Martin Wishart who has run his own restaurant for 10 years is listed as 'emerging' in Coco
The restaurant industry thrives on new talent. In the highly competitive and dynamic world of the professional kitchen, there’ll always be someone desperate to be the next Ramsay, Ducasse or Adria.
So if you want to find out who are the gastronomic stars of tomorrow, who would you ask?
The obvious answer is Ramsay, Ducasse and Adria themselves, who you might imagine have a global network of spies, searching for the young sole rebels who’ll give their restaurant kitchens that all important competitive edge.
As it turns out you’d be quite wrong, if the forthcoming glossy coffee table book Coco (published by Phaidon and out in November) is anything to go by. Subtitled, 100 Emerging Culinary Stars Chosen by 10 of the World’s Greatest Chefs, it could be more accurately described as an exercise in shameless self publicity and nepotism.
For example, New York chefs April Bloomfield of The Spotted Pig gastropub and Cruz Goler of Lupa make the 100, but both restaurants are owned by Mario Batali, one of the 10 “curators” of the book.
Four of the five Californian chefs included in the book (Michael Tusk, Chris Cosentino, Russell Moore and Charlie Hallowell) have worked for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse; another Coco curator. Former El Bulli head chef Albert Raurich’s inclusion in the 100 may well be explained by Ferran Adria’s curator role.
But its the list of British chefs that’s particularly perplexing. Only Gordon Ramsay would have the brass neck to nominate Lyndy Redding, head chef of outside caterers Absolute Taste with whom he has a business connection.
And as for emerging – forget about it. After 14 years as head chef of the River Cafe, Theo Randall is about as fully formed as he’s ever going to be, and with a decade of running an eponymous restaurant, Edinburgh based chef Martin Wishart’s is hardly waiting in the wings for his big moment.
Apart from the odd unfamiliar name (former St John head chef Ed Lewis of the Bank House in Kings Lynn for example. And yes, Fergus Henderson is one of those 10 World’s Greatest Chefs), anyone interested enough in restaurants to want to spend £29.95 on Coco will find very few surprises waiting for them, at least from a British point of view.
I reckon we can do better. Just comment below for your chance to help curate the BigHospitality list of emerging culinary stars. Let us know who’s on your restaurant radar that’s destined for great things and who knows, maybe one day they’ll get their own chance to indulge in a spot of shameless self promotion and nepotism.
Tags: Celebrity Chefs, Chefs, cookbook
5th August 2009