International Menu Trends
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May 12th, 2008
International Menu Trends
Tastes and senses: There is a rise in working with the traditional tastes and senses to create new experiences.
* Bitterness (i.e. chocolate and coffee with piglet), smoking and burnt flavours to enhance the complexity of a dish
* Increasing use of acidity, especially in desserts (i.e. freeze-dried vinegar)
* Lowering the amount of salt in a dish to allow the dish to speak of the product.
* Enhancing touch. Bite into potatoes coated in edible clay and clay crust against your teeth feels oddly like a pebble might taste.
* Serving aroma. Jordi Roca works with perfume companies to create desserts based on their perfumes.
* Cool ingredients from Europe’s top chefs: oyster leaves which look like spinach and taste like oyster; sorrel; hare; and, coolest of all, various tree saps and resin.
* Improve the ‘theatre’ in your restaurant: Heston Blumenthal has hired a magician to teach floor staff a few tricks.
* Have a ‘Philosophy’: Have a “manifesto” outlining the principles behind your food.
* Combining different gels, or beating them, or freezing them and then beating them for a different textural result. Gels you could caramelise or even use to make a sorbet that could be flamb