By now, everyone has seen the color radiating atop ivory plate and slate. Pretty, possibly cliche, what if we considered these flowers as symbol?¹ For wrapped inside the foraged stylings of today’s food lie deeper questions about identity. As gardens and fields unfurl into the kitchen; the direct connection to growing, or finding, food has many chefs rallying around their regions and traditions.

Luxury is becoming authenticity – developing meaningful identity.² And this is where the New German School finds itself – building a framework to discover and push itself forward.

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In the storming of the fine dining Bastille, they’ve taken the luxury ingredients, the china, the suits, the pretense – out! Quality has been democratized, they say,¹ and new points of view have created new niches. La Grenouillere bubbles with a mischievous bent. The menu is thrown on the table and slowly unfurls. Crystal is scratched but it still drinks the same. That dining room. Vegetables. Perhaps it is with a wink, or sly smile, but Alexandre Gauthier’s La Grenouillère adds a touch of Marinetti to the rituals of fine dining.

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Evocative of landscapes, Thomas Bühner’s dishes encourage trailblazing through his crawling plates. Using the main ingredient as guide, pairing complements and opposites in random walks, dimension and nuance are explored. Each bite might differ – a stinging acidity and unexpected sweetness might dance back and forth before settling on a nutty tempered finish. Symphonic, as Bühner himself aspires to, where complex dishes balance a variety of flavors, textures, and sometimes, temperatures; all integral to the final work. “And wait until the main dish arrives,” High End Food said before walking away.

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Tucked along the French and Belgium border, In De Wulf sits between farmland and field¹ – a space that frames the restaurant’s dialectics. There are no answers but only more questions – true art. What explains the difference in philosophy between someone like Alain Passard, who with three gardens is supremely interested in the terroir of ingredients; and Rene Redzepi, who primarily plucks from the wild land for the plate?

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After a few amuses, an expectation stretched, flavor combinations dared, the downbeat of molecular meals drops – and it always pops! One bite, as always instructed, where the slightest resistance breaks with an explosion of flavor, its startling intensity foreshadows more surprise. Jaws clench down, cartoon eyes bulge, and smiles expand – a collective we have been waiting for this! At Atelier Crenn, the Kir Breton, served as the final amuse, pops with intense cool apple cider and sparkles as it engulfs the mouth – appearances are deceiving and the unpredictable fun.

Kir Breton

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