Celebrity Chefs Redzepi, Arzak, Dufresne Predict The Future Of Food

Sometimes it feels like everything that can been done with food has been done. Modernist cuisine has challenged all of haute cuisine's assumptions and introduced the most advanced technology into the kitchen. The Australian, prompted by this sense of culinary exhaustion, talked to some of the most adventurous chefs of today to ask, "Is culinary innovation still possible? And if not, how will adventurous chefs cook in the future?"

Many of the chefs interviewed told the magazine that they thought the trend towards locally-sourced meat and produce would continue—as if that were a controversial prognostication. But other answers were surprising. Rene Redzepi said he hoped his work at Noma will make Scandinavian cuisine as well-known as Japanese or Mexican. (Does that mean that "Pickled Herring" will be the Chipotle of 2050?) For his part, Dufresne thinks Japanese cuisine will become yet more influential in Western cooking. And Elena Arzak and Enrique Olvera, of Spain's Arzak and Mexico City's Pujol respectively, agreed that customers in the future would come to focus more and more on the quality of their food without caring about decor or service. The general thrust of the group's predictions was that restaurants in the future will be more rooted in their environment—a kind of futuristic return in cuisine to the ancient history of hunting and gathering.

Comments

[rikster]

08:48 PM on 06/28/2011

the future of food....it will be very expensive..! the person next to you is your dinner...

[gbrooks]

11:04 AM on 06/28/2011

That photo looks like stale bread with c0ckroaches on it.

[c-tom]

12:58 PM on 06/28/2011

I disagree - it looks like a dry sponge avec roaches.

[wzjussayin]

10:22 PM on 06/27/2011

Wow, this is a higher than average class of celebrity chef, and in the city I live near, these predictions not only hold true, but have been gaining ground for many years. I think this is a good turn. The food just keeps getting better and better, and we're wasting less and less of it (whole animal , thanks, Japan) . Scrapple is no longer the only answer - not that I wouldn't mind some righteous scrapple.....

[chaapai]

09:49 PM on 06/27/2011

Soylent green?

[mythatsme]

03:17 AM on 06/29/2011

The healthy alternative: If you eat what you (already) are ...

[caprawalie]

05:22 PM on 06/27/2011

There is nothing to celebrate about these purveyors of culinary nonesense!

[raker]

03:37 PM on 06/27/2011

I predict an end to the "celebrity chef." Worse food fad ever.

[blisster]

10:06 PM on 06/27/2011

But how would we be ever privy to Rachael Ray's bolognese sauce?

[raker]

11:19 PM on 06/27/2011

But she's not a chef. File her under celebrity cookbook writers loved by some, loathed by others.

[dauphin]

01:53 PM on 06/27/2011

Forty years is a long time in food history. In the last twenty years we as a world have become much more connected due to the web. What used to take several years now takes mere months to get. It is instant if you know where to look. If you can think of a cuisine you want to explore, you can find recipes and source ingredients locally all from home. If you live in a metropolitan area, chances are you can find several sources and restaurants for anything imaginable. From Scottish to Chilean, Korean to Caribbean and to every type of fusion is usually within reach if you have the money.

What we're likely to see is cloned lab grown meat. The same cut, with the same fat content and taste every time. Less waste and misery from factory farming. We will probably see greater fish/hydroponic combined farm systems in contained sterile environments with the waste being composted and re-utilized as plant food. As for future cuisine, the imagination will be the only limit.