appetite exclusive

by denise kok

The alchemy of creation

an exclusive look at how chefs design their menus
photo of bruno mnard by geraldine mostachfi
andr chiang bruno mnard eric bost sebastien lepinoy jason atherton

Chefs are a different breed of artist. Running a kitchen is both an art and a science. They take to the stove with the diligence and discipline of a military man, and yet, they somehow manage to retain the unfettered mind of an artist. They create. Transform. Make something that wasnt there before. How incredibly complex is the art of creation? To start with nothing and end with poetry on the plate. Between the gestation of thought and the final birth of a dish magic happens. But how? This month, weve rounded up five chefs whose restaurants serve up some of the most exquisite dining experiences. We slip into their private space of creation, dive into their thoughts, bridge the big question mark between ideation and execution. These chefs are at the top of their game. Theres no room for careless reproductions from cookbooks or unimaginative adaptations of recipes. The art of culinary creation is very much like jazz. Everyone rifts differently. Sometimes their approaches echo each other, but the path each chef takes is as distinct as their cuisine. Bruno Mnard doesnt start with an end in mind. Given to serendipity, he lets his taste memories guide him. Eric Bost takes a more scientific approach, where the gold is to be found through a systematic analysis of various elements. Then you have chefs like Andr Chiang who begin by studying flavour pairings. On the next page, youll see his intricate spider web of ingredients his attempt to make sense of relationships by flavours. A canvas to an artist is what a plate is to a chef. In the spirit of creation, we got our chefs to put down their knives and take to the drawing board. They wrote, doodled, sketched; sharing how they farm inspiration and graft ideas for a new menu. Bruno Mnard and Jason Atherton also let us in on their new restaurants in Singapore that throw open their doors this month. Andr Chiang of Restaurant Andre said, We keep all the technicalities of cooking behind the kitchen door. The guest doesnt need to know this. As simple as it is, I just want them to enjoy the food. But we disagree. There is one ingredient more precious than truffles or caviar imagination. You cannot teach it but you may dream it. The following pages present an exclusive collection of images where you can bear witness to the artistic hand of luminous culinary minds.

finding inspiration |

Inspiration sparks with either a message or a story. This dish was inspired by Michel Bras, a French chef led by naturalism and Im very much inspired by his cuisine. I created this dish as a homage to Mother Nature, and also as a form of respect to Brass timeless dish gargouille. Here, Ive listed all the vegetables Ill put in the dish: onion, shallot, sweet pea, cucumber flower, green radish, pink radish, leek, soil, tomato and more.

For me, the egg is a true inspiration, a magician! In a sauce, you discover its smoothness and brightness of colour; in a bun, its lightness and flavour; in a mayonnaise, its texture; and in a sabayon, its flexibility. The egg has an impressive list of culinary uses and is universal in any recipe in the world. Personally, I prefer it boiled and enjoyed with toasted bread and salted butter.

chef and owner of three-michelin-starred andr chiang restaurant l arpege, paris chef & owner at restaurant andre,
singapore

Alain Passard,

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menu creation | I dont create one dish at a time. Whether its a five or eight-course meal, I have to see cheffing without recipes | Im a very visual person. I always draw.
When I have an idea, I sketch it out before preparing the components. I have a black book that I sketch in, but I often draw on the menu after I have typed it out. I have a very bad memory. I can never remember my recipes. As a result, there are none. I draw my dishes and my staff have learnt to read my drawings. The drawings are quite essential in helping me to communicate with my staff. One doesnt cook by following exact measurements. I teach my staff how to taste and feel for the right balance.

how the dishes flow from one to the other. I begin by lining up the ingredients I want to create with, then I elaborate on each ingredient finding what I call their mutual friends, as defined by ingredients that pair well with each other. After I determine this, I create a dish using these ingredients. I avoid flavours that clash with the previous or following course. When you look at the dish itself, all the components have to gel together and make sense. Each dish has to be whole unto itself, and between dishes, they have to chart a clear progression of flavours tipping at the high notes before coming down towards the end. Sometimes I dont think about just flavour pairings. I pair colours and textures as well. Interestingly, the way you name your dish can also be a pairing of sorts: the name of a dish evokes an image in the mind and you can pair that image with what youre putting on the plate.

