Congratulations..........NOMA - World's Best Restaurant 2010

Well the list is in and the honours go to the talented Rene Redzepi and his team at Noma, well done! We can't wait to get over there ourselves and see what all the fuss is about. Here is the full list.......

1. Noma, Denmark
2. El Bulli, Spain
3. The Fat Duck, UK
4. El Cellar de Can Roca, Spain
5. Mugaritz, Spain
6. Osteria Francenesca, Italy
7. Alinea, USA
8. Daniel, USA
9. Arzak, Spain
10. Per Se, USA
11. Le Chateaubriand, France
12. Le Colombe, South Africa
13. Pierre Gagnaire, France
14. Hotel de Ville, Switzerland
15. Le Bernardin, USA
16. L'Astrance, France
17. Hof van Cleve, Belgium
18. D.O.M., Brasil
19. Oud Sluis, Holland
20. Le Calandre, Italy
21. Steirereck, Austria
22. Vendome, Germany
23. Chez Dominique, Finland
24. Les Creations de Narisawa, Japan
25. Mathias Dahlgren, Sweden
26. Momofuku Ssam Bar, USA
27. Quay, Australia
28. Iggy's, Singapore
29. L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, France
30. Schloss Schauenstein, Switzerland
31. Le Quartier Francais, France
32. The French Laundry, USA
33. Martin Berasategui, Spain
34. Aqua, Germany
35. Combal Zero, Italy
36. Dal Pescatore, Italy
37. De Libriji, Holland
38. Tetsuya's, Australia
39. Jaan par Andre, Singapore
40. Il Canto, Italy
41. Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee, France
42. Oaxen Krog, Sweden
43. St. John, UK
44. La Maison Troisgros, France
45. wd~50, USA
46. Biko, Mexico
47. Die Schwarzwaldstube, Germany
48. Nihonryori, RyuGin, Japan
49. Hibiscus, UK
50. Eleven Madison Park, USA

There you go, do you agree? Any notable omissions? More on this and the Aussie contribution to the world scene later on this week.

Food Photography - What We Have Been Snapping Lately

Ian getting it just right!

Image of after dinner treats.

A fun dish we have been working on - unfinished yet!

Very arty!

Cool shot of confit lime zest.

Mini chocolate 'bombs' with salted caramel.

Aerated Chardonnay chocolate.

Chocolate 'magnum'

Everyone's at it! Here is Sharlee Gibb, program manager for the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival!

As you know we take a keen interest in photography, especially on our favourite subject....Food! This is what we have been looking at through the lens in the last few weeks. It's great fun and saves us money employing a professional to record our visual library of dishes and creations.

A Couple More............Whoops, we forgot to post!!

All done for another year!! Look out though for more of our chocolate flowers soon!! Thanks for reading guys.

MFWF Review 3 - Theatre Of Ideas With Mugaritz IMAGES

Chef Andoni describing calcium oxide, and its uses in his cuisine.

Stunning dessert that showcases Mugaritz' unique style and wit.

Matt Preston hosted the event and was able to help the audience understand a little bit about the significance of Chef Andoni's food.

Salsifi cooked in the calcium oxide to produce a self pureeing vegetable. Their food photography is some of the best we have seen.

A packed house is entertained and informed.

The dessert being explained by Andoni and prepared by Javier Bergara (in picture) and Leire Extaide (out of shot).

Dan Hunter - one of Mugaritz' favourite sons, moderates the event. 

Interaction from the chef to the audience kept everyone entertained.

When a vegetable is cut and immersed in the calcium oxide solution, it's pectins react and forms a gel on the outside of the fruit/veg. This is then baked at a low temperature and the steam cannot escape through the gel. This causes the inside of the ingredient to almost puree inside itself giving rise to a unique texture. The picture is of Jerusalem artichoke cooked in this manner which gives way to the appearance of crab.

