Cuisine of Great Personal Creativity or Signature Cuisine (Cozinha de Grande Criatividade Pessoal ou Cozinha de Assinatura)

The kitchen is a creative space and can be combined with food technology and entrepreneurship to position professionals aware of gastronomic trends at another level of production and knowledge.

Signature cuisine is a culinary approach that stands out for the unique creation and expression of a highly experienced chef, reflecting his identity, creativity and personal style.

Original cuisine is described by the creative freedom of the chef, who seeks to create unique and original dishes, often inspired by his experiences, memories and cultural influences.

Authorial chefs seek to present their own vision of gastronomy, innovating in ingredient modifications, preparation techniques and presentations, resulting in dishes that are true expressions of their identity and talent.

Original cuisine or signature cuisine

Original cuisine, in essence, is the gastronomic experience developed through the experience, knowledge and long experience of a chef.

Original cuisine is a personal style of cooking, which is not at all common compared to a conventional professional, whose tasks the experienced chef needs to constantly renew.

An example of this is Le Chateaubriand, in Paris, which stands out among good restaurants around the world, due to the original work carried out by the kitchen team.

For things to work well in signature cuisine, it is necessary for an experienced chef, or cook, to understand how people relate to food, and how they are able to impress their diner's palate.

Another important point is how the food created in the signature kitchen becomes a ritual, and in doing so, engages people, and also connects with special moments in the lives of regular customers.

Original food affects the taste and smell, generating positive and even negative memories if they are not well thought out.

Foods that sharpen the memory more than the senses are part of a group of foods created by affective cuisine, which normally bears the mark of original cuisine due to the way of preparation and presentation.

Fundamentals of signature cuisine (or signature cuisine)

Original cuisine is one in which a menu is prepared with creations derived from personal experiences.

Most of the time, the cook behind the dishes is a great master.

He experimented with these sensations and created dishes that become true works of art in the combination of ingredients, textures, aromas, flavors and beautifully decorated assemblies.

We can define, in a very simplistic way, as original cuisine, one that carries out original and exclusive food preparation, carried out by a professional, usually a chef, using special techniques, equipment and ingredients.

The most sensitive of arts

Cooking is a great art; the most sensitive of the arts; because it directly affects the five human senses.

It involves creativity and a complete sensory exploration that takes the diner to unforgettable moments.

Difference between words

A menu does not give us a choice: it is a menu that explains what will be consumed during a meal, a description of what was created by the Chef to provide a gastronomic experience.

The menu is the list of dishes that are available to the public to choose what they want to eat.

Standardizing an art may seem utopian, but, in the case of signature cuisine, it is a point of quality that reveals the care the chef takes with his diners.

Standardizing is also an art

Each food follows the same special way of its type of preparation. Textures, aromas and flavors are exactly the same in each dish assembled with the same arrangement and quantity of food.

All this care becomes the signature of a chef, his imagination of each dish and the sensation he intends to convey to each person.

Standardization and operational efficiency

The reason for standardization is to elevate the concept of personality and also add value. However, there is also the main objective: the need to seek operational efficiency.

It is necessary to enable better production costs and labor specialization, teaching the team to recreate the same dish with the chef's art in a rational way for the restaurant's success.

Original cuisine goes beyond the commonplace, creating dishes with ingredients that, in many cases, would never be used in the same recipe.

It also uses traditional and revolutionary techniques to prepare food (without following one trend or another) and turns into an art the fact of delivering equal creations to each dish so that everyone has their own personal experience.

Original cuisine

Cooking is like a show: it takes a lot of organization, training, dedication, knowledge and love so that, at the end, all your senses give you a standing ovation.

Vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste.

How to use the five senses in the kitchen? How to awaken sensations? How to provoke?

These questions are answered within the concept of signature cuisine. This is a technique that professionals from all over the world try to define in one way or another, but, for me, there is no right or wrong.

I think that original cuisine is everything that we put our feelings, creativity, experience and experiences into creating a dish.

Cooking is a sensitive art. It goes far beyond techniques, organization, training and knowledge.

All of this is obviously important, however, the food needs to touch people. Awaken your senses. Make provocations.

When you cook, one of the first things you should ask is: will this dish please the customer?

Will it make him feel something good?

Cooking is practicing empathy. We need to put ourselves in the other person's shoes and see the best way to please them.

