Traditional food versus science

What’s wrong with traditional food made and presented at its best?

When I started training to be chef almost 16 years ago I was lucky enough to get a great opportunity in a fine dining restaurant. Within months it was amazing how much I had learnt.

How to cook and present fine food, the appearance was so important to me, every dish served had to be perfection.

It was real traditional food just cooked and presented to a high standard in order to create the ‘fine dining experience’.

I’ve always enjoyed cooking for others & showing them how simple it can be to make great food.

Over the years the ‘fine dining experience’ has become more like a science and it’s been left to the pubs to keep up the traditional food that we know and love.

Trying new ideas and improving recipes is of course important in all aspects of catering but it seems these days everyone is obsessed with cooking in water baths and using cream canisters to foam anything in sight.

I visited Heston Blumenthal restaurant the Fat Duck a few years ago and it was an amazing experience.

Pushing the boundaries is what he does, and trying his egg & bacon ice-cream was definitely memorable. But this is what he’s always done, and although his ideas amaze us do we really want to see these crazy recipes taking over the menus at all restaurants?

By far the best dining experience I have ever had was at Le Louis XV Restaurant in Monaco, French Riviera Cuisine at its finest, very traditional but you could see the amount of effort that had gone into every dish and not a hint of science in sight just traditional French cooking at its best.

It’s becoming more common for the gastro pubs to win awards at the same level as restaurants, for example, The Three Fishes at Whalley has a AA Rosette, which some restaurants struggle to maintain.

This is a typical example of traditional food done well, using all local produce and definitely worth a visit.

A good friend of mine, one of the top chefs in the North West, recently left a head chef position at one of Manchester’s top restaurants and completely changed his career after many years because he felt that what he fell in love with about cooking was starting to be left behind.

What’s wrong with traditional food made and presented at its best? Or is science the future of cooking? Only time will tell.

I know I’d rather be enjoying a delicious meal in a gastro pub, and for me this is the future, not the extremities of what fine dining is becoming.

Food & Wine by Andy Mckay
little.deli@yahoo.com