Sometimes it feels like everything that can been done with food has been done. Modernist cuisine has challenged all of haute cuisine's assumptions and introduced the most advanced technology into the kitchen. The Australian, prompted by this sense of culinary exhaustion, talked to some of the most adventurous chefs of today to ask, "Is culinary innovation still possible? And if not, how will adventurous chefs cook in the future?"
Many of the chefs interviewed told the magazine that they thought the trend towards locally-sourced meat and produce would continue—as if that were a controversial prognostication. But other answers were surprising. Rene Redzepi said he hoped his work at Noma will make Scandinavian cuisine as well-known as Japanese or Mexican. (Does that mean that "Pickled Herring" will be the Chipotle of 2050?) For his part, Dufresne thinks Japanese cuisine will become yet more influential in Western cooking. And Elena Arzak and Enrique Olvera, of Spain's Arzak and Mexico City's Pujol respectively, agreed that customers in the future would come to focus more and more on the quality of their food without caring about decor or service. The general thrust of the group's predictions was that restaurants in the future will be more rooted in their environment—a kind of futuristic return in cuisine to the ancient history of hunting and gathering.