LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
They say, being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.
And being able to enjoy the two is luxury. Spice nods in enthusiastic consent; after all, what is luxury if not the indulgence of temptation? For it is not what we have, but what we enjoy that constitutes our abundance. To sublimate on similar sensual pleasures, Spice curries favour with the passions of the palate rather than the occupation of eating.
A blithe little French axiom proffers: “Measure the girth of the chef and you can rate his restaurant”. Bigger may be better here, but the stars shine for deeper stripes when it comes to the talents of Michelin chefs. We deconstruct the study of deliciousness to chronicle the craft’s most dedicated artisans.
Our toothsome test of taste cuts its teeth at the recent gastronomic summit in the capital where Spice stopped by to share the platform and plaited secrets with some of the best known chefs in the business. Here, not just innovative techniques and presentations but new-fangled ideas, trends in cookery, and even machines and equipment to process food were on the menu.
While Chef Roger Pizey’s French-English cuisine is the rage in London, he definitely predicts a shift away from the more complex to simple when it comes to food. As for Aussie cooking legend Mark Best, harking back to local produce will be the definite distinguisher in deciding the future of food; British Michelin star chef Chef Alyn Williams who believes not just a shift to local, but organic produce is a welcome trend that is here to stay.
These are chefs who master every facet, potential and character of food to examine not only the perfect confluence of ingredients but also the state and stages of enjoyment. Swaddled in luscious swathes of sensorial explosions, food becomes the objet d’art.
Where food is objet d’art, restaurants become the new temples of haute gastronomy, believes popular Indian chef Manu Chandra. Spice discovers the face of a new food movement in India that demands attention and grabs eyeball as much for its whimsy as its wine list.
This multi-sensation approach involves ushering people right into their comfort zones, but building on what they may think of as comfort food. Similar experiments already abound on the Indian restaurant scene where a classic like a tiramisu is reinvented with tableside liquid nitrogen or like at the recently opened Masala Library in Mumbai where the chaat arrives on tiny rickshaws, and paapad and chutneys are served almost Tapas-style, to introduce some eye-oomph.
Spice’s food fiesta definitely calls for the flow of spirits. We voyage across to Australia to sniff, swirl and sip the nectar of the gods at Jacob’s Creek Vineyards in Barossa valley. If our wine appreciation course leaves us to believe that terroir gives wines their uniqueness; Maximilian J. Riedel, president of Riedel Crystal and an 11th generation Riedel in the glassmaking business, lends credence to the theory that a wine’s bouquet, taste, balance and finish are all affected by the shape of the glass it is consumed from.
Size, shape or soil notwithstanding, we believe, the “invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common”.