NAVARRA GOURMET

Culinary architecture with vegetables

Denis Martin “Restaurant Denis Martin”, Vevey

“Spanish chefs are the only ones capable of grasping my philosophy”

The Swiss chef Denis Martin, from the restaurant with the same name, became the first exponent of Swiss cuisine at the congress. With two Michelin stars, it is essential to have a knowledge of his molecular technique in order to understand his innovative and experimental cuisine."I've eight Spanish chefs at my restaurant, because they're the only ones capable of understanding and grasping my philosophy", he stated.

“I really like architecture and giving shape to the textures I find in the plant world", he affirmed. This architecture-inspired chef demonstrated his most characteristic dishes such as "Lacustrine bed (Lake Leman)" a recipe in which his dream to recreate the bed of the lake in which he used to swim underwater when he was a child has come true, achieved with small aniseed trees and green tea.

The chef showed the appliances used for his cuisine, such as a distiller with a vacuum pump which cools with nitrogen. This is used to make turnip crepes with freeze-dried coffee cream, or a dish named "Picnic" a salad of rocket, beetroot, ascorbic acid, mint with turpentine, raspberry and oyster, which gives it an iodine flavour, all accompanied by basil oil and juice. "The latest technology is here to be used, but it is still very important that we continue to respect the flavours. That is why the future generations of chefs are already talking of cuisine as an art", he explained.

Amongst other dishes, he presented some original ideas and recreations of nature, such as "miniature Switzerland", with ground black pudding and turnip meringue; or "granite rock - Jerusalem artichoke flowers", a tempura reminiscent of the flowers which grow between granite rocks.

With still greater originality, Denis Martin presented a dish of bread with tomato in which nothing is what it appears to be, since the bread is made with tomatoes and the tomatoes have a bread flavour. This chef enjoys playing with opposites, as he explained: "It's important to play with shapes and textures, in this way it's possible to make bananas which taste like pears or strawberries with a banana flavour". Or "Nothing" an empty dish with a great deal of flavour, in which he presents a vegetable jelly made by distilling cucumber and dill.

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