Travel, Food & Wine

Molecular Gastronomy

Kirk L. Smick, O.D., F.A.A.O., Morrow, Ga.

Having eaten at most of the best restaurants in France, I didn’t think any menu could surprise me. I realized I was wrong, however, when I ate at The Fat Duck Restaurant in England (www.thefatduck.co.uk). In 2010, San Pellegrino, a publication that annually ranks the world’s 50 best restaurants, named the eatery #3 in the world, and I fully understand why.

A sensory awakening

The Fat Duck Restaurant, located just 30 minutes south of London, specializes in molecular gastronomy, which is the use of chemistry and physics on food to provide a multi-sensory experience.

My first experience with this style of cuisine was the “Chocolate Finale Dessert” two years ago at Alinea Restaurant In Chicago, Ill. (http://bit.ly/1tqDoGj). I’ve also had such creations at the now shuttered “Alex” in Las Vegas, Nev. and Moto Restaurant in Chicago, Ill.

The menu

My tablemates for this excursion were my wife, Judi, and creator, writer and editor of “O.D. Scene,” Jack Schaeffer, O.D. (We were in London lecturing at a British Contact Lens Association event.) The meal was a 14-course extravaganza that lasted four hours and 20 minutes.

To start, we had unique libations: I had the tequila and grapefruit, Jack went with the Campari Soda, and Judi had the vodka and lime sour.

The bed of oak moss at The Fat Duck.

The standouts from the 14-course meal were the nitro-poached aperitifs, red cabbage gazpacho, which included a pommery grain mustard ice cream, whiskey wine gums, which are scotch and bourbon-flavored gummi objects stuck to a map of their origins, and jelly of quail with crayfish cream, which included a bed of oak moss upon which a pitcher of warm water was poured to release an earthy odor while we ate.

The most inventive course was the “Sound of the Sea,” which included an iPod Nano hidden in a conch shell with the ear buds hanging out. It played crashing waves and sea gulls as we ate salmon poached in licorice gel.

We washed the entire amazing meal down with a 1995 Chateau Figeac from Bordeaux.