Take the Impressionists. They created a major upheaval when they took their easels and brushes outside to paint in short brush strokes and primary colours. The dazzling paintings they created were unlike any done before but ultimately, they paved the way for even more ground-breaking movements, such as the Cubists, to take over.
In a way, one can say the same for Nouvelle Cuisine and trailblazing chefs like Alain Senderens, who marked a revolution in food when they started to use barely cooked vegetables and pare down their dishes, changing how people ate. They too paved the way for more innovative chefs such as Ferran Adrià, the godfather of Molecular cuisine, who used industrial food production techniques to create highly sophisticated dishes, some of which were exquisite, others merely amusing. However, as with all trends (or revolutions), Nouvelle Cuisine is now a thing of the past and Molecular is also on its way out.
Instead, we now have a more natural approach to cooking, with a particular accent on foraging with Rene Redzepi from Noma in Copenhagen at the forefront of this approach. This doesn’t mean that dishes using modest, foraged ingredients are simple. On the contrary, whether it’s Redzepi or Ben Shewry from Attica in Melbourne - to name but a few - these chefs manipulate local and foraged ingredients to produce highly creative and sophisticated dishes that reveal the progression from Nouvelle, when the ingredient became king, to Molecular, when techniques became increasingly complex. But as with all trends, the present one for eating locally and sustainably is bound to make way for something else new and more exciting.
Which leads me to wonder what’s next. If I look at what’s happening on the food scene at the moment, I can detect several trends in the making. Allan Jenkins, editor of the influential Observer Food Monthly sees American buttermilk fried chicken - the food lovers' KFC - “continuing the case for comfort food in discomfiting times, this year's burger”. He also anticipates global culinary power to follow the economic shift both east and south: Restaurant magazine, organisers of the annual World's 50 Best Restaurants’ list will launch an Asia-only list from Singapore next year and with the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics lifting its international profile, expect Brazilian food to become more prominent.
Jenkins may well be right about Brazil, which has a fascinating and still little known culinary culture, as well as some unusual produce that is just waiting to be discovered and go global but for me, the most perceptible new trend today is the taming of street food and how chefs all over the world are striving to make it chic, by preparing various global street specialities with superior ingredients and serving them in stylish spaces or off fancy food trucks. Another trend is the ‘casualisation’ of fine dining. Many young chefs, like the brilliant Ollie Dabbous in London or Fredrik Berselius and Richard Kuo in Brooklyn, have eschewed the trappings of upmarket restaurants (white table linen and officious waiting staff) in favour of an industrial space, in the case of Dabbous and an art gallery, in the case of Berselius and Kuo, to serve consummate cooking in a relaxed atmosphere at accessible prices.
This must be where the future lies. Street food made chic or sophisticated food served informally. I for one am all for it. As much as I love great cooking, I never enjoyed eating at those triple-star establishments where waiters hover explaining the dish I have just ordered. I much prefer the notion of eating the same kind of food in a bistro atmosphere or the fun of eating street food in salubrious surroundings!
