There's something addictive about sitting in a dark theatre for two days watching a cast of talented chefs, one after the other, give demonstrations on a stage dominated by a monolithic Molteni stove. The giant screen above their heads makes it easy to see the details of their dishes, and the chefs' stories convey the dynamics of their styles. The result is more akin to performance art than to cooking lessons: After all, the vital missing ingredient for the audience is the ability to taste what's being prepared. Still, on a rainy late winter's day in Deauville, on the Normandy coast northwest of Paris, I can't think of many things I would rather do than attend the Omnivore Food Festival, or OFF to its friends.
Now in its fifth edition, OFF has an appealing, offbeat feel. (So does out-of-season Deauville, with its sand-swept boardwalks and shuttered seafront villas.) The festival is the brainchild of Luc Dubanchet, a food journalist who did a five-year stint as editor of the influential Gault Millau restaurant guides. Before leaving in 2003, he founded his own magazine, Omnivore, which began as a monthly and is now slated to appear three to four times per year. (Dubanchet also launched the "Carnet de Route d'Omnivore," an annual guide book to the best young chefs of France and beyond, and the "Carnet de Vigne Omnivore," a road map of natural winemakers.)
The Omnivore's talent scout
This year the Omnivore festival offered demonstrations by 22 chefs (over half were French) and 15 pastry chefs, tastings of organic and biodynamic wines made by 35 vignerons, as well as samplings of unusual and local food products from around the world. Sponsors included Valrhona chocolate -- which underwrote the pastry demonstrations, Badoit and Evian mineral waters and, yes, the French butter industry, in its role as self-styled "taste provocateur." "The Omnivore Food Festival acts like a talent scout for chefs wanting to break the traditional molds of haute cuisine," says Andrea Petrini, an Italian food critic who writes for the "Carnet" and selects the international chefs for OFF. "We're looking for what's fresh, new and irreverent to redefine the boundaries of modern cooking."
Who comes to Omnivore? The OFF crowd seems mainly thirty- to forty-something, food-smart and passionate about recharging gastronomy. They're here to get an insider's view of innovative chefs from France and beyond. This year 80 journalists joined some 4,500 foodies who paid to attend. Chef Inaki Aizpitarte, the hero of Paris' recent bistrot revolution and one of the brightest sparks around, is back after a two-year absence. His outer-arrondissement Chateaubriand is the only bistrot to be placed in the prestigious San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants listing. "Via Lactea," a short video featuring Aizpitarte's cuisine, which was recently shown at the Paris Centre Pompidou, precedes his demo at OFF. The footage reminded me of the first part of Koyaanisqatsi, the seminal 1983 film by Godfrey Reggio, in which the Earth was photographed in its primordial state, before the advent of man. Here it's Inaki's food that looks primordial, shot with a macro lens, enlarged beyond recognition and accompanied by music reminiscent of Philip Glass.
When it's his turn to cook, Aizpitarte creates a monochromatic winter-palette composition inspired by the sous-bois or woodsy undergrowth. A swathe of topinambour (Jerusalem artichoke) puree is spread as a base and dressed with scallops lightly smoked over hay, chunks of mushroom and salsify, mustard leaves and flame-charred chestnuts before being dusted with "death trumpet" mushroom powder. "No need to season: the ingredients have enough minerality and natural salt," says Aizpitarte as he finishes the dish to applause from the audience. "Mine is a cuisine of assemblage rather than technique." It's also a feast for the eyes, which, in an OFF demo, is as close as you get to delicious.
Over the two days, we're introduced to a marvelous bunch of characters. Gregory Marchand, who works alone in his small kitchen at Frenchie restaurant in Paris, came up through the ranks in Jamie Oliver's Fifteen restaurant in London and New York's Gramercy Tavern. "Haute-couture food at pret-a-porter prices," says OFF's flyer of Marchand's gastro-canteen. "There are no rules," says Marchand. "Your food has to make or break it." He presents a plump egg yolk-and-ricotta-filled raviolo with smoked lard jus and saffron-stained cabbage pickles.
Albert Adria silhouetted against a screen showing a dessert from Natura, his book from his years as dessert creator at his brother's El Bulli restaurant outside of Barcelona, Spain.
