W Conspicuously
dufresne stands back to watch his employee operate a culinary Rube Goldberg machine. “This is Junior. He’s been with me since the opening of WD~50,” Dufresne says, recalling the groundbreaking molecular-gastronomy mecca heoperated in NewYorkfrom2003 to2014.Junior chuckles to acknowledge his longtime boss, while careful not to lose focus on the task at hand. Because focus is required.
Dufresne eyes an extruder that’s automatically spouting batter at a regular clip, and Junior monitors the temperature of the oil on a digital readout. The extruder must be positioned just ahalf inch over the oil that needs to be heated to 375 degrees, or perfection eludes them.
A few feet away, another cook sets alarge stainless-steel bowl on akitchen scale, then hoists abucket of glucose, pouring in the exact amount to the gram. Next comes the granulated sugar. The specific mix of glucose and sucrose gives Dufresne the combination of pliability and structure he can’t find elsewhere. He’s also studied how air temperature, humidity and pH levels will affect the final product.
All this attention, all this work, all this endless R&D—is it going to some mind-blowing new fine-dining project? No, one of the most innovative chefs New York and the world have ever known is making glazed doughnuts.
absent at Du’s Donuts and Coffee, his fried-dough headquarters in Brook- lyn, are the meat glues, foams and liquid nitro- gen that defined an entire era of restaurants. Most chefs of his generation haven’t just put away their molecular gastronomical wizardry— they wince at the mere mention of the term, as if they’d seen an old picture of themselves with a tragically dated haircut.
Yet there was more to the movement than most realized at the time, or even now. “I think the whizbang of it distracted from the real point,” says Alex Stupak, a pastry chef for Dufresne at WD~50. That point was so much bigger than theatrics and abstract dishes. And though molecular gastronomy may be maligned now, this is the story of how it upended restau- rants and changed cuisine so profoundly that today we’re still tasting its effects—and eating better for it.
D ufresne was a C-plus stu- dent from a tiny liberal arts col- lege in Maine who didn’t have big post-graduationplansbeyondhead- ing west with a new set of skis. He’d worked in restaurants since he was akid, taking to them like the team sports he loved playing. So he thought he’d head to a place with better powder and work in some kitchens to make ends meet. His mother talked him out of it. She told him if he stayed close to home, she’d help out with culinary school. The skis have gathered dust since.
At what was then called the French Culinary Institute in New York, Dufresne finally found a field of study he was passionate about, finishing second in his class. After graduating in 1993 he set about working in New York’s best kitchens.
When Dufresne read Jean-Georges Vonge- richten’s seminal 1990 cookbook, Simple Cuisine, he had a culinary epiphany. He saw a chef tak- ing classic French food and stripping away the butter-laden heaviness while incorporating flavors from Asia. Dufresne landed a job with Vongerichten and, for the next six years, worked for the acclaimed chef at multiple restaurants.
Dufresne’s ultimate goal was to run his own restaurant. Vongerichten had put his mark on French cuisine, and Dufresne wanted to add to the dialogue in his own way. How could he, too, play with the form?
At first, the answer wasn’t about alginate and methylcellulose. Dufresne had a populist, demo- cratic streak in him. He loved the fine dining of MidtownManhattan, yetwanted tosuffuse itwith a more laid-back downtown vibe. “Food doesn’t taste better if you wear a tie,” he says. “The idea was to have delicious food in a place that didn’t feel like you’re going to church.” So he took a job in1999 asthechef at 71ClintonFreshFood,named for its address on New York’s Lower East Side.
Two decades ago, the neighborhood’s dining scene wasn’t what it is today. “It was not a popu- lar address to open a restaurant—it was a popular place to buy drugs,” Dufresne says. That didn’t keep diners away. The chef drew praise for his contemporary American fare. But the former philosophy major had deeper questions to ask of his profession.
“We knew how to cook. We just didn’t know why,” Dufresne says. “Okay, well, if I put this chicken in the oven like this, I get this result