Chef Cantu mixes food and science

By Irene Kuan

TORONTO (Reuters Life!) - Chef Homaro Cantu works in a kitchen that looks more like a science lab. A scientist at heart, the 31-year-old worked in nearly 50 kitchens on the West Coast of the United States before moving to Chicago and becoming executive chef at Moto.

He is known for his wacky edible inventions and using lasers, particle guns, helium or liquid nitrogen to cook his cuisine.

With dishes such as the edible paper and nitro sushi, the Portland, Oregon native often oversteps the boundary between sight and taste, leaving his diners scratching their heads in bewilderment.

Cantu spoke to Reuters about his newest dish, his goal to get people to think differently about food, and revealed why shock value is not the only reason for his strange culinary creations.

Q: What new dish are you working on right now?

A: "We're working on this really cool dish ... it's levitating smoke bubbles, where these bubbles sort of float around the restaurant and when they pop, they release different aromas and they're edible bubbles, which make them even cooler. So it's not like soap, it's an edible product that we concoct."

Q: What will these bubbles taste like?

A: "Anything you can imagine. We can make them taste like caramel ... creme brulee ... We made an entire dish out of them. We called it Mexico and inside the bubble was actually ancho chili, some jalapeno, some cilantro. So when this bubble pops, you get this ... aroma that you can't get any other way."

Q: How did you come up with the idea of your signature edible paper product?

A: "I used to get a dollar for every tooth that fell out, so I'd always pull a tooth out before it was ready to come out and my mom would give me a dollar. I would eat the dollars. I don't know why, but I was fascinated with how things tasted that you weren't able to eat. Objects like a car ... what does a car taste like? What does leather taste like? So being fascinated with how things taste that you can't eat gets you in the path of innovation. So if I can take a cherry red mustang and make it taste like smoky cherries, and make it look like a mustang, that's pretty cool. It enables you to make a new process to go from point A to point B, and that's really the most important part of what I do, which is the path of innovation."

Q: How is the edible paper made?

A: "I can't really tell you. What I can tell you is it is made from the original products found in a burger."

Q: Why do you prefer to invent food instead of simply cooking it?

A: "Energy is the big word. Food is really energy. Without food, we'd have no energy and we're dead. So I look at food a little differently. That's really what's driving me. If I couldn't do what I do, I wouldn't be a chef, I'd go into another industry, some sort of green-collar job and I'd just invent things for sustainability. The only difference between my food and those that come out of a farmers ground is the way it looks. It's sort of a timeline I guess. When people see these products I'm coming out with they're going to realize what's been going on here isn't just some guy making wacky food. We're making things that are going to change the world."

(Reporting by Irene Kuan; Editing by Patricia Reaney)