Puglisi - Relæ: a book of ideas

Contents

Foreword

Years ago I began planning the first of what would become several research trips in Denmark to study the resurgence of heirloom Nordic grains. In advance of the trip, I asked my friend Kille Ennaa noted chef and cookbook author who currently lives in southern Swedenwhere to eat in Copenhagen. Kille is a trusted source in such matters; she is as critical as she is dear, and only suggests places exceptional enough to merit a detour in her perpetually overscheduled days. With no hesitation, and no other recommendations, she directed me to a newish place where a young chef from Noma was doing his own thing. That was all I knew of Rel before showing up for my first dinner there with Nick Balla (my chef and colleague at Bar Tartine in San Francisco).

I had been thoroughly enjoying my visit to Denmark so far: meeting Danish bakers and farmers, and making bread using the local, fresh-milled flours. Little did I know that Christian, the chef/proprietor whose restaurant I had just walked into, was a serious baker himself. He greeted us warmly and seated us at the bar facing into the open kitchen. The two cooks working across the bar welcomed us also, and set to making our first courses.

As dinner began, paired with classic-era Johnny Cash, Nick and I knew we were amongst friends. We settled in as exceptional bread, folded warm into a soft leather pouch, was brought from the oven in the center of the kitchen. Deep green Sicilian olive oil was measured into a shallow dish and sparkling natural wine was poured. A plate of burnt, gnarled roots appeared too: bitter-sweet, char-roasted Jerusalem artichokes, an early variant of a recipe that appears in this book. Nick and I could have made a meal of these alone.

We investigated drawers under the table which revealed our utensils, and then, quickly, the plates started to come. There are no actual servers here, belying the seemingly effortless service. What followed was one astonishingly focused dish after another. Food that was conceptual yet comforting, restrained and absolutely generous. A fascinating contrast unfolded throughout the meal: that of luxury and economy. Cooks set out each plate, wines were poured, and the sommeliers introductions transported us to the place the grapes were grown and wine was made. All of this at once, in less than a minute. Like a well-built track racing cycle, the evening had been perfectly engineered.

This is what one experiences as a diner at Rel. But one also senses a complex back story, one that is relentlessly workshopped before we ever step in for dinner. Afterwards, I struggled to describe my meal to friends at home. It was not Nordic food per seChristian sourced seaweed from Brittany, citrus and olive oil from near his childhood home in Italy. Reading the menu aloud to illuminate didnt help much:

There was something else going on here that fundamentally changed the way I looked at modern cuisine. Was it post-regional, perhaps? Nick and I were moved by the singular voice of our dinner.

I returned to Copenhagen a few more times to visit Kille, and to work with the local grains and the bakers I had made friends withwho inspired large parts of the bread book I was working on. And each time I returned to eat at Rel. There are many restaurants I love to eat in, but very few that I look forward to months in advance. Christians vision has a clear and independent perspective. Dishes finally make it onto the menu after many weeks of development, wrought through a deliberate, obsessive, and very personal approach. This book brings us to the heart of his processfrom the kernel of an idea to the finish. Essentially, it offers the back story I had wondered about since that first meal at Rel: the dynamic way concepts are hewed, honed, distilled, taken apart, and put back together in a fresh, hard-edit shorthand where flavors fit together like a Mamet dialogue. The cache of ideas presented here helps articulate the language of Christians distinct style of cookingand gives readers new ways to express their own ideas using the language of Rel. For those interested in a more hands-on approach, a collection of practical, slightly radical recipes followscomprised of healthy, vegetable-focused food that is light, yet delivers strong, satisfying, and memorable flavors.

I gave up long ago trying to describe Rel in much detail. These days I keep it simple: my perfect restaurant, serving the food I want to eat every day. Thankfully, this book brings us a much more detailed narrativestraight from the mind of the chef.

Chad Robertson

Acknowledgments

In the process of making this book, I really focused in on analyzing my teams work, trying to find the most essential ideas that frequently show up in our cuisine so that you could read about and find inspiration from them. That is why I felt it appropriate to write the entire book myself. The process of analyzing and thus questioning every aspect of our work has truly helped clear up my ideas and thoughts about food. Not only has this book become a way of communicating our food and introducing you, the reader, to our cooking; it has also been an adventure to rediscover the dishes we created and try to clearly understand their qualities.

But I must admit that it was a tough process. I am used to numerous deadlines a day, with phones ringing, people demanding my attention, and something cooking in a pan at the same time. I am very good at that. You wont stress me outthe worst thing that can happen is a bit of shouting. I keep on top of things. Yet working on a book required concentrating on a single ideaone chapter, one dishfor hours and hours without interruptions. It proved to be extremely difficult for me to find and prioritize that time, and it has challenged me just as much as running two restaurants and taking care of my family. But I love being challenged. The blood, sweat, and tears I put into this book made me grow as a chef, a person, and a writer.

Even though the process of communicating this big mess that is going on in my head made me swear that I would never do this again several times, it has helped me further understand my own work and define my own ideas and opinions. I thank Ten Speed Press for being as focused on the details of the writing of this book as my team and I have been on every single dish we send from our kitchen, making me incredibly proud now that the work is finally coming to an end. I also thank Tara Duggan for polishing up my kitchen English (if this sentence makes sense to you, its because she probably rewrote it) and the entire team at the restaurant for supporting me during this period of enormous work.