Beef Tartare
Chocolate Pomegranate Mango
Koji Aged Beef
ANNE DESBRISAY is an award-winning Canadian food writer,
restaurant critic, editor and culinary judge.- GETTING THINGS WRONG ISN’T SO BAD:
“We’ve failed so often we’re good at it. (Duck fat ice cream comes to mind...)
Failures prompt us to seek different approaches, and they help expand our
knowledge base as we seek solutions. When we fail, we just go back to the
drawing board... Edible maracas are the latest challenge.” - KITCHEN TOYS:
Atelier’s kitchen has been called an anti-kitchen: it has no grills, no fryers, no
heat lamps, no exhaust system — every tool in it can be tucked away in cupboards
or taken on the road.
“A machine in any kitchen must serve the purpose of improving the food:
making it more delicious, extracting a purer flavour, or adding enchantment to an
ordinary ingredient. Otherwise, it’s just a gimmick.” - TOP TOY:
“A dehydrator is my favourite piece of kitchen equipment: I can use it to
manipulate shapes of ingredients, intensify flavour, and, most importantly, bring
many of my ideas to life. The most dramatic dishes... wouldn’t exist without it.
When chefs call me up for advice on dehydrators, I can keep them on the phone
for hours.” - A FUNNY THING ABOUT EATING:
“I believe a high-end dining experience can be thoughtful without being self-
important. It sounds like a paradox, but at Atelier we take whimsy seriously. It’s not
unusual to hear laughter around a dinner table. But to laugh at the food itself is,
admittedly, odd. And things that are odd interest me. “ - OTTAWA? HOW COME?
“Ottawa is a terrific city, and I wouldn’t want to be a chef anywhere else. We’re
comfortable here as a restaurant. The dining public is well educated and incredibly
supportive of chefs, and particularly of a new restaurant and fresh ideas in food.”
It was Lepine’s goal in creating this book to introduce the approach, specialty
equipment, and techniques used in many of the recipes on his tasting menus, and
then to share those dishes through images and meticulous instructions. There’s no
doubt, this book is aimed at confident, competent cooks looking to up their game,
and play around with new tools (and maybe invest in a dehydrator). Many will
make each recipe to completion and draw inspiration from their assemblies. For
others, the techniques will be too much, and the equipment required not on hand.
The good news is that every recipe in this book has sub-recipes that are easily
mastered and may well become treasured in their own right.
And then there will be those who simply gawk at the stunning photographs by
Christian Lalonde, keep the book central on the coffee table, and then reserve a
table at Canada’s most innovative restaurant. That works too.82 TAST E&^ TRAVEL INTERNATIONAL^ APRIL–JUNE 2019
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