Chefs Predict the Future of Food

Top chefs from around the globe contemplate the question: What is the future of food?

BY ALICIA WALKER

It’s a big question and there is no easy answer.

We put it to some of the world’s best chefs to see if their insights into the eating habits of their guests can give us an indication of what is happening, and will happen, in the global food consciousness.

The initial reaction from chefs to the question, what is the future of food, was almost ubiquitously “That’s a BIG question.” But we were bolstered by the almost unanimously easy responses that flowed from these chefs. Their passionate responses flew from their mouths as fast as plates on the pass as they answered a question they clearly felt strongly and full of hope about the answer to.

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF FOOD?

Mauro Colagreco

The first-ever number one winner to come from France was Mirazur at this year’s World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards. Chef Mauro Colagreco says, “That’s a huge question. I love the future. [It will be] more local, more organic. And I think the capacity to change, or method of production over the last 20 years already changed a lot.

Unfortunately, we lose the tradition, we lose the nature of how we cook our meals and feed our family. So I think the restaurants need to become like a great mother.”

Mauro Colagreco

André Chiang

Illustrious Taiwanese chef André Chiang of Sichuan Moon in Macau and The Bridge in Chengdu says, “In the future, food is probably the last thing that keeps the connections between people. Everything can be replaced by technology, even communications, so I think that food in the future will be the only thing that still remains as a craft of human beings. "

Andre Chiang

James Sharman

James Sharman, chef of travelling restaurant One Star House Party who created a pop up restaurant on Mount Everest, among other exotic locations around the world, says, “I have felt the same way about this for a long time, I think the future of food, or restaurants in particular, should be individually-owned restaurants. And I think that more and more people get kind of well versed with how a restaurant that is run by somebody, who knows what's in the fridge, and knows the ins and outs of that restaurant, I just think those restaurants have a certain feel to them. And more and more people are able to walk in and just feel that straightaway, rather than like big chains or big groups of restaurants, even if they try and kind of hide from it. So I think individually-owned restaurants are the way forward.”

James Sharman

Fabrizio Fiorani

Fabrizio Fiorani, of Il Ristorante Luca Fantin in Tokyo, newly crowned Asia’s Best Pastry Chef, says, “ The future of food is the taste. We need to focus on the taste, ingredients and philosophy. Some people think we can save the world with the food in our job, I say maybe yes, maybe no, but my goal is to give happiness. If I give 20 minutes of happiness with my dessert, then I’m happy.”

Fabrizio Fiorani

Shinobu Namae

Shinobu Namae of L'Effervescence in Tokyo, won the inaugural Sustainable Restaurant Award last year at Asia’s 50 Best for his unfailing commitment to the environment and caring for natural resources when producing his renowned cuisine. Chef Namae says,

“I think food is all about care. Care for somebody or care about nature and society and culture, and everything that connects us all into one pot and make it beautiful. Food is the act of someone caring for someone else. Now the world is getting more and more complicated, but through food I believe that many problems will be solved over nice food and sharing happiness and making peace.”

Sinobu Namae

Garima Arora

Asia’s Best Female Chef 2019 and the first Indian woman to receive a Michelin star, Garima Arora of restaurant Gaa says, “If I may say so myself, I think India. For me, I think the focus is going to be on that part of the world, and rightly so.”

Garima Arora

Daniela Soto-Innes

The winner of the Best Female Chef award of the dynamic Mexican restaurant Cosme in New York, Daniela Soto-Innes says, ”That's a very hard question, but hopefully introducing more vegetables to people's diet. To be ableto have the balance that if you do eat meat and seafood, you only do about 30 percent of your diet. And the future of food is also getting to know the people behind the culture.”

Daniela Soto-Innes

Shane Osborn

Shane Osborn, our resident Hong Kong celebrity chef of Arcane and newly launched casual eatery Cornerstone, appeared on Final Table and gained more acclaim for his down-to-earth nature combined with expert technical skill, says “What it should be, is that we all take responsibility for sustainability and ethical sourcing. I mean, there's grave issues facing the planet and people in the spotlight in this industry need to set an example for where our food is going to come from. You know, there is good fish farming and there is bad fish farming. Wild fish stocks are being depleted; we need to look at other options in the amount of beef that we're eating and other meat proteins that aren't as detrimental to the environment. Where are we going to get all this food from to feed the 9 billion people that are going to live on this planet in the next 20 years? I mean, it’s scary times. We all really need to stop not just talking about it but putting a plan of action into place. Some people don't see the value in eating vegan, if you put a plate of beautiful asparagus on at the same price as a plate of scallops, people are always going to think the asparagus should be cheaper, and the mindset is wrong. So I think we need to change that and show people there is value in beautifully-produced vegetables.”

