Food art, art food

[Gob]

Here are six dishes - from six celebrated chefs - that deserve to be served with a frame around them. "Some people look at their dish with reverence," says Mark Best of the three-hatted Marque.

"Art lovers will sit there with their hands on their knees and admire it. Then again, others just devour it and make a mess."






The dish Chocolate mousse écrasé with eucalyptus and coconut.
The chef Mark Best, Marque, Surry Hills.
The lowdown "A chocolate mousse is frozen in large blocks with liquid nitrogen. It is then smashed and the pieces spray-painted with 70 per cent couverture [chocolate]. The rocks are then refrigerated. The crunch, combined with the soft interior, which holds its shape, is a surprise. Other ingredients are designed to bring a refreshing element to the chocolate - dark caramel made with the addition of powder from Fisherman's Friend throat lozenges; mint leaves candied with sugar syrup and dried; and coconut sorbet."
The inspiration "This dish is an exercise in making something that is very familiar and simple into something interesting."
Favourite artist "I am very interested in photography - an interest that predates my love of cooking - so I'd choose Berenice Abbott and her Nightview, New York. It's an amazing image that you never tire of looking at."
What the art critic says "This is definitely a landscape, with suggestions of earth, forest and snow viewed from the sky," says The Sydney Morning Herald's art critic, John McDonald. "Each part feels like a condensation of a particular element, a visual reinforcement of the strong, distinctive flavours of the dish."






The dish Salad of pink turnips, pickled beetroot, breakfast radishes, goat's curd, olive crumbs, sweet violets, chard, pine resin and balsamico.
The chef Peter Gilmore, Quay, The Rocks.
The lowdown "This is a relatively recent dish. It's a combination of textures and harmonious flavours which include fresh, pickled and dehydrated vegetables. There are rare organic pink turnips that are grown for the restaurant in the Blue Mountains."
The inspiration "This dish is a celebration of the vegetable garden - it's visually attractive and engages all your senses. I wanted to create a dish that moved the palate in different directions, from tender, fresh, young vegetables to dehydrated crisp beetroot chips through to the sharp flavour of pickled vegetables, the lush, creamy flavour of goat's curd, the crunch of the olive crumbs and the perfume of the pine resin, balsamic vinegar and sweet violets. The dish is visually complex but, at the same time, harmonious and unified. To me it looks like a wild garden on a plate and, just like nature, everything finds a place."
Favourite artist "I recently spent a week in Barcelona and was inspired by the work of [Antoni] Gaudí and how he used nature's forms for inspiration in his architecture. The Sagrada Família church is an amazing testament to his vision, artistry and design."
What the art critic says "A little miracle of soft colours, rounded forms and contrasting textures, this is like one of those sculptures that are not so much compositions but accumulations of objects," says McDonald. "The visual appeal comes from the way the ingredients are bunched together, as if they had grown up through a hole in the plate."





The dish Ceviche of citrus-cured ocean trout and pickled baby octopus with freshly grated wasabi.
The chef Paul McGrath, Bistro Ortolan, Leichhardt.
The lowdown "Ocean trout, in one form or another, has been on our menu for about six months. This incarnation is a tartare of lightly cured trout [in citrus zest, sugar and salt], pickled baby octopus legs and diced baby fennel leaf, wrapped in a thinly sliced band of trout cured in sugar and cognac, topped with a quenelle of fresh wasabi chantilly."
The inspiration "As the dish is loosely designed around the classic steak tartare, the plate is garnished with more freshly grated wasabi, octopus pickle, citrus salt and zests to suit personal taste. The essence lies in the combination of subtle contrasting flavours that produce a dish that is clean and delicate in flavour and texture. No flavour should overshadow another."
Favourite artist "An Irish sculptor, Kathryn Smyth. Her pieces, mostly abstract, use a cold, soulless medium such as bronze or aluminium to create a work that is organic, fluid and natural, almost living and breathing. It's that feeling of nature and comfort that we all aspire to evoke as chefs."
What the art critic says "The plate is well-chosen to accentuate the constellation-like aspect of this dish," says McDonald. "The trout is the sun and the other ingredients its satellites. It's hard not to focus on the octopus legs, floating like remnants of some alien creature consumed in an explosion."






