I'm sure it tastes excellent, and has had a lot of hard work and talent put into producing the flavour, but am I alone in thinking that Micheal Wignall's Puffed Quinoa dish in Caterer this week LOOKS awful? Now I'm no expert in Michelin Starred cooking, and I'm sure there are some who will disagree and tell me that it's the new and exciting way to serve quinoa, but I'm sure most people would send the waiter a questioning look if presented with this dish in a restaurant. If I'm completely wrong please tell me, I'm just interested to hear people's opinions....
I don't think it looks awful, but I do sometimes feel that the "deconstructed" approach to dishes can affect the presentation. Did you recreate this yourself - I can see it's not the picture we published?
for me, the deconstructed style of presentation is no different from any other classical style of presentation, if you are good at it, it can look amazing, but if you just try and do it because others do it, without the knowledge to assemble flavours and textures together, its going to fail. we see plenty of food pics on twitter, and they can vary greatly from the established class acts (like michael wignall) to the less talented.
I think the issue many people have with this, or any other style is that its the unknown to them, although there have been plenty of chefs cooking and presenting food in this manner for a few years now, if the first pictures you see of any types of dishes, with unusual textures of supposedly familiar ingredients are by people experimenting, there is every chance you will not be impressed.
as with most food, 'less is more' and the less experienced and possibly less confident chef can try and over-do things by chucking on layer after layer of the same ingredient prepared in 14 different ways, to try and show their talent. it doesnt matter if you are trying to be modernist, deconstructionist (i made that up...) fusion or classical, the key is quality ingredients, treated with respect, and balanced with complementary flavours.
thymeandplaice
I agree Steve. These dishes also tend to under promise and over deliver which is exciting for the diner too.
JWestwood: I'm sure it tastes excellent, and has had a lot of hard work and talent put into producing the flavour, but am I alone in thinking that Micheal Wignall's Puffed Quinoa dish in Caterer this week LOOKS awful? Now I'm no expert in Michelin Starred cooking, and I'm sure there are some who will disagree and tell me that it's the new and exciting way to serve quinoa, but I'm sure most people would send the waiter a questioning look if presented with this dish in a restaurant. If I'm completely wrong please tell me, I'm just interested to hear people's opinions....
I don't think the dish looks awful, maybe a little different to how dishes are traditioanlly presented, but i dont doubt it tastes good but i could be wrong. How would you have presented it? You have obvioulsy given it a go...
Precisely, point in case was my recent meal at fiskebaren in Copenhagen, where the descriptions were brief, almost to the level of being a list of our main ingredients, and the presentation was basically an assembly of those ingredients in no fixed pattern, just on the plate one after the other. Sounded simple, looked simple, tasted stunning.
Have a look here if you get time -
http://thymeandplaice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/fiskebaren-as-recommended-by-some-bloke.html