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a dish from cpage | Delicate mounds of potato fan out around a micro herb salad. Each potato petal is brushed with crme fraiche, dotted with pearls of oscietra caviar, and topped with chives, shiso flower and smoked salmon.

how i farm inspiration

executive chef of one-michelin restaurant cpage, hong kong

sebastien lepinoy

heres a dish i created specially for appetite | Imagine sweet langoustine flesh tossed with coriander, enveloped in a ravioli pillow. This dish bears strong Asian influences, featuring a yuzu dashi broth, shimeji mushrooms, silky tofu and ginkgo nuts.

what i find inspirational about hong kong

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four seasons | The single most important thing that drives me as a chef is the seasons spring, summer, autumn and winter. The seasons influence my well-being, the clothes I wear, the way I cook. When spring arrives, I know that the Orkney sea scallops will come into season, showing their heads to the divers, then Im getting excited about Scotland and scallops. Then theres rhubarb from Yorkshire, the very pink rhubarb; baby eels from Norfolk, which we smoke; and so much more produce all gifted by spring. I draw up a map of the countries around London where I live, scanning for whats going into season and where its coming from. By studying a chart like this, my menu is written for me.

michelin-starred chef of pollen street social in london and newly opened sister-restaurant, pollen in singapore

jason atherton

Pollen, it wasnt just me and Colin [Clague]. I had all my head chefs from London. We sat round a table, got some coffee because all chefs need coffee and started by looking at two words: Mediterranean cuisine, and what it means to us as chefs. Pollen is inspired by Mediterranean cuisine but were not a Mediterranean restaurant. We needed to find a way to express ourselves without being confined by the Mediterranean concept. Starting from there, we mapped out five Mediterranean countries: Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal. Then we went on to the next ripple, examining the ingredients and techniques each country is known for. With all that laid out before me, I could pretty much build a menu from it, pulling together ingredients, seeing how we can apply different techniques to create something unique. Its a brainstorming of sorts, a mindopening one.

creating a menu for pollen | When we drew up the menu for

a dish for appetite magazine | Ill create

a dish from pollen | Heres an

appetiser from our new menu: Orkney sea scallop carpaccio with horseradish snow, compressed cucumber, raw apple salad and soy-yuzu dressing.

something with a local flavour. Heres a Scottish lobster that has been roasted in its shell. Ill dress it with coriander oil and coriander shoots. Ill also make a chilli crab sauce with lobster bones and use that as a delicate sauce for the dish so youll get the flavours of the sauce but not the robustness of it. Oh, Ill char spring onions and throw some of that in as well.

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taste memories | When cooking, you have to be spontaneous. I never look for something. Ill expect something to click but I dont seek it. If I think, I end up thinking too much and information clutters in my head. Like a musician who can feel the music, I can taste the food in my head. But how that goes onto the plate thats the big question. Like a sommelier who remembers the wine he tastes, I have memories of flavours and textures. Based on those memories, I play around with the flavour combinations in my head. I never know what Im doing.

toastoo | The new restaurants very casual and were going to have a

three-michelin starred chef, dliciae hospitality management group, singapore

bruno mnard

lot of burgers. One of the things were having on the menu is toastoo a closed, warm sandwich. Its made by a machine press very similar to a waffle machine. You can put layers of dough, bread, crpes you can be very creative and fill it with ingredients. When you close the machine, it is so heavy that the iron will close the sandwich, toast it, then send it out crispy and warm. Heres a toastoo with Singaporean chilli crab inside.

&made by bruno mnard | My new

restaurant at Pacific Plaza is called &MADE by Bruno Mnard. Heres the first part of the logo. The & symbol is the link between so many things. At the same time, we play on the word handmade because most of the food will be homemade. The logo will give you an idea of how the restaurant looks like: itll feature black and white design elements with mosaic motifs and a good dose of red.

a dish for appetite magazine |

An Appetite burger

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executive chef and general manager at restaurant guy savoy, singapore

eric bost

finding inspiration | For me, inspiration

menu creation | These are the

steps we take when developing or testing a new menu

comes from products and therefore seasonality. Were cooks. We take something that grows or is raised somewhere and present it to diners. Therefore, to see, touch, smell and taste produce is immensely inspirational. Inspiration also comes from experience. Sometimes you cant wait for inspiration, you have to force it. If you wait for those moments, you really wont drive your team or restaurants. Deadlines help you to do that. Forcing creativity and taking an analytical approach help me to generate ideas.

colours of caviar | This is a unique dish. There are no other adaptations of it. Its very focused. The idea is to take one ingredient and figure out its inherent characteristics and properties that make it special acidity, fat, humidity all these textures play a role. There are always a few things that stand out about caviar: the creaminess, a natural acidity and salinity. In the oscietra that we use, we get a lot of earth tones and it is a refined product with elegant butteriness. Each component of the dish takes one characteristic of caviar and intensifies it. So its not just about eating one spoon of caviar the sum of the overall experience becomes far more than what caviar would taste on its own.

a dish for appetite magazine | Ive

created a spring-inspired dish focused on asparagus. I took white asparagus spears and showcased it with a little bit of mascarpone, Parmesan these things marry very well. Then I layer on ingredients that highlight without distracting green asparagus, a little bit of lemon zest and crisp pearl onions to add texture.