. disastercafe.com

Situated in a restored greenhouse, De Kas grows its own fruits and vegetables

DE KAS, Amsterdam

De Kas is the project of Michelin-starred chef Gert Jan Hageman who in 2001, rescued Amsterdam’s Muncipal Nursery from demolition and turned it into one of the city’s coolest and most beautiful restaurants. Located in Frankendael Park, the 8-metre high greenhouse, which dates back to 1926, now operates as a unique restaurant-comenursery serving up fresh, seasonal and organic vegetables grown on the premises and locally sourced meat and fish. A fixed menu of simple, stylish dishes inspired by rural Mediterranean is created each morning based on the day’s harvest. Recent offerings have included smoked halibut with celeriac ravioli and lemon panna cotta with pomegranate seeds, melon and basil ice cream. The conservatory dining area is minimalist in design, courtesy of Dutch designer Piet Boon, letting the impressive glass structure take centre stage and a four-seat chef ‘s table is also available in the kitchen if you’re interested in seeing all the action. Alternatively, weather permitting, you can also dine outside in the picturesque herb garden. restaurantdekas.nl

Underwater dining at Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, Maldives

ITHAA UNDERSEA RESTAURANT. Maldives

If you fancy dining with the fishes there’s no more magical an experience than Ithaa Undersea Restaurant on the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island. Residing nearly five metres below the surface in the Indian Ocean, Ithaa – which means ‘mother of pearl’ in Dhivehi, the native Maldivian language – allows its diners to marvel at some of the richest marine life in the world whilst sipping champagne cocktails. Sharks, turtles and stingrays are all regularly spotted along with swarms of tropical reef fish and with a seafood heavy Maldivian-Western fusion menu, there’s a high chance you’ll be able to spot what’s on your plate swimming above your head. Intimate with only 14 seats, the 5 x 9 metre restaurant is encased by 12.5mm thick clear acrylic glass and cost $5 million to build. conradhotels.com

CANNABALISTIC SUSHI, Tokyo

Nyotaimori is the obscure Japanese practice of serving sushi on the body of a naked woman. Inspired by this, a restaurant in Tokyo has taken the concept to new levels with a macabre twist. Definitely not for the squeamish, at the Cannibalistic Sushi restaurant, guests are presented with an edible ‘human body’, wheeled out on a gurney by a waitress dressed as a nurse. The chefs at the restaurant ensure that the life size corpse is as realistic as possible, using dough to create the flesh, sushi and sashimi inside to replicate organs and blood red sauce embedded in the skin layer to create realistic bleeding when you make your incision. You can even choose between male and female bodies.

DINNER IN THE SKY, Worldwide

If you suffer from vertigo then this one may not be for you, however for spectacular views and your meal with a side of fear then Dinner in the Sky is a must do. The bespoke experience dangles 22 guests 100 feet in the air at a location of your choice with a chef, waiter and entertainer enclosed in the centre to tend to your needs, plus the swiveling chairs allow you to enjoy 180-degree views. Just make sure you take a bathroom trip beforehand, the whole table has to be brought down if anyone needs to go to the toilet during dinner. dinnerinthesky.co.uk

A zip-lining waiter enroute to the Soneva Kiri Treetop Dining Pod

SONEVA KIRI TREETOP DINING POD, Koh Food, Thailand

Also taking dining to new heights is five star eco-resort, Soneva Kiri, on the Thai island Koh Kood. Soneva Kiri offers its guests a unique Treetop Dining experience using a rattan pod that seats up to four people. Boarded at ground level, the bird’s nest-esque pod is then hoisted up 16 feet into the native massang trees so guests can enjoy their meal at one with nature and with stunning views of the island and out to sea. The menu also follows a jungle theme serving up dishes such as ‘Canapés in the Canopy’ and ‘Forager’s Basket’ using produce predominantly from the island’s organic gardens. With such a secluded, uneasy to reach location you may be wondering how your food arrives. In fact, the waiters glide elegantly through the trees using zip wires to reach you. However, designer of the Treepod, Louis Thompson, has said, “we are also looking into guests being able to fly on the zip line through the jungle themselves, as there is a certain amount of envy when they watch the waiters.” soneva.com/soneva-kiri/home

OPAGUE, Los Angeles

Everyone enjoys a candlelit dinner so why not go one step further and ditch the light completely? You can do just that at Opaque in Los Angeles where they promise a ‘more stimulating dining experience’ based on the theory that removing your vision heightens your remaining senses, enhancing the smell, taste and texture of your food. Guests at Opaque enjoy their meal in a completely pitch black room aided by waiters who are all blind or visually impaired. darkdining.com.

