THESIS THE EXPLORATION OF THE ART OF CREATION AND PREPARATION OF FOOD IN A CULINARY LABORATORY JENNIFER MARIE MANNELLI Department of Interior Design In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Degree of Master of Art Corcoran College of Art and Design Washington, DC Spring 2009 Corcoran College of Art and Design 17 May, 2009 WE HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER OUT SUPERVISION BY JENNIFER MANNELLI ENTITLED THE EXPLORATION OF THE ART OF CREATION AND PREPARATION OF FOOD IN A CULINARY LABORATORY BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING, IN PART, REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ART IN INTERIOR DESIGN. Graduate Thesis Committee: (Signature of Student) Jennifer Mannelli (Print Name of Student) (Signature of Advisor) Carissa Gavin (Print Name of Advisor) (Signature of Advisor) (Print Name of Advisor) (Signature of Department Chair) (Print Name of Department Chair) ii The Exploration of the Art of Creation and Preparation in a Culinary Laboratory Lab Overview................................................................................................ 2 Structure of the Laboratory.......................................................................... 3 Case Study: elBulli........................................................................................ 6 Case Study: French Laundry...................................................................... 10 Case Study: Alinea..................................................................................... 13 The Site....................................................................................................... 16 The Neighborhood...................................................................................... 17 The Culinary Laboratory............................................................................. 22 The Workshop............................................................................................. 22 The Visual Kitchen...................................................................................... 25 Tasting Area................................................................................................ 26 Conclusion.................................................................................................. 27 Program...................................................................................................... 28 Works Cited................................................................................................ 31 The Exploration of the Art of Creation and Preparation in a Culinary Laboratory As our lives become more busy, nomadic, and less hedonistic through an inability to attach oneself to an experience of pleasure, the idea of food and its consumption has taken on many different roles. The renaissance of interest in urban life, has brought about an increase of Americans eating out. There are new restaurants everywhere; restaurants with tricks, great food, mediocre food, slow food, fast food, food food. Truss; A Culinary Laboratory reaches beyond the idea of standard restaurant establishments through exploring its initial concepts of the exploring the art of creation and preparation of a meal. Lab Overview The pleasure of a meal does not begin with eating, nor even with the presentation, it also does not end with the story of its produce. It begins with the story of where the food came from, its production, how it relates to the land, the seasons, and the history. This food is the most basic and the most important tool of the chef. The meal, what is served to the receivers, begins with an idea, a concept of what will be created. The Culinary Laboratory is an incubator for this entire process of the meal, a space for creation, experiments (The Workshop), and a space for it to be experienced by the guests (The Visual Kitchen and Tasting Area). These spaces allow up-and-coming chefs to define their reach, define their “personality of cuisine” in an environment that not only advocates creativity, but thrives on the concept both economically and socially. The draw of seasonal menus with different chefs presenting, is what draws the customer back throughout the year. It allows the guests to get in touch with the 2 food preparation and the experience of the chef through the visual connection and proximity. The interaction with the kitchen creates a new experience of eating, a more evocative, ritual-oriented experience takes them on the full journey of conceptualizing, preparing, and consuming a meal, bringing an enhancement of preparation to the chef/artist and and enhancement of savor/ pleasure to the receiver/eater. Structure of the Laboratory The structure of the laboratory consists of one renowned executive chef who oversees a large team of experienced chefs from which he selects one each season to act as featured chef within the restaurant. This structure gives emerging chefs a platform to define and express their style. The chefs have access to the workshop/studio where they work in collaboration with other chefs to discover and define their own individual styles. As with most successful creative people, chefs surround themselves with other talented people while also maintaining standards of expression. These other chefs are then challenged to define their own reach as a chef and the workshop provides a space to find their voice. These are experienced chefs that know their craft and are well trained with knowledge of the fundamentals of cooking and presenting food. The lab is simply and incubator for their ideas. This workshop space provides an open kitchen for experiments and collaboration, a library space for documentation, and research, and a table for team/group/ individual meals for research and interaction. The second part of the lab is the restaurant or Tasting Room. This is a place where the customer comes for a new experience of eating with the 3 knowledge that it will continue to be a new experience every time they visit. In the restaurant I propose, the Back of the House becomes the Front of the House This allows for the interaction between the kitchen and the guest which enhances the preparation and dining experience, creating a fully sensory experience for the creators and the participants. Being able to experience the preparation creates a connection among the producer, chef/artist, server/ interpreter, and diner/eater/experiencer and to enhance the overall experience for who participates. When the customer enters the space, their first view is of the wine wall that incorporates the original crane of the building. The wine wall provides not only wine storage for the facility, but also for urban dwellers who often have to go outside of the city to store their wine. Participants in the formal wine storage also have access to the wine room which also wraps around the visual kitchen. Attached to the wine wall is the bar and lounge which provides waiting space before the meal. From the bar, the guests walk through the wine wall where they dine in the tasting room. This tasting room includes both the visual kitchen and dining space. This experience also creates a sociability from sharing the experience together. As the servers are integral to the restaurant process, their knowledge and enthusiasm of the food is essential. Implicit in theses meals is an emphasis on the food, with both local and exotic influences and the enjoyment of partaking in such a sensitively cultivated and prepared meal. The understanding of the story will influence the dining experience and raise it to a new level. In the first part of my research, I have identified three restaurants and treated them as case studies, exploring their value as precedents for my project. 4 Though the interiors have value, it the the cuisine, the chefs, and the emphasis on the preparation of the food and how it affects the experience of the visitor is what makes them important to the concept of the proposed space. 5 Case Study: elBulli Chef: Ferran Adrià Front of House: Juli Soler Location: Cala Montjoli, Rosas, Spain Considered to be the most innovative restaurant in the world today, elBulli is famous around the world for its avant-garde cuisine. A cuisine essentially invented by Adrià called “Alta Cocina.” 1 Alta Cocina is a cuisine that evolved from haute cuisine where the emphasis is on presentation and small and intense dishes are highlighted, but with an emphasis on constant creativity and evolution of taste, presentation, and the entire sensory experience of eating. Every year there is overwhelmingly demand for a reservation for the limited services open throughout the year. Each seating is estimated to be about 4 hours long. About 2 million request tables and only 8,000 get reservations, this breaks down to 50 people for the 160 days they are open.2 The restaurant is open only 6 months while the chef spends the other 6 months in Barcelona at El Taller (the workshop) and his secret laboratory where he develops dishes for the next season.3 Adrià’s journey as a chef began when he dropped out of business school and started washing dishes at a local hotel in Castelldefels and was introduced to classic cuisine. This was his training in the fundamentals of cooking. After, he performed his necessary military service during which the foundation of his cuisine was evolved in his introduction to Fermi Puig, a chef who introduced him to the classic books of nouvelle cuisine by chefs such as Paul Bocuse, Michel Guèrard, and Alain Chappelle.4 In 1987, in a quest to answer the question about 6 what creativity is, Adrià resolved to “leave the