Creativity

The Intentional Restaurant

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:14:11 GMT

How do you create a workplace you actually want to be in?

It's the question Erin Wade asked when she founded Homeroom, a mac and cheese restaurant in Oakland, California. Her answer is "collective success," where every decision is made with the team, customers, and community in mind.

At Homeroom, that means weekly meetings where everyone, from dishwashers to servers, digs into the financials and pitches ideas on how to improve. And the results speak for themselves: Homeroom has some of the highest revenue per square foot in the industry, retention rates 10x the national average, and a safety system now used by restaurants and bars worldwide.

The Vegetable Orchestra

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 08:36:58 GMT

Carrot and parsnip flutes, watermelon bongos, a pumpkin string bass and cabbages—of the heavy metal variety—filled the tent when Vienna's Vegetable Orchestra proved that fresh produce makes beautiful music.

Sometimes you should play with your food.

The Future Library

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 13:12:42 GMT

In 2014, artist Katie Paterson planted 1,000 spruce trees in Norway's Nordmarka forest and asked the world a simple question: what if we created something meant to outlast us all?

Future Library is a century-spanning artwork where each year until 2114, a celebrated writer contributes a manuscript that won't be read until the trees become the paper.

Katie Paterson and Anne Beate Hovind share the logistics behind this temporal experiment: negotiating Oslo's first 100-year municipal contract, managing the anxiety of protecting trees across decades, and creating annual forest rituals built on mutual trust.

What Happens When We Don't Kick The Ladder Away

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 08:09:18 GMT

Asma Khan entered the restaurant world at 45. Then she became the first British chef on Chef's Table.

At MAD7, she shared how her London restaurant, Darjeeling Express, came to life. She made the bold decision to open a restaurant staffed by grandmothers and mothers—home cooks who had never worked in professional kitchens, armed with "terrible knife skills but huge hearts." 

Chefs constantly credit their mothers and grandmothers as their biggest culinary influences. But these women are rarely part of the restaurant team. Asma built her kitchen differently, bringing softness to an industry obsessed with toughness. She’s proven that kindness is a form of strength. 

Matty Matheson & Courtney Storer in conversation with Lisa Donovan

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 13:25:10 GMT

Matty Matheson and Courtney Storer have been close friends for years, but their connection deepened at MAD six years ago.

Today, the supremely dynamic duo works together on The Bear. Courtney serves as culinary producer on the iconic series. Matty works as consultant, producer, actor, and the chef who brings lionhearted authenticity to every kitchen scene. At MAD7 with Lisa Donovan, they unpack how the show uses intense, theatrical reality to examine human connection.

Their conversation is expansive. They dig into working with actual family while creating chosen family. The vulnerability required in both acting and cooking. How food becomes a character itself—carrying both nostalgia and trauma.

How to Fall in Love with a Delicious Future

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 07:00:00 GMT

Climate activist and imagination catalyst Rob Hopkins walked on stage in a spacesuit and asked us to time travel. Not to escape, but to dream.

He wanted us to imagine a distant utopia instead of another dystopian warning. Together, we pictured a 2030 within reach: greener cities, bicycle rush hours, shared meals, restored soil, more joy.

His new book, How to Fall in Love with the Future, argues that hope works better than despair. The future doesn't arrive fully formed. We build it, story by story, meal by meal.

How to Lead in a No-Ego Kitchen

Sat, 14 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Chef Alanna Sapwell has journeyed through kitchens around the world, experiencing different leadership styles in each. Now as head chef, it’s her turn to set a new standard.

At ARC Dining, she and her team have established a series of tenets for running their restaurant that include: make thoughtful, delicious and confident food; provide an environment that creates a better-rounded chef; foster focused creativity; no ego; and, always make staff meal a highlight. In a no-ego kitchen, natural leaders emerge, creativity thrives, and no one is above washing the dishes.

This talk is part of the Sydney MAD Monday event on Leadership, 4 November 2019. Sydney MAD Mondays is a collaboration between Carriageworks, MAD, and Kylie Kwong that brings together voices from across the Australian food community for talks on what leadership looks like in our changing world. MAD Mondays are open to the public and held throughout the year and around the globe.

On Food, Authenticity, and Culture

Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Romy Gill is the self-taught chef and owner of Romy’s Kitchen, a Punjabi/Bengali Indian restaurant in Bristol where she combines ingredients and techniques from her Indian heritage with those of her home country, the United Kingdom. Gill has been awarded with the title Member of the Most Excellent Order by the British Queen for her outstanding service to British and Indian food.