Shane Osbourne

Luca Fantin

Famed chef de cuisine, Luca Fantin of Il Ristorante in Tokyo says “ We need to respect nature. This is something that needs to be a trend for the new generation. Not creating a molecular plate, or only a beautiful plate, but some sustainability of ingredient. At the moment, chefs have a big responsibility, much more than before. We need to respect all the ingredients on our menu. You can make outstanding dishes, but if you are not doing it ethically, we’ll destroy the world this way. The season is our guide to create dishes. If I want to make an asparagus dish but we are in August, I’ll keep this idea for Spring. This is very important. And, the wait is beautiful.”

Luca Fantin

Kim Dae-cheon

Chef Kim Dae-cheon of innovative Seoul restaurant Toc Toc says, “For protein, instead of beef we can actually use Korean bug larvae. For example to make a bun, you can substitute the flour with a more natural tree root that containsa lot of starch. Everything can be edible: bees, bugs, larvae, and roots, everything can be used to make food.”

Kim Dae-cheon

Rodolfo Guzmán

Chef-owner of Boragó, Latin America’s most sustainable restaurant winner, Rodolfo Guzmán says “ The future of food is related to knowledge. I feel at the moment, we humans don’t have much knowledge, because it’s been changing. The world is badly changing the climate and we’re going to have to adapt, especially in terms of agriculture, especially in terms of fishing. Now we are going to have no choice but to rethink food. Probably ingredients that we never took out of the water for human consumption before, but can be very delicious. Within the near future, we’re going to have to do that. Countries are very different. We cannot set a statement for all the countries in the world because it’s very different from one country to another in terms of geography but also socially, and economically. Knowledge is the thing as humans we have to bring together to share with the rest of the world.”

Rodolfo Guzman

Bobby Chinn

Maverick celebrity chef Bobby Chinn is best known as the exuberant host of Discovery's World Cafe. Chef Chinn says, “ Make food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. Your diet is killing you. China went from being a very healthy nation, to being 50% pre-diabetic; they have a very scary health crisis coming up. You have seven of the leading causes of death are food-related. And I think that with technology, they're gonna figure this out and all of us will need something different.”

Bobby Chinn

Yannick Alleno

Three-Michelin starred chef Yannick Alleno of Pavillon Ledoyen has held his illustrious stars since 2007. Chef Alleno says, “ I think the future of the food will be the next generation. I think they have in mind now to take care about the planet more than us. They learn that in school and they really appreciate what they have. So, the future will be that.”

Yannick Alleno

Julien Royer

The French chef, behind the best restaurant in Asia this year, Singapore’s Odette, along with Hong Kong’s new restaurant Louise, names his restaurants after his mentoring grandmothers. Julien Royer, says “I think people want to come back to authenticity. I think people want to come back to something true and real food cooked with the heart and with a very genuine approach of hospitality.”

Julien Royer

Neil Perry

Well-respected Austrialian chef Neil Perry owns many restaurants with his flagship being Sydney’s Rockpool.

Chef Perry says, ”I think it's a balanced diet so that we can get the planet to survive and sustain. So lots of vegetables, a little bit of meat, a little bit of fish and basic respect for the planet. So I think we do that through food and the way we eat.”

Neil Perry

Riccardo Camanini

Lido 84 on Lake Garda won the One To Watch award at World’s 50 Best this year for their reimagining of classic roman dishes like their theatrical rigatoni pasta cooked inside a pig’s bladder. Chef Riccardo Camanini says, ”The most important parts of restaurants in the world is a lot of personality and very, very passionate points of view around gastronomy. So imagine what we can do, there's the possibility to try to give our point of view because behind a true gastronomy, we can discover a culture.”

Riccardo Camanini

The answer is clear: the future of food will be about traceability, sustainability, and eating appropriately for the environment we are in; the future of food will be about conscious, mindful choices and appreciating the culture behind them; the future of food will be about understanding everything we eat, and where it comes from. In this, we will discover a new way to eat and delight in every morsel.

Join us at the Foods Future Summit Hong Kong in October to learn more

www.foods-future.com