Los Angeles Times – COVER STORY May 11, 2005

Tonight’s Special Is Paper- Haute Cuisine and Extreme Science Collide at a Chicago Restaurant.

by P.J. Huffstutter

CHICAGO — Deep in the basement of Moto restaurant, owner and executive chef Homaro Cantu is methodically filling medical syringes with 50 cc of chocolate sauce and shooting the mixture into colorful balloons. Across the way, a sous-chef grabs a plastic foam box filled with liquid nitrogen, the white smoke billowing out. Nearby, another chef carefully feeds sheets of soybean paper into a Canon i560 inkjet printer, printing out pictures of maki rolls. At a time when competition for diners is fierce, a small but growing number of chefs are blazing a strange new trail: creating a dining experience that mixes haute cuisine with extreme science. In part, the trend comes as a result of the industry’s hypercompetitive nature: About 75% of restaurants close within a year of their debut, the National Restaurant Assn. says. Moto doesn’t serve traditional meals, where the plate is piled with food. Instead, it offers a series of plates that often hold no more than a mouthful. Depending on Cantu’s whim, the meal could include pork belly with Kentucky-fried ice cream (tiny scoops of cream that have been altered to taste like crispy chicken skin). Dessert may be birthday cake: Cantu takes a sugary liquid that tastes like cake, and, mixing it with sodium alginate and calcium chloride, turns it into a bite-sized ravioli. “Cooking is all about technology and having fun with your food,” said Cantu, 28. “We’re here to help gastronomy catch up to the modern age.”