Restaurant of the future
“I’d like to order an edible watter bottle, or wait, I might go for the
inhalable chocolate... Nevermind, I’ll take the vapor Scotch”. Behold only a
few items on the menu of the futuristic Café
ArtScience, a restaurant, bar and café located in Cambridge (Massachusetts)
specialized in edible experiments, offering an innovative and unusual dining
experience. The restaurant opened in October 2014, and was founded by David
Edwards and Todd Maul, both scientists, and Chef de Cuisine Patrick Campbell.
The French architect Mathieu Lehanneur designed the modernist and prominent café.
In fact, David Edwards came up with the idea. He’s a
Harvard engineering professor whose expertise lies in the use of air to improve
health. Café ArtScience is Edwards’ first restaurant. Next to the restaurant,
there’s also a showroom for his edible experiments: the so-called ‘WikiBar’.
“I’m able to deliver nutrition without any of the side effects that are
sometimes associated with drinking a Red Bull,” Edwards says. In 2007, he
already founded ‘Le Laboratoire’ in Paris. Actually, Café ArtScience can be
seen as its extension.
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| The modernist design of Mathieu Lehanneur |
‘Le Laboratoire’ extended
The ‘Scotch tasting flight’ is one of Edwards’ most
recent creations. This special designed carafe – dubbed as ‘Le Whaf’ –
transforms Whisky liquor into diaphanous fog, which can be inhaled easily. It has the same taste and smell as regular Scotch, but doesn’t
contain the calories or intoxication effects. The ice cream spheres are another
example of the revolutionary dining experiments. They’re wrapped in a flavored
skin which helps the frozen liquids to keep their shape.
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| Edwards' diaphanous Whisky |
Apart from the lab experimenting, Café ArtScience
opened also as a proper restaurant. Patrick Campbell, Chef de Cuisine, provides
day-to-day contemporary French meals. In fact, he rarely uses Edwards’
creations in the kitchen. However, Todd Maul, the barman, tends to experiment a
bit more. Of course, the food inventions aren’t always a big success. Through trial
and error just a few of Edwards’ creations managed to deserve a place in the
experimental WikiBar. “Any innovation is going to get it wrong before getting
it right”, Edwards realizes.
A chemistry kitchen
Café ArtScience is an excellent example of the molecular
gastronomy, a culinary gimmick that started in the mid-1990s. Chef Campbell
follows in the footsteps of famous chefs including Ferran Adria, José Andrés
and Wylie Dufresne. They were the first who dared to turn their kitchen into a
chemistry lab. Even more, Café ArtScience shows in a genius and atypical way how
nowadays scientists are able to revolutionize the way we consume food.
Eventually, Edwards hopes that more supermarkets and
food chains will start stocking his experimental alternatives. The first line
to be launched will be one of coconut milk, named WikiPearls, at an independent
chain of New England grocery stores.
According to Edwards, Café ArtScience is the ideal entry
point to his universe. The café gathers a network of labs, educational and
experimental programs that perfectly embody the term ArtScience, his word for the place where aesthetic and analytic
modes of thinking collide.
I’d like to encourage you to check out their website
with more pictures and edible experiments listed: http://www.cafeartscience.com/
For more information on Café
ArtScience, go to: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-13/at-cafe-artscience-a-food-futurist-experiments
So, what do you think: Should Ghent University gather
its most genius scientists to set up its own Café ArtScience Ghent? Maybe a fun and interesting
alternative for the usual University Restaurants? Comments below!
Wolf