Everything we experience becomes experience.

With food it couldn't be any different.

Each bite is an opportunity to taste something new.

A beautiful appearance, a provocative aroma and a captivating flavor.

A good dish is one that makes you want to eat more. Again. It needs to make you want to lick your fingers.

For an experienced chef, it is the opportunity to share their knowledge, which they have already experienced throughout their professional career.

Original cuisine follows standardization

Original cuisine is one in which a menu is prepared with creations resulting from experiences.

Most of the time, the cook behind the dishes is a great master.

He experimented with these sensations and created dishes that become true works of art in the combination of ingredients, textures, aromas, flavors and beautifully decorated assemblies.

Standardization and operational efficiency demonstrated in the role of a Chef.

The reason for standardization is to elevate the concept of personality and also add value. However, there is also the main objective: the need to seek operational efficiency.

It is necessary to enable better production costs and labor specialization, teaching the team to recreate the same dish with the chef's art in a rational way for the restaurant's success.

Original cuisine goes beyond the commonplace, creating dishes with ingredients that, in many cases, would never be used in the same recipe.

It also uses traditional and revolutionary techniques to prepare food (without following one trend or another) and turns into an art the fact of delivering equal creations to each dish so that everyone has their own personal experience.

Difference between Authorial Cuisine and Affective Cuisine

The difference is in the second (Affective Cuisine) which stirs nostalgia, and which does not tire the palate.

An example is the dish of beans, rice and a stew that grandma made every time you visited her.

The prerequisite for the first (Authorial Cuisine) is to be unusual, and become a spectacle in the mouths of diners.

To achieve this effect, the chef needs to be creative and very experienced.

The Techno-Emotional kitchen

New technologies, increasingly sophisticated, contribute to the creation of new concepts, providing many emotions in techno-emotional cuisine.

Combining ingredients in cooking is an art that gastronomy professionals dedicate themselves to providing a sublime sensation to those who try their dishes.

With the improvement of techniques and the exploration of new means to achieve customer satisfaction, the search for pleasure at the table also makes use of the sophistication of the technology used in modern cuisine.

Some perfectionist chefs like Jo?l Robuchon and conceptual chefs like Jacques Maximin and Jacques Torres are considered the first generation of techno-emotionality.

The techno-emotional culinary movement was most absorbed by Spaniards, such as Ferran Adrià, who rejects the molecular gastronomy definition often attributed to avant-garde cuisine.

Ferran Adrià is more of a kitchen artist than a cook.

But Ferran Adrià created a huge laboratory in his kitchen, and put all his emotion and all possible creativity into it.

Although it presents a colder, more punctual and exact look, the recipe created under the concept of techno-emotional cuisine also brings references to grandmother's food.

This is one of the main characteristics that involve the emotion of making a dish.

With characteristics that refer to a fond and familiar memory, recognized by its flavor, techno-emotional cuisine can extract emotion from recipes with the help of modern tools.

From the dish prepared by the grandmother came emotion and affection, but that same dish is today prepared with ultra-modern equipment.

The dishes are prepared with state-of-the-art technology, such as thermo-circulators, thermomixes and gastrovac, equipment capable of achieving ideal chemical processes for creating the most perfect point of texture, with minimal alteration of the flavor and color of the preparation.

Original Kitchen

It is the result of the application of a set of knowledge and experiences from the experienced Chef.

The freedom to develop recipes does not leave aside the technique applied by the experienced chef.

One of the professional pioneers to create signature cuisine dishes was French Chef Alain Senderens, who passed away in 2017.

He was part of the Nouvelle cuisine movement, a way of cooking and presenting dishes as a resistance to Classical French Cuisine.

Building a kitchen professional

A lot of people ask me: are you a chef, executive chef or cook?

But if I take the same gastronomy course that is offered at Ferrandi, Senac águas de S?o Pedro, Hotec, Anhembi Morumbi, Mausi Sebess, Le Cordon Bleu, Anhanguera, Unip, Ung, S?o Camilo, Famesp, or others, I will leave them. Trained as a Chef?

I prefer to explain by comparing the profession of cook with that of business administrator.

Those who study cooking become chefs. Those who study administration become administrators.

Nobody studies gastronomy and becomes a chef, just as nobody studies administration and becomes a CEO.

