Blog Tue Jun 30 2009

Minimalist Meals @ Chicago's Newest Restaurants

Today in a post on Gourmet.com, David Tamarkin points out that new Chicago restaurants like The Publican and Nightwood are taking a "less is more" approach. He predicts that the end is near for molecular gastronomy and finds the more minimalist dishes he's been tasting to be a refreshing change.

— Dana Currier / Comments (1)

art / July 1, 2009 12:03 PM

As a self-diagnosed geek I have sat around and studied the idea of minimalism in the kitchen and found that it's meaning can be interpreted in different ways. Sure, cooking with less ingredients is cooking with minimal ingredients--like Mr. Bittman, "The Minimalist." But minimalism is also used to refer to styles of design and architecture. In these styles, great thought has gone into stripping down a design element or a building plan to it's essential elements often producing, to the casual observer, something that may seem quite bare and stark yet amazing to behold by many--kind of like the cuisine that is found at "molecular gastronomy" type restaurants. The food which appears on the plate is quite minimal--but the thought and manpower behind it is quite complex. But the ideology behind the seemingly minimal cuisine of Nightwood and Publican is quite complex as well. Maybe I'm just dwelling on semantics--especially since one of the most prolific Minimalist architects, John Pawson, has written a cook book with what he calls minimal dishes and they are simply prepared, produce-driven dishes. In the end, it's just a word I guess.

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