The Wrapping Gallery combines a restaurant with a contemporary art gallery

THE WRAPPING PROJECT, London

The venture of Australian-born theatre director and curator Jules Wright, The Wapping Project in London brings together a restaurant and contemporary art gallery in a disused hydraulic power station. With utilitarian furniture, high ceilings, bare-brick walls and looming industrial machinery, it’s not the cosiest of settings to settle down for dinner, but it is impressive. The daily changing menu offers up treats like veal rump with winter tomato, wild fennel, herb, almond and ricotta, courtesy of newly appointed chef Matthew Young, plus an all-Australian wine list handpicked by Wright. A cavernous art space at the back plays host to a variety of installations and exhibitions each month. thewappingproject.com

EL DIABLO, TIMANFAYA NATIONAL PARK, Lanzarote

El Diablo restaurant crowns the top of Islote de Hilario, the tallest of Timanfaya National Park’s famous ‘Fire Mountain’ volcanoes in Lanzarote. What makes this circular, glass-walled restaurant unique though is not just the spectacular views and odd location choice, it’s the way they cook the food. The chefs use the semi-dormant volcano itself to grill your dinner to perfection via a cavernous black pit, which reaches to the ground to utilize the natural 400°C heat that emanates from below the ground’s surface. The restaurant itself was designed by the late artist and architect, César Manrique, who was responsible for much of Lanzarote’s development. lanzarote.com/timanfaya  LAINO SNOW VILLAGE ICE BAR, Ylläsjärvi, Finland The Laino Snow Village Ice Bar resides in the town of Ylläsjärvi in Finland, just north of the Arctic Circle, and as you may have guessed, is made entirely of ice and snow. Diners here can enjoy local specialties such as reindeer, Lappish potato soup and vodka-lingonberry jelly (served in ice glasses of course) and as the restaurant is kept at a cool -2 to -5 degrees Celsius at all times, fur rugs are considerately draped over the solid ice chairs to keep you warm. The restaurant only exists however during the winter season when the weather is cold enough to sustain it, for the rest of the year it disappears entirely and is rebuilt from scratch when winter next arrives. snowvillage.fi

FORTEZZA MEDICEA, Volterra

For a somewhat tense dining experience, try Fortezza Medicea restaurant in Volterra, near Pisa, which just happens to reside inside a maximum-security prison. An experiment in prison rehabilitation, all the waiters and chefs that work in the restaurant are convicts who inhabit the 500-year-old facility, based on the idea that the inmates will learn valuable skills to help them find work upon release. Unsurprisingly, security checks are thorough: would be diners are required to submit a two-month background check before their reservations are considered and upon arrival at the restaurant, guests have to pass a series of checkpoints and hand over mobile phones and handbags before settling down for their meal. Armed prison wardens are stationed around the restaurant and, just in case, all cutlery and plates are plastic. The menu consists of Southern Italian dishes like mini frittatas and gnocci with a fava bean puree, plus a pianist doing life for murder serenades diners during their meal.