Chef, as well as CEO, are titles you obtain after many years of effort, experience, dedication, talent and promotions throughout your career.

The Chef de cuisine is someone who commands an entire brigade within the kitchen, made up of Chef, Sous-chef, Chef de partie, Chef Garde manger, Chef boulanger, Commis, apprentice, intern, etc. etc. etc

The Chef, in addition to commanding all staff, creates the kitchen concept, transmits his style to the dishes, in addition to creating recipes.

Therefore, the cook only becomes a Chef after years and years of hard work.

Chef means creativity and experience.

Therefore, when you graduate, you will normally do an internship in the kitchen of a restaurant.

Right after the internship, you will be ready to be hired as a cook II or commis.

And so on until you reach the position of Chef, which can take up to fifteen years of many struggles and challenges.

In Brazil, the term Chef de cuisine was, regrettably, trivialized.

Anyone who graduates in gastronomy, or takes cooking courses, is called a Chef. In France this would be unacceptable.

Learning in the kitchen

It's incredible how we learn every time we go to the kitchen.

How we are learning from science today.

Our learning from improving or developing new ingredients is incredible!

It may be a technique, a trick or a silly trick, but, over time, experience and knowledge accumulate, and with that we learn every day in a kitchen.

For this reason, there are many people who have never studied gastronomy, but are better cooks or chefs than many cooks or chefs who trained in the profession.

Cooks, products, new definitions of gastronomy and techno-emotional cuisine

Twenty years ago I went to a contemporary gastronomy class, and the topic was freshwater shrimp.

This shrimp originated in Malaysia, but has breeding grounds in Brazil, but it is still very little known by chefs.

During the class, a video was shown about shrimp production, and a second video showed the techniques on how to use the shrimp from the shell to the head.

The idea, as in much of the class (and videos), was to promote the appreciation of the product, the basis for any good cuisine.

At that same time, I went to another gastronomy class, in S?o Paulo, on avant-garde cooking techniques.

Demonstrations were carried out for the preparation of foams, spherifications, gellings, airs, etc.

But, before starting, an introduction was made about the various definitions of the different types of cuisine that are practiced today.

It is worth remembering that avant-garde cuisine techniques were created in Europe, in the late 80s and early 90s, by teachers, Hervé This, a French physicist and chemist who works for the Instituto Nacional de la Recherche Agronomique, in Paris, by Harold McGee, an American writer, who writes about chemistry, technique and history of food and cooking, as well as Professor Nicholas Kurti, a Hungarian physicist who lived most of his life in Oxford, United Kingdom.

Nobody cooks with molecules?

Do not discuss this issue; I prefer that you study the subject a lot, and then draw your conclusions.

Remember that the kitchen is made up of teams (we call it the kitchen brigade) and everyone must participate in this discussion.

However, there are scientists who study the chemical and physical reactions produced by food, mainly Nicholas Kurti, Harold.

By reading their work you will be able to get all the answers.

We cannot fail to mention the countless research works and gastronomic experiences developed by Peter Baham between 1995 and 2010.

Everything he developed we are applying today in techno-emotional cuisine, molecular gastronomy, and even signature cuisine.

In Brazil, these ideas only appeared in the vocabularies of gastronomy colleges after 2009, and even then, they began to be put into practice in 2013.

Cutting-edge cuisine and classroom experiences

Personally, I like to give an introduction before starting a course, or in my classes, so that people know where the textures often used by Ferran Adrià come from, which some people think are poisonous or cause cancer.

On the other hand, I want my students to also know a little about the history of cuisine and understand what definitions of cuisine are used today: contemporary, molecular, avant-garde, etc.

These concepts are often used incorrectly, some of which are even ridiculous.

Why do I make an air I'm a molecular cook? I often see the term molecular caipirinha simply because it is a spherification.

Cooks who call themselves artists, magicians or creatives.

So many concepts that only make people start to think that today's kitchens are space flight laboratories.

And kitchens are kitchens. Inside them there are onions, garlic, broths, funds and cooks; there are no scientists.

To begin with, I think it is necessary to know where the origins of haute cuisine come from, which is refined cuisine, made for bourgeoisie and kings.

Haute cuisine was not born at the hands of Escoffier, who in 1903 published a book, in which he describes countless recipes, which cooks have worked with for years, without changing them.

