Top chefs around the world are setting the stage for a new era in fine dining.
From treating your senses to dishes made with the finest, rarest ingredients, to immersing in culinary service that leaves you feeling like royalty, the essence of fine dining is as rich and diverse as the exotic ingredients it showcases.
Some two centuries following its radical beginning in the 1800s, fine dining continues to hold true to its revolutionary streak as a heady haute cuisine of new ideas and ingredients.
At the helm of this era of fine dining are revolutionaries such as the late multi-Michelin-starred chef Joël Robuchon. Following an astounding career that saw chef Robuchon’s establishments receive acclaimed Michelin stars year after year, he then steered fine dining away from its starched tablecloths and elaborate decor with the comeback of the millennium in 2003—L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris.
There, instead of elaborate dining rooms with chefs hidden from diners, the restaurant featured counter seating, chef service and a smaller, but no less exquisite space, that once again transformed the fine dining scene.
From then on, chefs emerged from sealed kitchens where they previously had little to no interactions with service staff, let alone guests at the dinner table, finding their element in front of diners. This moved fine dining from the elusive and the obscure, into something that beckoned transparency throughout, bringing with it new movements such as farm-to-fork dining and the return to basics, albeit more refined.
CHANGING WITH THE TIMES
As two Michelin-starred Noma’s chef and co-owner Rene Redzepi observed in Lucky Peach’s The State of Fine Dining, fine dining once referred to “a specific type of restaurant, where you’d get the best food”.
This story is from the November/December 2018 edition of WINE&DINE.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November/December 2018 edition of WINE&DINE.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
New Blood
The next-generation is breathing new life into the forgotten art of spice-mixing, peppering the traditional trade with renewed ideas and fresh perspectives.
Sharing Is Caring
Compared to its flagship at Serene Centre, Fat Belly Social at Boon Tat Street is a classier and bolder affair, in more than one sense.
Nutmeg's Role In Singapore's History
From tales of it being used to ward off the plague in mid-1300s Europe to one of the ingredients in dessert, we have all known, tasted, or at least heard of nutmeg. But not many know of the spice’s role in Singapore’s history.
New And Improved
The ever-profound chef-owner Kenjiro ‘Hatch’ Hashida finds more room, three to be exact, to express a Ha Ri philosophy at Hashida Singapore’s new location at Amoy Street.
Pairing Spice-Driven Cuisines With Wine
Pairing spice-driven cuisines with wine has long been a challenge but with a little imagination, it doesn’t have to be.
Let Land Grow Wild
Niew Tai-Ran has worn many hats: aeronautical engineering major, investment banker, avid surfer, and, for the last 14 years, winemaker. Discover how this Malaysia-born, Singapore-native is championing the “do-nothing farming” philosophy at his vineyard in Oregon.
The South Asian Misnomer
Incredibly diverse and varied than most know, Indian food is far more intriguing than butter chicken or thosai. Here is a crash course on the extensive cuisine from region to region, recognisable for the seemingly infinite ways of using spices.
Keepers Of The Spice Trade
From its glory days along trade routes to pantry staples all over the world, spices have become so commonplace that we’ve taken them for granted. For these three trailblazers, however, spice is their livelihood and motivation: Langit Collective working with indigenous rural farming communities in Malaysia; IDH’s Sustainable Spice Initiative; and chef Nak’s one-woman mission to share forgotten Khmer cuisine.
Sugar, Spice And Everything Nice
Like food, spices bring vibrancy and variety to alcoholic beverages. Surfacing in unexpected ways on the palate, find everything from cumin to tamarind, cloves to cardamom enriching these drinks.
Building Blocks From The Archipelago
For the smorgasbord of dishes found in Indonesian cuisine, it is a little known secret that the modest bumbu, in all its variants, is the bedrock of such flavourful fare.