Discussing his vegetable gardens with tips on pan-cooking winter turnips, Alain Passard recalled the cuisine innovations he started 20 years ago at his Arpège restaurant in Paris.
Chef Inaki Aizpitarte cooks just one set meal per evening at his trendy Le Chateaubriand, an informal, ever-packed bistrot in Paris' 11th arrondissement.
Aizpitarte's topinambour dish is an example of his relaxed approach to plating food.
Rising star chef Christian Puglisi, shown on stage demonstrating a carrot preparation, opens a new restaurant in Copenhagen this summer that will feature ingredients from Nordic countries.
Albert Adria silhouetted against a screen showing a dessert from Natura, his book from his years as dessert creator at his brother's El Bulli restaurant outside of Barcelona, Spain.
Discussing his vegetable gardens with tips on pan-cooking winter turnips, Alain Passard recalled the cuisine innovations he started 20 years ago at his Arpège restaurant in Paris.
Chef Inaki Aizpitarte cooks just one set meal per evening at his trendy Le Chateaubriand, an informal, ever-packed bistrot in Paris' 11th arrondissement.
Aizpitarte's topinambour dish is an example of his relaxed approach to plating food.
Rising star chef Christian Puglisi, shown on stage demonstrating a carrot preparation, opens a new restaurant in Copenhagen this summer that will feature ingredients from Nordic countries.
A relaxed return to nature is a recurrent theme at OFF, both in the use of seasonal and wild ingredients and in the informal style of displaying them. Italian-born Christian Puglisi is about to open his own restaurant in Copenhagen after years as Rene Redzepi's sous-chef at Noma, which is ranked third in the World's Best 50. He treats a single, large biodynamic carrot "like a steak," basting it repeatedly in a skillet with nut-brown butter to bring out its sweet umami flavours. He serves it with copper-colored seaweed and deglazes the carrot's pan with blood-orange juice and sherry vinegar. "I don't like geography," the lively young chef asserts. "I'm an immigrant, so I can use Sicilian citrus as easily as Icelandic seaweed."
Place-specific cuisine serves as inspiration
Fredrik Andersson of Stockholm's Mistral favors a more place-specific cuisine. A large, softspoken man, he charms the audience as he describes the diverse approaches -- traditional and progressive -- of two biodynamic farms he uses. Andersson poaches potatoes, dries them in a low-temperature oven, then rehydrates them in yogurt before glazing them with butter, salt and lavender. "This winter has been so extreme in Sweden there's been little fresh produce around," he says. "You have to stretch what you have. This makes a real clarity of cooking." He's braved the Deauville rain to forage for new shoots of wild beach herbs, which he scatters over a tartare of farm veal.
On the second afternoon, we're still glued to our seats in the auditorium as newcomers give way to bigger names: Spain's Quique Dacosta puts on a dynamic show of his technically dazzling cooking. Albert Adria, Ferran's brother and the genius behind El Bulli's desserts, brings a film tracking the history of his revolutionary cookbook, "Natura," which has redefined the dessert genre. "I wanted to break away from the geometry of classical patisserie towards the organic forms of nature," he says. "When I finished creating the last dessert in the book, I hung up my white jacket and quit the restaurant." He's now running a traditional tapas bar in Barcelona and planning his next culinary move.
Two more chefs offer terroir-driven menus: David Kinch, of Manresa in San Francisco, and Alain Passard of L'Arpege in Paris. If senior-statesman Passard's devotion to his vegetable gardens and their gardener offers a noble role-model, his overly simplistic vegetable cookery here seems passe -- especially considering his restaurant's astronomic prices. OFF's crowd is more in sync with Kinch's modest locavore ethic, his multicultural approach and his stunningly clever oyster, poached directly in its string-tied shell. It plays with boundaries by looking raw but tasting cooked. And it remains one of the most memorable images of Omnivore.
Carla Capalbo is an award-winning food, wine and travel writer based in Italy for more than 20 years. She writes regularly for magazines and newspapers, including Decanter, BBC Olive, The Independent, World of Fine Wine, Bon Appetit, Departures and Food & Wine and has a column on Italy's most popular wine site, winenews.it.
Photo: Albert Adria on stage during his talk. Photo Credits: Carla Capalbo
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