The only truth is that this classic cuisine was born at the hands of Marie Antonin Carême, who at the beginning of the 19th century was considered Chef de cuisine to kings, and King of Chefs.

But for a revolution to happen in the kitchen, there are people who question the established way and wonder why they can't do it differently.

Here, the hand of Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Michel Guérard, the famous Nouvelle Cuisine, which needs no introduction.

It is the most important gastronomic movement of the 20th century and under its rules the majority of professionals in restaurants and hotels around the world continue to cook.

Within Nouvelle Cuisine the embryo of signature cuisine (or authorial cuisine) is born, which are cooks who wish to follow their own style.

In the same period, the spirit of creative cuisine began, practiced by chefs who gained worldwide fame, or professionals who indirectly made a significant contribution to the advancement of gastronomy, especially the new French cuisine, such as Alain Ducasse, Alexandre Dumas Brisse, Alain Chapeu, Alain Senderens, Carl Linnaeus, Charles Vincent du Caveau, Charles Monselet, Chevreul, Denis Papin, Eugenie Brazier, Eckart Witzigmnann, Fran?ois Dubois, Francis Bacon, Fernand Point, Fran?ois Pierre La Varenne, Fritz Carl Vatel, Fran?ois Le Jardinier, Fran?ois Massialot, Georges Blanc, Gualtiero Marchesi, Iginio Massari, Jules Gouffé, Jo?l Robuchon, Menon, Michel Bras, Michel Sarran, Michel Guérard, Nicolas Bonnefon, Pellegrino Artusi, Pierre Gagnaire, Roger Vergé, Robuchon, etc.

Nouvelle Cuisine covers a period from 1965 to 1990, more or less, without changing anything in the way of cooking.

Around the year 2000, Ferran Adrià appeared, also questioning whether he could cook differently from French cuisine, with other products and following native thinking, but with a very different style.

He decides to cook products from his land. Why can a foie gras be haute cuisine and a carrot not?

This cook trains four or five professionals, and breaks schemes, bringing a new revolution in the kitchen.

Other professionals start working and bring with them a new generation of cooks trained in gastronomy, nutrition or food engineering courses. In this movement, professionals emerge from medicine, law, engineering, psychology and other professionals in the humanities and exact sciences.

These professionals take professional qualification courses and become cooks, bringing new ideas and new ways of working in the kitchen.

Obviously, all of this brings dynamism, scientific knowledge and personal skills.

But many doubts remain:

– Signature cuisine is a cuisine that follows your instincts or knowledge and creates your menu without the need for influence.

Now, is it true that every chef creates his own menu without copying the work of other professionals? Is a signature cuisine haute cuisine?

– Molecular cuisine: it’s a famous term, but even Ferrán Adrià wonders what its definition is.

Nobody cooks with molecules. What exists are scientists who study the chemical and physical reactions produced by food, mainly Nicholas Kurti, Harold McGee, Peter Baham and Hervé This.

They are scientists who do very interesting work on food, but they are not cooks.

They don't have restaurants, much less are they molecular cooks.

When trying to compare cooks with artists, three definitions were also born: modern, contemporary and avant-garde cuisine.

– Modern: modern means current, but if we look at the meaning of modern art it is the artistic production of the last century until the mid-1970s.

Is this the concept of modern cuisine?

– Contemporary: does it mean the art that is practiced in kitchens today?

For many professionals, today's good cuisine is a feijoada, and a bar specializing in tapas; this is not necessarily haute cuisine.

– Vanguard: it is a widely used term, it comes from the French avant-garde, which means being at the forefront of something.

If I say that I am currently an avant-garde Chef, I will be the person who would be defining that I am part of a group of professionals that defines gastronomy trends in the world.

Would I be wrong? Would my culinary avant-garde colleagues be wrong?

In fact, few chefs or cooks in the world have this gift.

I always say and repeat: cooking is easy, and everyone cooks, but being an avant-garde is very difficult!

Is calling yourself an avant-garde cook too risky? Could it be!

Our generation will certainly be judged or classified in the future; the form we will never know.

The transition in gastronomy

Over time, other terms such as techno-emotional cuisine, avant-garde cuisine or authorial cuisine have appeared, which are used by chefs and renowned cooks, who use techniques to create emotions in their dishes and make the act of eating be a sensory experience.

