Molecular Gastronomy

CULINARY CHEMISTRY

In the hotly debated culinary movement sometimes known as “molecular gastronomy,” no chef is splitting atoms (yet), but several may well be splitting hairs over the moniker. A term invented in the 1980s by Hungarian physicist Nicholas Kurti and French chemist Hervé This (still collaborating closely with Chef Pierre Gagnaire to broaden cooking’s formulas), molecular gastronomy—or the “science of deliciousness”—incorporates physical chemistry with creative cooking.

When initially encountered, some of the field’s forward-thinking techniques were ribbed as being more appropriate for computer hackers, as they approach taste as a cipher to be cracked. During an episode of “Iron Chef America” that featured molecular techniques, commentator Alton Brown declared it a battle of soul versus science, where “natural contrasts” met a “mouthfeel factory.” During another episode, he quipped that the unconventional platings could almost be called a “science and crafts fair.”

But heating oil in a pan has always initiated a chemical reaction, and many of the naturally derived elements used in molecular gastronomy have long been in cuisine—but this creativity is now being applied in four- and five-star restaurants. All these tools are used to improve an art dedicated to pleasure, providing unforgettable culinary explorations.

“Molecular” chefs are a group, it should be noted, with wildly varying cooking styles. But they all desire to rouse palates and senses, including that of humor, often toying with words as much as produce in their kitchens. For example, Chef Homaro Cantu of Chicago’s Moto (www.motorestaurant.com; 312-491-0058) synthesizes noodles and calls them “impasta.” (Quotation marks season many molecular menus.)

In fact, chefs will rarely call the cuisine molecular gastronomy. “It doesn’t sound like something I’d like a whole bowl full of,” says Cantu, who dubs his own compellingly tweaked cuisine “postmodern.” “But with every artistic movement there’s a time to define it.”

Chef Katsuya Fukushima of Minibar (www.cafeatlantico.com; 202-393-0812) in Washington, DC, agrees. “The term makes this type of food so scientific… giving it an overly chemical or unnatural feel, when that is not the case,” he says.

Will Goldfarb, a New York-based chef and distributor of modern pantry concepts for the brand Willpowder (www.willpowder.net), suggests looking at molecular gastronomy as an open-ended system of understanding how to further an experience, not as an actual style of cooking.

Admittedly, these Willy Wonka-like chefs toy with kitchen concepts that can be hard to summarize, despite encapsulation being one of the discipline’s hallmarks. Perhaps the most famous name in lab-aided gastronomy is that of Ferran Adriá, the deconstructivist chef of ElBulli in Spain, along with Heston Blumenthal (chef of England’s The Fat Duck). Adriá proved how a small seaside town can become a global beacon for destination dining, thanks to the way the swaying of perception can be as much of a binding agent in dishes as the physical ingredients themselves.

The first major impacts on the culinary world were Adriá’s applications of three-dimensional sauce, aka foam, and the blurring of savory and sweet (in Blumenthal’s liquid nitrogen-scrambled egg and smoked bacon ice cream, for example).

In the United States, along the Potomac River, an excellent first stop on a molecular culinary pilgrimage would be the aforementioned six-seat, reservation-only Minibar in DC, founded in 2003 by Adriá compatriot José Andrés within the Nuevo Latino restaurant Café Atlántico.

Inviting guests to an “interactive carnival,” the menu presents 30 to 35 bite-sized creations—or “light bulbs of flavor”—including an olive oil bonbon, cotton candy foie gras, a deconstructed glass of white wine, “new New England clam chowder” (aerated hot potato mousse, chive oil, crisped potatoes and poached oysters) and more.

While droppers and assorted accoutrements are incorporated, Fukushima feels that the sleek, striking presentations help defuse any issues with means-versus-ends. “You make a dish beautiful because the first thing the customer does is see the dish coming,” he says. “The customer is already biased from that moment on. You’re now at an advantage.”

To Fukushima, each dish is like a character in a play— imbued with drama, mystery, beauty and suspense—and each is meant not to be loved alone so much as to contribute to the whole experience’s stirring of emotions.

One chef who might agree with these assessments of intention is Chef Grant Achatz, proprietor of a 2007 addition to Restaurant magazine’s “S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants” list. “I think we’re definitely trying to evoke emotion through a block of time, so it should fall in the category of art,” says Achatz of Chicago’s Alinea (www.alinea-restaurant.com; 312-867-0110). The Lincoln Park restaurant’s 12-course tasting menu is tagged as “Progressive American.”

Achatz could certainly be said to be a sculptor of sorts, in terms of sensory transport. His serviceware, co-designed with Crucial Detail studio, include “the Antenna,” a 14-inch self-supporting skewer that requires the guest to bend and bite without hands. Feelings of intimidation, embarrassment, absurdity and exhilaration are all encountered when presented with these Calder mobiles of flavor.

In other dishes, such as pheasant accompanied by smoking oak leaves aroma, Achatz aims to provoke, while preserving the ingredients’ most evocative essences. To Achatz—who certainly but subtly takes advantage of liquid nitrogen and the like—heat is an integral tool, used throughout to elicit a rise of emotions.

Chicago—home to acclaimed “improvisational” tasting menu pioneer Charlie Trotter’s—is also home to Moto. Chef Cantu (with his headsets, scrolling nametags, Class IV lasers, pipettes, “aromatic utensils,” nitrogen-fueled “antigriddles” and polymer boxes for table-side cooking) was the one whose dishes were dubbed a “science and crafts fair” on “Iron Chef.”

And Cantu has truly created a restaurant worthy of comparison to a “shock and awe” campaign. To him, the cuisine is an evolution, like, he says, when “Cubists were tired of lambs in fields and royalty on a canvas; they wanted melting and dripping.”

The enveloping experience begins with an edible menu (soy paper and flavored ink) accompanied by a cracker, one of several patented concepts Cantu would like to see working outside Moto. Like Goldfarb, Cantu believes creativity can be marketed, that the right products will inspire people to consume less yet achieve more.

Before these concepts become more commonplace, however, there is one name perhaps more widely known. Appearing on season two of Bravo’s “Top Chef” (featuring molecular gastronomy enthusiast Marcel Vigneron), Wylie Dufresne of New York’s Michelin Star recipient WD~50 (www.wd-50.com; 212-477-2900) has had a relatively high-profile association with “Modern American Cuisine.”

In tune with New York’s quickened attitude, WD~50 offers à la carte alongside a tasting menu. Understanding flavor takes front seat to bells and whistles—like debating what defines a utensil—but immersion circulation (for the signature “slow-poached” egg) aids in the preparations.

Ever since reading Harold McGee’s invaluable On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Dufresne has had a fascination with the “why” as well as the “how,” and balances new approaches to protein reactions with an understanding of how nostalgic flavors also induce response. “I love low-temperature cooking, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love the char of 900 degrees,” Dufresne says. “I just like informed decisions.”

Indeed, these chefs are chipping away at any hesitancy to embrace the entire planet’s gamut of knowledge, ingredients and execution. They have all established their own subtle or sensationalized approaches. And what cooking boils down to isn’t a list of what goes into a dish; it’s a proud tradition that culminates in what a diner gets out of it. And if there’s one thing these chefs have in common, it’s that they have turned the art of delivering distinction into, well, a science.