tasting menus

In October 2023, Max Natmessnig and Marco Prins returned to Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare, where they once were cooks, as co-chefs of the celebrated tasting-menu restaurant. Four months into their tenure, they sat down with Andrew to share their individual and joint stories, describe their collaborative creative process, and explain their their attraction to New York City.

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

Andrew is a writer by trade. If you'd like to support him, there's no better way than by purchasing his most recent book, The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food (October 2023), about all the key people (in the restaurant, on farms, in delivery trucks, etc.) whose stories and work come together in a single restaurant dish.

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Please also follow Andrew's real-time journal of the travel, research, writing, and production of/for his next book The Opening (working title), which will track four restaurants in different parts of the U.S. from inception to launch.

For Andrew's writing, dining, and personal adventures, follow along at his personal feed.

Thank you for listening—please don't hesitate to reach out with any feedback and/or suggestions!

What does the popularity of culinary foam say about the types of food – and the kinds of chefs – we value?

When Geraldine DeRuiter wrote about her meal at “the worst Michelin starred restaurant, ever,” she didn’t expect to start a global controversy. The tasting menu she had at Bros, in Lecce, Italy, was a bizarre, avant garde dining experience, the pinnacle being the “Chef’s Kiss” dish, a plaster cast of a mouth with foam dripping out of it. What followed was a whole conversation online about the nature of food as art, the role of a chef, and the pretentiousness of fine dining. 

And as we dug in more, we started to see how the “Chef’s Kiss” was not just a ridiculous dish on a bizarre menu, but how foam was a metaphor for the flaws of fine dining and the toxicity of the “abusive genius” chef. 

You can find Geraldine (she/her):

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

On her blog

Buy her book

To read more about the international culinary incident:

• Geraldine’s original blog post and her follow up
• The story from Today with Floriano’s “Man on a Horse” response
• Of Mouth Molds and Michelin Stars: Chef Finds Fame After Epic Takedown: Panned by a prominent blogger, the Italian restaurant Bros’ and its celebrity chef became a global target for critics of pretentious cuisine. There was a good side for him.

The Reels put out by Bros: 

• “Limoniamo, Let’s Make Out”
• “Floriano Pellegrino in the Spotlight”
• “Strange Posters Around the City”

More about foam:

• The article from 2002 in which Ferran Adrià declares “foams are out” and announces that they are now making “air”
• Once Declared Passé, Foam Returns to the Restaurant Table: From a dragon-fruit cloud to aerated lobster bisque, chefs are breathing new life into the most clichéd of culinary techniques.
• Ferran Adrià, Master of Foam, Whips Up Dinner: First he created avant-garde cuisine. His next challenge: Getting you to make an affordable three-course meal…every night of the week

This episode is supported by BentoBox and Clover. To learn more about their all-in-one platform for websites, online ordering, world-class point-of-sale, and payment solutions, check out getbento.com/better

Kim Alter’s tasting menus at Nightbird in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley tell compelling stories, like the opening “Insight” menu that was all white until the last course, when there was a burst of color. That menu reflects the journey her mother took from descending into blindness—and seeing only blurry outlines of colors—to having an experimental surgery that allowed her to see again. Thus the bright dessert. Listen in to this episode to hear how Alter has shaped her restaurant and her team to bring nuanced flavors and emotions to the table.

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