Ian & Darren were lucky enough to spend some time with the guys from Mugaritz and it was inspirational learning from the humble approach to life and cooking. We helped in some prep for this class and the offer was extended to us to visit the new Mugaritz. We cannot wait to visit San Sebastian and experience the cuisine and hospitality of Andoni, Javier and Leire. Thanks to all three for your humility and passion.

 

Visit Mugaritz at http://www.mugaritz.com/index.html

EASTER 2010

We hope you had a fun, chocolate filled Easter! Here are some of our Easter creations for this year. 

MFWF Review 2 - Burch & Purchese Announce Exclusive Deal With The Cocoa Alliance During Masterclass

Burch & Purchese are excited to announce and exclusive deal with The Cocoa Alliance based here in Melbourne. The Cocoa Alliance are the Australian distributors of Chocovic chocolate our preferred brand of chocolate. So we are happy to align ourselves with these two great brands and hope to have a fruitful partnership in the future. The deal was completed just before our Masterclass in Flinders Room at the Langham hotel last week. The Cocoa Alliance provided us with the Selvatica range of chocolate for our demonstration and to give away to the attendees. The demonstration itself was titled "New Ways With An Old Obsession" and focused on some of our techniques in chocolate and dessert making. We received great feed back and had a lively exchange of questions from the diverse crowd. We have to say a special thanks to Adriano Zumbo for his moderation and to Alistair McLeod for his MC skills. Burch & Purchese produced three dishes, two of which were produced as tastings for everyone and the chocolate turron (above) went down extremely well as did our impressive gift bag. The bag contained a Burch & Purchese chocolate piece, promotional material from The Cocoa Alliance and chocolate from Chocovic as well as samples from our other partners Fresh As. and Melbourne Food Ingredient Depot and we want to thank all of our supporters in making the day so successful. We will post more on Tommy Roff from Fresh As. and Phil Vernon from Melbourne Food Ingredient Depot later on as they have great products and we have built good relationships with these professional companies. For now, here are a few useful links. 

http://cocoaalliance.com/

http://www.chocovic.es/

http://adrianozumbo.com/patisserie.html

http://fresh-as.com/

http://www.mfcd.net/depot/

MFWF Review 1 - Massimo Bottura - Theatre Of Ideas

Burch & Purchese were lucky enough to spend a little time with Massimo Bottura, the talented chef from acclaimed restaurant Osteria Francescana. Massimo was over for the festival to participate in the Theatre Of Ideas event at BMW edge in Federation Square on Sunday 21st of March. His restaurant holds two Michelin stars and is situated in Modena, Italy and the man himself was as humble and polite as anyone you could meet. It was a pleasure for us just to be in his company over the festival and it thrills us to be up son stage with a culinary master such as this. Massimo's food is right out of the box but still with a firm respect for classical cookery. He says that, like an artist, his food is and outlet for his emotions and the plate is his blank canvas. During his highly engaging and thoughtful presentation last Sunday, Massimo demonstrated his dish "The potato that wants to be a truffle". This concept arose from the similarities in flavour profile of the two ingredients, but the real twist was that it was a dessert! Or was it? These were the questions that Massimo was trying to ask the audience, clearly this dish was conceptualized over a long period of testing and uses his wealth of experience. The dish was presented to host Matt Preston who was excited to be tasting such an evolutionary dish and we were thrilled when Mr Preston walked to the top of the auditorium to ask us to try Massimo's dish. The dish comprised of a sweet potato filling with sweetened hazelnuts, vanilla foam and a generous topping of black truffle. We were surprised as we tasted the dish, as it turned from a dessert sensation, to something more savoury and back again. It was thoughtful food and we have to say a big thanks to Matt for thinking of us, we think he was trying to open our minds to possibilities in dessert making and it certainly did. We can't wait to visit Modena one day to sample the whole menu, but for now we are grateful to have been in the company of and tasted the food of such a great inspirational chef. Check out the website for Massimo's award winning restaurant. http://www.osteriafrancescana.it/