The dish My Ocean.
The chef Martin Benn, Sepia, city.
The lowdown "The dish consists of poached New Zealand scampi, beetroot-infused trout roe, dashi potatoes, periwinkles, tonburi
[a type of Japanese edible seed] and crystallised wakame [seaweed]. They're broken down into elements to create the ocean bed, such as the dashi-poached potatoes in dashi jelly representing small boulders and rocks. This gives the real flavour and depth of the sea - and tonburi roasted and mixed with nori [dried seaweed] depicts the sand."
The inspiration "I wanted to create a dish that was like a fish swimming through the ocean, and through the creatures that live there. I wanted to not only make it resemble the ocean bed but also make it feel like you were eating, texturally and flavour-wise, from the ocean bed - not only from creatures of the sea but from sea vegetables. There are a lot of textural elements to the dish, from the crunch of the 'sand' to the silky wakame."
Favourite artist "[American abstract expressionist] Jackson Pollock. I particularly like the spontaneous nature of Pollock's work and the way that he defied conventional painting on an upright surface, adding a new dimension by being able to apply paint from all directions."
What the art critic says "In many ways the least abstract dish of the lot," says McDonald. "It gives a convincing impression of the sea bed, complete with rocks, sand and seaweed. It is a piece of marine ikebana. I can't imagine anyone eating this without a moment of reverential inspection."






The dish Smoked eel parfait with white soy, kombu and seaweed.
The chef Brent Savage, Bentley Restaurant & Bar, Surry Hills.
The lowdown "This dish has been on the menu for about two years and can be made in about two hours but we are able to make the components in advance and then put the dish together at service time."
The inspiration "I have always liked the flavour of smoked eel, though I've found the texture inconsistent. I thought making it into a parfait was the best way to taste eel flavour. The soy, kombu and seaweed give the dish balance."
Favourite artist "My favourite artist would probably be [British street/graffiti artist] Banksy. I like the playfulness of his art and the way it is accessible and witty."
What the art critic says "The contrasting flavours of this dish are perfectly matched by the visual contrasts, the wristy flick set against the immaculately composed cylinder," says McDonald. "It's as playful as a Joan Miró but with a touch of Zen. It virtually begs to be photographed."






The dish Sea urchin eggcup.
The chef Ryuichi Yoshii, Yoshii, The Rocks.
The lowdown "I created this dish 10 years ago in Sydney. There is egg yolk on the bottom and fresh sea urchin topped with bonito stock. The ingredients for the dish are fresh Tasmanian sea urchin, egg yolk, snow peas, bonito stock, gold leaf, daikon radish, flying fish roe, ogo seaweed from Japan and sashimi sauce. It takes half an hour to prepare."
The inspiration "Tasmania has very good fresh sea urchins and sea urchin sashimi and sushi are very popular in Japan but maybe the strong flavour and texture are not as popular with Australians. I created this dish by mixing lightly steamed sea urchin with egg yolk and bonito stock, aiming to pull out the freshness of flavour and at the same time keeping the smooth taste."
Favourite artist "Akira Isogawa, the Sydney-based, Japanese-born Australian fashion designer. His design and colour-matching influence my sense of creativity."
What the art critic says "Despite the playful, complementary touches of green and orange, this looks like something the British sculptor Anish Kapoor might have dreamt up," says McDonald. "The cosmic
mystery - of flavour - lies inside the egg."

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/res ... 1ceg7.html

[loCAtek]

Hey, I think I've seen some of those lurking in the back of my fridge.

[Rick]

I'll stick with the "all ya can eat buffet" thanks...

[Long Run]

I think having pretty food served to you is all well and good, but it comes too often at the expense of, well expense, and with a goodly percentage of calories missing.

[Rick]

I arrange the stir fried green beans and Chinese dumplings in such a manner that they look like cattle in a corrall.

Then I sit down and pig out...

[The Hen]

I love being presented with food that I could never make in a million years.

Eating it is such an experience. I know it costs far too much, but what cost is art, even gastronomic art?

I am happy to indulge my ephemeral hobby and leave with only a lighter wllet and a photographic reminder.

[Gob]

At $280 a head without wine, Bilson's 14-course degustation menu has pushed ahead of rivals such as Tetsuya's and Quay for price.

"It could well be [the most expensive meal in Sydney]," owner Tony Bilson concedes.

With head chef Diego Munoz back from a spell at El Bulli and up-and-coming talent in the kitchen, Bilson says the menu is designed "to keep them interested".

Dishes will include gold-crusted egg yolk, chicken sand, rye and parmesan.

He'll keep the cheaper degustation menus ($145 and $195) but appears to be softening towards vegetarians.

The chef, who once offered a guest who inquired about vegetarian options a gift voucher for Govinda's, is now doing well with his vegetarian degustation menu.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/res ... 1ctga.html

[oldr_n_wsr]

At $280 a head without wine

I guess it's true
you can fool some of the people .....

It mighta chocked Artie, but it ain't gonna choke Stymie

[Gob]

I'd pay it...

[The Hen]

Me too.

[loCAtek]

$50- can feed a family of four for a week