With this definition, the concept of creative cuisine is also created, a term that is often questioned: creating is seeing things where no one else sees them.

When a chef or cook uses their reflections, based on their experiences and studies of gastronomy, and creates dishes with techniques or philosophies that no one predicted before, are they practicing original cuisine?

Examples and changes over time

There are several examples. Normally no one ate flowers.

After Ferran Adrià used flowers, companies appeared in all countries that produce flowers for all restaurants in the world.

But I've been using edible flowers since the late 80s, and Ferran Adria, as far as we know, started using flowers at the beginning of 2002.

I met other gastronomy professionals who have been using edible flowers since the 90s.

We are the vanguard, and we are not recognized?

It turns out that the issue is acceptance, and today everything is much simpler to include on a plate, including an edible flower.

I have always used Japanese products in my original cuisine, but some time later Ferran Adrià appeared, mixing few Japanese or Chinese products in his menus.

Is he avant-garde and I'm not?

I did this for the first time in 1977, and today I see some chefs and cooks venturing out with these products, even if in a timid way (and some still improvising).

I cite the example of kanten (ágar ágar) which is a gelatin made from seaweed.

Creativity belongs to people who notice things that no one else notices.

My grandmothers and my mother used (in salads, stir-fries and stews) pumpkin blossom, hibiscus flower, pansy, nasturtium, marigold, rose petals and daisies since the 1950s.

Obatyans (Japanese grandmothers) have been using kanten since the late 1950s; they are the avant-garde, and everyone else just copied.

Molecular gastronomy and progressive mixology

There is another type of creativity, which is where some chefs or cooks are working, using a creativity that is still being adapted.

Existing equipment, inputs, ingredients and techniques are used by some professionals to create their dishes or drinks.

One example is air, which was invented as a technique (molecular gastronomy), which anyone can learn and apply in their kitchen.

As a gastronomy teacher, I brought dozens of innovative ideas and suggestions to gastronomy classrooms and laboratories, and trained with my students. I participated intensely in the 90s, 2000s and current years, forming a generation of good and creative kitchen professionals.

I tried to encourage the training of authentic culinary professionals.

Textures of molecular gastronomy

How the textures came about; Ferran Adrià and his team saw what most couldn't see before.

He decided to use things that exist in thousands of products from the food industry that are part of our diet, and decided to apply them in his experimental kitchen.

They are simple things, which have always existed: xanthan gum, agar agar (which I have been using since the 80s due to the influence of Japanese cuisine) is the gelatin in guava pastries, mannitol is the sugar in cereal bars.

The same thing happens with gelatin sheets. There is no mystery.

We have been eating this since we were born.

Ferran Adrià saw it and adapted it in his recipes.

The fact is that real cooks don't give themselves labels.

They don't call themselves creative, avant-garde, or contemporary.

Because true cooks are humble, they know that there is only one type of cuisine: the one that comforts and gives pleasure.

Self-Confidence – forging an authorial kitchen professional

When we start working in the kitchen, the first rule is: laziness doesn't exist, time off doesn't exist, and personal life doesn't exist.

What exists is a kitchen, a sharp and very well trained kitchen brigade, good ingredients and the best equipment and utensils at your disposal.

The adrenaline of cooking is delicious, the daily exchange of knowledge, concentration, delicacy, love for each production, the hands that move non-stop, cutting, beating, kneading, etc.

It is art in full action. It can be a spectacle and an art if the kitchen team is competent and very well prepared.

It's exciting to be able to observe the perfection of a kitchen, the rhythm of assembling dishes, the noise of equipment and utensils in operation, the accuracy, the importance it has for its author and the message it sends to the diner.

When we change the menu in a restaurant, all feelings mix as we look for different combinations.

Most of the time they are very successful, and eventually something goes disastrous.

Live with all the questions: Will they like it? Is it too spicy? Too sweet? Is it too modern?

This is all part of it, but when a Chef is the main author in the process, he will place his work on the counter and have full confidence that it was his creation and that the results will be the best.

Trusting your instinct is very important, and a well-prepared chef does!

But all of this will only be possible to achieve if there is a highly integrated kitchen team committed to the menu.

United and working with a single objective, the professionals of a kitchen brigade will reach the pinnacle of knowledge, and become brilliant professionals in signature cuisine (authorial cuisine).