If the whole physics thing didn’t pan out, and Albert Einstein pursued a career as a pastry chef, he’d probably would have been a lot like Chef Ben Roche. Chef Roche, pastry chef at Moto restaurant in Chicago’s Fulton Market neighborhood, employs an arsenal of lasers, liquid nitrogen, and alginate powders to construct a new dessert movement in American cuisine. Chef Roche, along with his partner at Moto, Chef Homaro Cantu, are not breaking conventions. They are ignoring them altogether. Chef Roche eschews cookbooks for inspiration, and instead finds inspiration in Surrealism and the experimentation of Salvador Dali.
In our podcast, Roche talks about Dali’s influence, collecting smokey vanilla essence with a class 4 laser, and inventing hot ice cream for Albert Adria of El Bulli.
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