PHOTOGRAPHY:REIN^ JANSSEN;^ FABIANHAEFELIa challenge,” Kullik says. “Sometimes
we have guests asking, ‘why do we have
to make it difficult? Why do we have to
eat from this strange cutlery?’”
Kullik, with partner Jouw Wijnsma,
runs Amsterdam-based Experimental
Gastronomy, which allows fine dining
chefs to create unique menus of plant-
based dishes, served on tableware
custom-designed by artists and
artisans. By disrupting the relationship
between what we eat and the imple-
ments we eat it with, the aim is to find
new ways of experiencing food.
Since the inaugural Experimental
Gastronomy dinner seven years ago
in a Dutch hotel, Kullik and Wijnsma
have staged events all over the world- in 2018, they had Milan-based chef
Yoji Tokuyoshi at a botanical garden in
Basle, Switzerland, and triple-Miche-
lin-starred David Kinch in California.
Notable items include a plate attached
to a bath plug and an oversized spoon
to feed the person sitting opposite you.
“The moment we have the chef
confirmed, we curate the artists and the
craftsmen around them,” says Kullik.
“It can be contemporary jewellery
artists, it can be weavers, blacksmiths,
ceramicists, even fine artists. There
needs to be something that matches the
aesthetics my partner and I are looking
for, so it has to be experimental.”
Their most complex dinner to date
took place in June 2019, in Amsterdam,
when Taiwanese chef André Chiang
created a 12-course menu on the
theme of “over-the-top Asian”, with
15 artists contributing cutlery and
crockery. Texan ceramic artist Adam
Knoche made three rough-edged plates
in charcoal, burnt ember and textured
white glazes, while Dutch jeweller Elwy
Schutten fashioned rock crystals into
delicately patterned tubes. A double-
headed spoon created by Califor-
nia-based metalsmith Jaydan Moore
looked particularly challenging.
It’s hard to imagine a dish that could
be served practically on a tubular plate
that looks like a razor-clam shell – but
that’s the point. “Functional cutlery
enables us to accelerate the eating
process,” says Kullik. “By changing
those components of cutlery, that
decelerates the eating process.”
When we can have a curry delivered
with a swipe of the phone, a dining
concept that forces us to slow down
and connect with what we’re eating
feels radical. “Is food something that
should be grabbed and eaten on the
subway?” asks Kullik. “Sure, it can be,
but I think we try to approach food more
as a celebration, to try and create that
community.” There’s nothing quite
like sharing a spoon to bring people
Above: rosehip “leather” and pickled roses, served on Helen Habtay’s rubber tile together. Phoebe Hurst^ steinbeisser.orgAbove: mushrooms and
hazelnuts on a foiled
glass plate, eaten with a
folded knife by Nils HintAbove: candles illuminate an
Experimental Gastronomy
event in Le Corbusier’s PTT
building in Bern, SwizterlandSTART 03809-19-STExperimentalGastronomy.indd 38 22/07/2019 13:47