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IS MODERNIST CUISINE PASSÉ?
by John Mariani

    Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, Chef José Andrés’ 17-seat molecular cuisine minibar in Washington, DC, has received every award possible.  His restaurant Bazaaar in L.A. was Esquire’s Best New Restaurant of 2009.   Last year, chef José Andres was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. This year, Pres. and Mrs. Obama celebrated Valentine’s Day there. With all that success, you’d think that the molecular cuisine Andrés is selling  would take the nation’s capital, and the rest of the nation, by storm.  But the fact is, despite tremendous media hype -- not least the specious 2013 San Pellegrino Awards that ranked six restaurants specializing in molecular gastronomy in their top ten -- the expansion and influence of that avant garde cuisine has been next to zero.
    Especially in the U.S., the molecular/modernist (M&M) movement has barely budged beyond its first breakthrough in 2003 at Wylie Dufresne’s wd-50 in New York and in 2005 at Grant Achatz’s Alinea in Chicago. The rest of the molecular restaurants in the U.S. can be numbered on the fingers of two hands: Schwa, Moto, and Grace, all in Chicago; Atelier Crenn  and Coi in San Francisco; The Pass in Houston;  Catbird Seat in Nashville, and one or two more that are struggling to stay open. In New York, Atera, Eleven Madison Park, and Chef’s Table are using minimal modernist techniques. Not much to show after ten years of evolution and hype.
    Two decades after Ferran Adrià mightily coaxed foam from carrots at El Bulli in the Catalonian mountains, his restaurant has been closed for three years and his modernist razzle-dazzlements are few and far between in American restaurants: smoldering cinnamon sticks (Alinea); hay-infused yogurt with chamomile and puffed rice (Catbird Seat); edible menus (Moto); smoked banana pudding (Grace); or oysters with liquid nitro pearls of smoked sturgeon set on top of rocks (Atelier Crenn).
    Yes, some of them fill their tables most nights they’re open, but if you tallied up all the seats at all those restaurants, you’d have fewer than one night’s seating at any branch of Smith & Wollensky’s.
    The irony is that so many avowed modernist chefs have pretty much gone in other, more traditional directions. One of the pioneers, Heston Blumenthal of the Fat Duck in Bray, England (who hates the term “molecular”) is now doing updated dishes from British history at his new London restaurant named Dinner, like frumenty and salamugundy. Achatz opened Next, a restaurant doing seasonal turns on global themes, like “The Hunt,” “Childhood,” and “Paris: 1906,” as well as a homage to El Bulli.      And when Vegas came calling for ideas from Andrés, he didn’t dispatch the minibar team there. Instead, he opened Jaleo, a traditional tapas restaurant, and China Poblano, a Chinese-Latino eatery. (He did, however, install a tiny version of minibar there called e.)
    Aside from a few media ever in search of the new, the general public has shown no particular interest in M&M cuisine.  Young, food-obsessed hipsters--who get positively pirhanic for everything from bone marrow to Cronuts--never really took to M&M gastronomy because of the exorbitant price tag. And home chefs have been hard-pressed to adopt the cuisine because it is so time-consuming and difficult.
    I’d estimate that 99 percent of America’s finest chefs admire the innovations of molecular gastronomy, and many have probably bought the six-volume, $625 book Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold hailed as a culinary landmark. But they have ignored all the liquid nitro machines, syringes and centrifuges required. Not a few have called modernism out as a passing fad. They are too busy reconceiving more traditional culinary genres that will happily appeal to most people: Chef Michael White (Marea, Ai Fiori) has just opened an Italian steakhouse called Crostata and a Wisconsin-inspired supper club named The Butterfly in New York; Ming Tsai (Blue Ginger) has opened an Asian gastropub named Blue Dragon in Boston;  Mike Lata (Fig) debuted a Southern seafood house called The Ordinary in Charleston; Ford Fry (The Optimist) is doing down-home American at King & Duke in Atlanta; Stephan Pyles (Stephan Pyles) is focusing on Texas cookery at Stampede 66 in Dallas; and  Michael Cimarusti (Providence) is doing a seafood shack in L.A. called  Connie & Ted’s. None is doing modernist cuisine.
    And where on the horizon is the next minibar? If you know of any, clue me in. Just don’t invest in one: most lose money: El Bulli lost millions.  As someone who has, over four decades, seen culinary fads come and go and “revolutionary” concepts crash and burn, I don’t think M&M restaurants are where the smart money is going.