Fully automated service at `S Baggers, Nuremberg

‘S BAGGERS, Nurenberg

At ‘s Baggers restaurant in Nuremberg they’ve done away with the traditional table service in favour of a fully automated electronic system. Customers simply place their orders themselves using the touch screen computers at each table and when ready, your food will come whizzing towards you from the kitchen above on the spiraling metallic tracks that dominate the dining area. sbaggers.de

ANNALAKSHMI, Singapore

The motto at vegetarian restaurant Annalakshmi in Singapore is simply, ‘eat what you want, give what you feel’. That’s right, it’s up to you to decide how much you’d like to pay for your dinner. To entice your generosity however, the money you pay is donated to the Temple of Fine Arts, an artistic and cultural organization dedicated to serving the society through arts, music and dance, and all the staff at Annalakshmi are volunteers who hold regular day jobs and view their work at the restaurant as ‘service’. The unusual restaurant also has outlets in Kuala Lumpur and Perth. annalakshmi.com.sg

Sound of Silence, Australian barbecue in the Outback

SOUNDS OF SILENCE, Ayers Rock

If a romantic, starlit dinner is more your thing then try the awardwinning Sounds of Silence experience which offers a memorable meal in the secluded Australian outback. Champagne and canapés kick start the evening at sunset on a lone sand dune overlooking Ayers Rock followed by a traditional Australian barbecue in a candlelit desert clearing, serving up classic Northern Territory dishes kangaroo, crocodile, emu and barramundi. After dinner, you can indulge in a spot of stargazing with the resident astronomer on hand to guide you through the night sky. In the chillier winter months a campfire is also lit to keep things toasty. ayersrockresort.com.au

HAJIME, Bangkok

At Japanese restaurant, Hajime, in Bangkok they’ve come up with a novel, if slightly terrifying, way to serve customers. All food here comes courtesy of enormous, bug-eyed robots, dressed in snazzy samurai outfits. What’s more, they also perform clunky dance routines to Asian pop music for your entertainment. Owner Lapassard Thanaphant invested nearly $1 million to create the boogying robot waiters. hajimerobot.com

THE SPAM MUSEUM, Austin, Minnesota

Brilliantly dubbed The Guggenham, The SPAM Museum in Austin, Minnesota is 16,500 square foot dedicated purely to the canned meat. Visitors to the museum can experience ‘the world’s most comprehensive collection of spiced pork artifacts’ with exhibitions ranging from a short film entitled ‘Spam…A Love Story’, vintage SPAM brand advertising, SPAM trivia and a World War II exhibit that includes a letter from former U.S. president, Dwight Eisenhower, thanking the company for keeping the troops well fed during the war. Of course, you can also swing by the museum store on your way out to stock up on priceless SPAM collectables. spam.com/spam-101/the-spam-museum

MESTIZO, Santiago

Mestizo restaurant in Santiago, Chile, doesn’t really look much like a restaurant. If it wasn’t for the arrangement of tables and chairs, catching sight of it you’d be much more likely to mistake it for an art gallery or a museum. Designed by architect Smiljan Radic Clarke, what makes the structure so unique is the use of large boulders to support the wooden roof that stretches over the kitchen at one end, the indoor section of the restaurant in the middle and an outdoor deck patio at the other end. Occupying a corner of Parque Bicentenario, the restaurant overlooks picturesque water gardens and serves an eclectic mix of Chilean and Peruvian cuisine. mestizorestaurant.cl

THE CURRYWURST MUSEUM, Berlin

As ‘the culinary emblem of Germany’s capital city’, naturally the currywurst should have a museum dedicated to its greatness in Berlin. Opened in 2009 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the dish, the museum claims that ‘no national dish inspires as many stories, preferences and celebrity connoisseurs as this one does’ and holds interactive exhibitions including a Spice Chamber which features a sausage sofa, sniffing stations and a ‘Currymat’ that will tell you what curry type you are. currywurstmuseum.de

ROADKILL COOK-OFF FESTIVAL, West Virginia, USA

Yes, you have read that right. Every September, the people of Marlinton, West Virginia hold the stomach-churning Roadkill Cook-Off Festival. Thankfully, the dishes are merely inspired by common roadkill in the area as opposed to participants actually using animals scraped off the country roads. The rules state that competitors’ main ingredient must be an animal that often meets it’s grisly end in a road accident, be it a possum, beaver, raccoon, deer, squirrel or even a rattlesnake. Previous dishes have included teriyakimarinated bear. Vegetarians need not apply. pccocwv.com/