Serving sixteen courses cooked by fourteen chefs in six hours across two restaurants sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. But for the team at Gelinaz!, it’s a challenge to be relished. This one-off event was put together to showcase the incredible talent coming out of kitchens all over the world, and the two restaurants hosting the event – Lyle’s and The Clove Club – encapsulated the exciting, forward-thinking innovation that’s being seen in restaurants today.
The menu for the night – called Walk With Us – was based around four courses developed by head chefs James Lowe (of Lyle’s) and Isaac McHale (of The Clove Club). Each course was then ‘remixed’ three times by a duo of chefs from all over the world. They had to focus on the same core ingredients, and put their own spin on a particular dish. The diners were split between the two restaurants, then halfway through the meal were asked to get up, put on their coats and embark on a ten-minute walk to swap venues.
Some of the more well known chefs involved in the Gelinaz! collective were Claude Bosi, Italy’s Enrico Crippa, Niko Romito and Davide Scabin and Stockholm’s Petter Nilsson. Everyone cooking at the event was teamed up by random, and tasked with creating a dish that took risks, wasn’t necessarily perfect but definitely offered something different. We started in The Clove Club, and after a brief introduction from Isaac, sat down to our first course.