THE FORK

Welcome to THE FORK the future of food blogging. We don't just get in there and review. We are total Ninja. We work by night.  Invisible. Deadly. You'll never know we were there. We may not even be there, but you will be judged. This is no place for the weak of heart  or stomach. This is food-blogging as martial arts. This is war.

MKR ? I don't think so pal. Your Kitchen doesn't even rate.  MasterChef? Don't make me laugh. forget Iron Chef, forget Guru Chef (yes I know it hasn't happened yet, but forget it already). The future of cooking has been here since yesterday and I've dined at his temple.  His name ? Artemis Artaud . He's young, major-talented, and borderline psychotic. He's an Olympic pistol gold-medallist and a heroin addict. He's perfect. A young flawed guru figure, he's not God but you get the feeling he might have God's private mobile number. Well, at least conceptually. 

 Artaud has taken over at Proust's Kitchen, the hottest, the newest, the so-cutting-edge-you'll-get scars to take our capital city by storm. PK  went next-level last year under the tragically brief command of  Scary Child Prodigy Mozart Michelin , who at seven and a half has no time for gender specificity and thinks pronouns are for sissies, took Canberra culinary cognoscenti on a wild ride with dishes such as Nuclear Eggs ( swan eggs poached at your table in heavy water, more commonly used in the preparation of uranium for an atomic bomb.) Cooking with it is, to say the least, risky. And at 2300 Euro per serve this is on the upper side of fairly fucking costly but what the hell, it's going on the expense account. And it's pretty tasty. Perhaps surprisingly (or not) Mozart's other signature dish was equally expensive: Mum Can't Be Fucked Cooking was a tin of baked beans served unopened and presented in a large glass ashtray stolen from the local RSL lounge bar along with a can opener that worked, sort of. The brutal elegant simplicity of this dish was so conceptually elevated that we didn't quibble at paying 2950 Euros plus E500 for the side salad, a half-smoked pack of Winfield Red with one of those fiddly little Bic lighters tucked inside. Then. Just like that she was gone. Head-hunted by the Australian Coalition to high-concept their electoral campaign. I could weep.

 So, The new boy - is he/she/they up to the challenge ? Can he cut the mustard ? Can he stand the heat in the kitchen ? Can he take  culinary cliches and turn them into sonnets ? I think so.  I spoke to him on Snapchat (he only does interviews via social media) and he told me (in confidence) that he was planning to work his way through Mrs Beaton's Complete Cookbook and use only recipes featuring endangered or extinct animals. We live in exciting times.

Trained at Pierre le Bastard's four Michelin hat The Fat Bastard in Algiers, the 19 year old Artaud quickly mastered the signature dish of bacon & egg sandwich made entirely from goat offal and toothpaste. He mastered le Bastard's range of Cold Fusion dishes which famously challenge the laws of physics with chilli and garlic structurally altered after 24 hours at high speed in the Bern particle-accelerator.  At 17 he argued with le Bastard, suggesting these dishes could be perfected by doubling the price and asking "Hey fool. You want chips with that ?" In the ensuing fight he broke Le Bastard's nose, called him a useless old c---, and stormed out of the tutorial. As a result he graduated early, with distinction & the Gordon Ramsey Medal for ludicrously bad behaviour. And a dozen job offers from two star Michelin restaurants. He laughed at these, adding that " He didn't get out of bed for anything less than 4 stars. Yes I know, there's no such thing. But who's going to tell him. 

Is he one of the greats ? Hell yes. Get down to Proust's Kitchen now. Or even if possible some time in the remembered past.  And don't be worried about all the aggression, the foul language, the threats of extreme violence. He's on the spectrum. It's all hype. He's never actually killed a vegan for trying to book a table at his restaurant. Well, nothing confirmed anyway. Bon Appetit.