Craft

Christine Schauflinger's Strudel

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 14:16:00 GMT

A moment of paper-thin, doughy zen from strudel queen Christine Schauflinger, chef and owner of Gasthaus Theuerwang.

Leading with Generosity

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:21:09 GMT

Chef Josh Niland is rewriting the rules of whole-fish cooking at Sydney’s Saint Peter and Fish Butchery—turning every scale, bone, and organ into something extraordinary.

Before his MAD talk, he broke down a fish with the noma team—but his real lesson was about leadership: generosity, space for creativity, and knowing what sparks each person on your team.

Looking at Nature with Appetite

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 19:15:47 GMT

Ángel León known across Spain as "el Chef del Mar", believes the ocean holds answers we haven't thought to ask for.

He transformed a 200-year-old abandoned mill into Aponiente, his three-Michelin-starred laboratory in Cádiz, proving the future of food may lie below the surface.

We’re only eating a small portion of what the sea has to offer. That’s why León works with the unwanted parts of the fish—the cuts and species that typically get discarded.

He’s developed the world’s first omega-3 rich grain that grows entirely in seawater, marine soybeans with higher protein content than their terrestrial cousins, and techniques for transforming discarded moray eel into dishes so convincing you’d swear you were eating pork.

By 2026, he plans to open a two-hectare estuary where guests will eat live fish and mollusks pulled directly from the water. His philosophy: look at the ocean “with hunger,” seeing every element as potential nourishment rather than waste.

Translation by Pablo Soto Rodriguez Gil

Resilient Restaurants

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Josh Niland, Chef and Owner of Saint Peter restaurant and Fish Butchery, shares the stories of resilience behind his restaurant’s success at Sydney MAD Monday.

The philosophy behind his restaurants is the respect for the product and the fishermen that work hard to provide the most sustainable produce to work with. At Fish Butchery they have developed a recipe for nearly every part of the fish, which helps them to cut costs. With this lesson, Josh stresses the importance of educating the new wave of chefs at working without loss and food waste. Moreover, he points out that the life of a chef is filled with ups and downs and resilience is the only way to reach your goals.

This talk is part of the Sydney MAD Monday event on Resilience, July 16 2018. Sydney MAD Mondays is a collaboration between Carriageworks, MAD and Kylie Kwong, and brings together voices from across the Australian food community for talks on the role today’s restaurants play in taking care of the environment.

Jay Fai's Famous Crab Omelet

Fri, 31 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Fai owns Raan Jay Fai, Thailand’s first “Street Food” restaurant to win a Michelin star, and one of only three street food restaurants in the world to garner that honor. Guests flock to Fai's place for congee and crab omelets.

With her signature oversized goggles that protect her from grease, she opened the stage of the sixth MAD Symposium, demonstrating live how to make her famous omelet.

Techniques of the Past for the Future

Wed, 14 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Jacques Pépin is a chef, author, and television host, as well as the dean of the International Culinary Center in New York City. Jacques opened MAD5 with stories from the French kitchens of the 50's, as he demonstrated his own technique by making chicken galantine and teaching the audience to make an omelette.

Vivre la Cuisine

Thu, 21 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Michel Bras is one of the most iconic chefs that have ever lived.

He was born to a blacksmith–father and chef–mother in Gabriac in 1946. He schooled in a nearby town and from an early age started helping his mother tend her pots at the family’s hotel/restaurant, Lou Mazuc. Bras credits his mother with introducing him to the cuisine of Aubrac — the region of his birth and upbringing.

Michel never left the Lou Mazuc kitchen to train elsewhere, he studied culinary literature, philosophy and photography in his spare time and cooked from intuition – as he continues to do today. At thirty-three, he took over the inn from his parents and his innovative cooking led to Lou Mazuc winning two Michelin stars.

He continued here until 1992 when he opened the hotel/restaurant Michel Bras. It is an ultra-modern structure nearly all of glass with slate and granite, which sits on a plateau overlooking the landscape of Aubrac. In 1999, he was awarded three Michelin stars.

Michel has published several books under his name, including the seminal 2002 cookbook Essential Cuisine (which he took all the photos for himself). He also opened an eponymous restaurant in the Windsor Hotel Toya in Hokkaido, Japan in 2002.

How to Clean an Artichoke in 20 Seconds

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Pierre Koffmann left his native Tarbes, France in the 1970s to work with Michel and Albert Roux at London’s Le Gavroche and, later, their Waterside Inn in Bray. In 1977, he opened his first restaurant in London, La Tante Claire, which earned three Michelin stars. Koffman was an early pioneer in celebrating offal, and chefs Gordon Ramsay, Marco Pierre White, and Marcus Wareing all passed through his kitchen.

How to Debone a Pig's Trotter

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

The Perfect Omelette

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Soba Master Tatsuru Rai Demonstrates His Craft

Thu, 27 Nov 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Tatsuru Rai is the owner and chef of Sobatei Rakuichi in Niseko, Hokkaido. He operates the 12-seat restaurant, considered one of the world’s great soba houses, with his wife Midori. He mixes, kneads, and cuts all of the buckwheat to order.

He was the first person to appear on stage at the fourth annual MAD Symposium, in Copenhagen. Instead of giving a speech, Tatsuru demonstrated his craft in complete silence.

Carne e Spirito

Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Descended from a long line of Italian butchers, Dario Cecchini runs a butchery, Antica Macelleria Cecchini, alongside three restaurants all in the small town of Panzano, Chianti. In this presentation from MAD3, Cecchini guts a pig and discusses the importance of craft, of love and of respecting the animals we consume.

Asking the Winds of the Seasons

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Shinichiro Takagi is one of Japan’s leading chefs with strong ties to his home region of Ishikawa. His highly acclaimed kaiseki restaurant is Zeniya, in Kanazawa, where he cooks meals in the traditional kaiseki style. There is no set menu at Zeniya. Shinichiro uses fresh ingredients and local fish in his restaurant. He thinks about the food in 12 seasons throughout the year. In this speech from MAD2, he talks about fierce adherence to seasonality. His interesting thinking certainly brings innovation to the international cuisine scene.