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Sci-fi cooking

And it is served from a small pot with smoke coming out of it, with a spiced cigarette on top (back in culinary terms, that would be an exotically flavoured biscuit). Chef Denis Martin did not cook here his famous smoky egg, but he did create some equally weird, jaw-dropping awesome, avant-gard-tastic dishes that would just send your taste buds to heaven via a spectacular scenic route.

Welcome to a Gourmet Abu Dhabi experience! During this year’s festival, organised by the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, there were some pretty extraordinary demonstrations of what passionate foodies with genius minds can do with food products and the show put together by Denis Martin was no exception. The two Michelin star chef has presented the tough gourmands of Abu Dhabi with something that sounds quite humble — a Cheese Dinner. In true Martin style, there was nothing humble about it!

“I like my dishes to be graced with a sense of humour,” said the chef once, and that is what he did last Tuesday night at Beach Rotana Hotel’s ballroom.

Martin, who runs his own restaurant in a converted chateau in the small Swiss town of Vevey, is a mastermind of molecular, techno, revolutionary cuisine. It is both science and fiction. Staff like atomised pancetta spray, hot and raw prawns, liquid spring rolls. He still cooks with fire, water and frying pans, but his methods also include food deconstruction, cooking in liquid nitrogen and SAFE (Solvent Assisted Flavour Evaporation), an apparatus designed to extract vapours and aromas from food and liquids.

With such a reputation, chef Martin’s Cheese Dinner kept creating wonders of what it might be among dinners, as everybody was waiting for the last two guests to arrive. When they finally did, the doors of the ballroom opened and everybody got the first surprise of the evening — a small Swiss village corner featuring great cheeses (the kind that won’t be found in supermarkets) and great breads, created by Beach Rotana’s executive chef Patrick Bischoff.

“For me cooking and eating are very serious,” said chef Martin as he greeted his gourmand dinners.

“When going out to eat to a restaurant, you should never be sad. It should be a happy, joyful occasion and that is why we put cows instead of flowers on the table.”

Indeed, a few toy Swiss cows carrying his and his restaurant’s name that would moo when turned upside down were placed on the tables.

And thus the seven-course dinner began with a ... Pizza Margherita. Of course, there was no such thing as a pizza on the plate, but a rather very smooth cream cheese topped with a laced biscuit that carry the looks and some of the ingredients seen in a Margherita topping.

The Rosette Tête de Moine with peas sorbet in oyster jus, mint and coriander translated into sashimi (raw fish) happily married with continental and Asian flavours. The star of the dish was the beautiful Tête de Moine Swiss cheese, which is not cut but pared with a special device called a Girolle or a Pirouette’ with which delicate wafer-thin rosettes are created that allow the full flavour of the cheese to develop. The strong cold contrast of the sorbet and fish was a bit too overpowering though, not quite in perfect harmony with the cheese.

Fondue is traditionally a hot pot of melted cheese where everybody dips a piece of bread. Not in chef Martin’s creation — Fondue Half-Half with tomato bread. What he presented were twirls of cold fondue with wasabi sauce dots, a tiny cheese cylinder and small, thin biscuit-like creations with tomato extractions. The Cauliflower, white chocolate with raspberry, wasabi and Langre cheese that followed was crazy good and fun. Granted, the wasabi and raspberry did not make it to the palate, but the cheese mouse was so soft, smooth and velvety that nothing else mattered. The real surprise of the dish, though, was the mini fake baguette, which was, in fact, a dehydrated emulsion.

Pepper artichoke served with beef and Roquefort sauce was a refined take on stake tartare, adding the needed solid texture to the so far light mousses and creams menu. It was followed by what it was meant to be the first desert dish — mascarpone and ginger. It was inspired by another of chef Martin’s famous dishes, the Sicilian Cassata. This time, the “icecream” was replaced by a mascarpone cheese emulsion, topped with cryogenic balls of fresh ginger, nuts and cubes of mango. Sadly, the last “piesse de resistance” the Daughter of Einstein, nobody got to see.

Since chef Martin, his assistants and the Beach Rotana chefs came out for a group picture, everybody took it as a cue to leave. It was probably just as well since the time entered the last hour before midnight.

silvia@khaleejtimes.com

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