Why modernist cuisine will be off the menu in 2020

While travelling in the Himalayas, I reluctantly allowed a persistent fortune teller to make his pronouncements. After cursorily inspecting my palm as I sat cross-legged in his gaudy tent, he uttered the following profundity: “Sahib, in the future, you will travel to many countries in faraway lands.” Well, yes and no. It was only when I attempted to check out of my hotel, that I realised his soothsaying words coincided with him stealing my passport.

Speculating on the likely trends in the fine dining end of the restaurant trade is not quite as hazardous, but here are a few things that I think might occur in the coming year.

Red meat will not suddenly vanish from main courses but will be treated more as one component on the plate rather than the main event. Of course, there are always going to be examples of its complete disappearance – Dominique Crenn, the USA’s only female three-star Michelin chef, recently announced she was removing it entirely from her menus. Foie Gras is also on the retreat – its sale and production is already banned in California and recently New York State announced that it would go within three years. Foie gras was quietly removed from the famous meat fruit dish served at Dinner by Heston in the Hyde Park Hotel, to the detriment of its taste.

Concurrent with this will of course be an elevation in the role of vegetables. The interesting aspect of this is that it is not related to the growth of vegetarianism or veganism as none of these trailblazing chefs entirely rule out meat, fish and poultry in their restaurants but they have elevated the importance of vegetables. It originated where the chef has his own kitchen garden, such as Simon Rogan and Raymond Blanc in Britain, Alain Passard and Mauro Colagreco in France and Daniel Berlin in Sweden. Rogan has recently opened one of his Roganic restaurants in Hong Kong, which is relying on five local farmers to provide all of their vegetables unlike other haute cuisine establishments which fly in their produce daily from France.

Inevitably, the whole Modernist movement, as exemplified in their different ways by el Bulli and the Fat Duck, is definitely on the decline and is being replaced by the farm to table movement. One hopes that this trend will also see the demise of boil in the bag techniques (sous-vide) so beloved of busy kitchens. There is nothing I loathe more than sous-vide game birds – they have an artificial consistency and in the case of pigeons a jelly like texture which is repulsive. The Modernist movement relied on a number of artificial ingredients such as stabilisers, emulsifiers, gums and preservatives. Ferran Adria, the Godfather of Modernist Cuisine, published an encyclopaedic history of every single one of the hundreds of dishes served at el Bulli. I hazard a guess that not one of those dishes is replicated on a daily basis anywhere on the planet. There is a simple test for whether or not something is a natural ingredient. If you close your eyes, you should be able to identify an item by taste alone. Expect to also see more restaurants emulating Brat in Shoreditch, which grills whole turbot or large portions of meat over flame rather than cooking it in an oven.

One piece of welcome news is the growing disappearance of the overblown tasting menu. These are the ones that involve you eating a dozen or even more tiny plates with not even a mouthful on each one. Alongside this, I wish I could make the same pronouncement about the demise of the “Small or Sharing Plates” phenomenon but I fear this will be with us for slightly longer. It is one of the great con jobs of the modern era that a restaurant can call something a sharing plate when it has smaller dimensions than a plate for a single diner. I am afraid that such dishes are so profitable they will not disappear overnight.

The other trend that is interesting is a backlash against offering dishes that do not contravene the growing number of food allergies and aversions. It is a serious issue as last year 10 people died in the UK from allergic reactions to specific foods such as sesame seeds or nuts. There are allegedly 170 different foods known to cause an allergic reaction to some people while there are a vast number of others that some diners are simply averse to eating, such as offal, broccoli or even bananas. This is the area where chefs are likely to say they cannot significantly alter a dish merely because the diner doesn’t enjoy that particularly product.

Grant Achatz at Chicago’s Alinea, one of the leading American restaurants, has recently announced he can no longer guarantee there is no cross contamination in his kitchen. Richard Ekkebus, head chef at Amber in Hong Kong, has recently removed all dairy and gluten products from his menus but in his case, it is more to do with healthy eating than pleasing diners with allergies. I suspect that more chefs will declare they cannot guarantee that a dish they serve is not contaminated with dairy or other products. Kobe Desramaults, a leading Belgian chef who recently opened Chambre Séparée, also refuses to accommodate extensive allergies or dietary restrictions.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and always remember to keep your hand on your passport when having your fortune read.