Maclean’s
February 13, 2006

Atomic Chefs

By Anne Kingston

“People can over do it,” says David Lee, chef at Toronto’s critically acclaimed Splendido restaurant, which is not itself a molecular gastronomy destination. Still, Lee is known to whip up the occasional bacon or champagne foam and uses sous vide or vacuum cooking time to prevent flavour loss, reduce cooking time and coax moisture out of the toughest pheasant. Also in his repertoire is sorbet made with liquid nitrogen—something, he hastens to add, not to be tried at home. “I’m always thinking, ‘How so I get the science to work for me in terms of taste?’ ” He says.

Lee recently visited a famed molecular cuisine restaurant in New York. “They put so many chemicals in,” he says. “It wasn’t food.” He has a point. With its parade of sniffs, nibbles and beguiling presentations, molecular cuisine might seem little more than a gourmet version of Pop Rocks, catering to ADD foodies who need to be perpetually entertained by their dinner. Paris’s Hotel Plaza Athénée, for instance, offers martini lollipops (the trick to freezing alcohol, according to bar director Thierry Hernandez, is a secret natural ingredient). At Chicago’s Moto, diners can literally eat the menu: it’s Parmesan-flavoured rice paper imprinted with edible soy ink framed by puffed rice and freeze-dried shallots on a bed of crème fraiche. The threat of culinary overkill is ever-present. Even Pierre Gagnaire has questioned why a perfect tomato should be deconstructed into water or powder simply because it’s possible.