Welcome to the chef's table

My wife and I are addicted to the Netflix series Chefs Table. Each of the six episodes features a world renowned chef. The dishes are exquisite, many are improbably complex, all extraordinary: and yet… six months later there are only two that we now remember. The first, Massimo Bottura's, ‘Oops! I dropped the lemon tart*,’ is a delightful combination of mistake (the tart quite literally dropped) and improvisational genius; once dropped Bottura repeated the process and reframed it as a ‘work of art’. The second, Enrique Olvera’s Mole Madre is strictly speaking, not a dish but the ubiquitous Mexican sauce, ‘mole’ with a twist. While both chef’s share a flair for the improvisational it is Olvera’s Mole Madre that breaks almost every conventional culinary code; defying rather than defining what we would expect from a Michelin star restaurant. The Mole Madre you taste on a Tuesday will not be the Mole Madre you taste on a Wednesday. It is I realise, a recipe without a recipe; a metaphor for growing and nurturing ‘daring’ relationships.

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