Side by side on stage with the MAD Dispatches Editor, Chris Ying, Romy introduces us to her story. Romy and Chris break down what authenticity means, and discuss what it means to take a cultural artifact out of its original locality, or in other words: the significance of exploring Indian cuisine in a British context.

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.

Working With the Family

Wed, 04 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Head chef Téllez and Magaña, chef de cuisine, from restaurant Laja in Ensenada, Mexico. Situated in the beautiful Valle de Guadalupe in Baja California, Laja is a remarkable destination restaurant which pays homage to the surrounding countryside. Laja's home is a stone barn-like building, which was constructed from scratch by Télles and a team of craftsmen (many of whom went on to work in the restaurant itself). It is surrounded by its own orchard, fields, and vineyard, whose harvests are supplemented by local organic farmers and fishermen.

Make Food Not War

Thu, 21 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Kamal Mouzawak created the first farmers’ market in Beirut, Souk el-Tayeb, which preserves food traditions and the culture of sustainable agriculture in Lebanon. Kamal is working to protect the interests of local small farmers and producers in Lebanon, enabling them to sell their products directly at the market, thus ensuring a fair price for their goods.

Today, Souk el-Tayeb has grown to include regional festivals, school programmes, a newsletter, Dekenet Souk el Tayeb and a coop kitchen/restaurant where a different cook/producer prepares the daily lunch. Kamal has been recognised as an Ashoka Arab World Fellow for his work

A Very Delicious Sheep Brain

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 00:00:00 GMT

“We just had to make it work,” says chef Sam Nutter of the first days of Bror, which he and Victor Wagman opened on a shoestring budget in Copenhagen about two years ago. That meant calling in friends for help in the kitchen, borrowing chairs and tables to fill the dining room, and trying to work with ingredients like penis, testicles, and whole heads.

The duo focused on the latter part of this process at the recent MAD Monday, “Trash or Treasure.” “When you are working in a busy kitchen, it’s hard to see the full extent of the waste,” says Nutter. “You see the trimmings and things like that, but what about the pieces that didn’t ever come through the restaurant’s door?”

The Role of Cooking in the Future of Food

Thu, 14 May 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Mark Emil Hermansen speaks at The World Bank about the role of cooking in the future of food.

Fäviken: How We Do Things

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Magnus Nilsson is the chef of Fäviken Magasinet in northern Sweden and one of the world’s most exciting young chefs.

Raised not far from the restaurant, the young Magnus loved marine biology and cooking. Eventually choosing to pursue the latter, he attended a local cooking school before joining Pontus in the Greenhouse as a pastry chef. At twenty however, he left Sweden for France and an internship at the then-new l’Astrance. After this, he spent a short time at l’Arpege before returning to Sweden. By Christmas 2003, he was in Paris again and back at l’Astrance, where he went on to spend three years.

Once back in Stockholm, he had begun to lose interest in cooking and enrolled in an oenology course. In 2006, Magnus actually arrived at Fäviken, aged twenty-four, not having cooked in two years and intending to be the restaurant’s sommelier.

When the incumbent chef left in 2008, Magnus was left the sole employee and therefore decided to run both kitchen and front of house. He hasn’t looked back since.

Natural & Cultural Ecosystems

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Andoni Aduriz was born in Donostia and began his career in the kitchen of a pizzeria, where he worked during school holidays and at weekends.

After completing his studies at San Sebastian School of Cuisine, he went on to learn under many of the local chefs including Ramón Roteta, Hilario Arbelaitz, Jean Louis Neichel, Juan Mari Arzak, Fermín Arrambide and Pedro Subijana before spending the 1993-4 season at elBulli under Ferran Adriá. In 1996, he became head chef under Martín Berasategui at his eponymous restaurant back in San Sebastian.

Two years later, in 1998, he opened his own restaurant, Mugaritz, atop a hillside thirty minutes from the city, in the Basque countryside.

In 2002, Andoni was awarded the National Prize for Gastronomy and the Spanish guide lo Mejor de la Gastronomía named him both ‘Chef of the Year’ and ‘Patissier of the year.’ Since 2005 the Michelin guide have awarded him a two stars and he ranked 2nd best restaurant in the world in the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best list in 2011.

The Flavours of Plants

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Harold McGee is a world-renowned authority on the chemistry of foods and cooking. He has written two seminal books on kitchen science: On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen and the Curious Cook.

He currently writes a regular column for the New York Times, which examines – and often debunks – conventional kitchen wisdom. He also teaches at The French Culinary Institute in New York City.

Before becoming a writer, Harold was a literature and writing instructor at Yale University.

Food Microbiology: An Overlooked Frontier

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

David Chang is chef/owner of the Momofuku restaurant group, which includes Momofuku Noodle Bar, Momofuku Ssäm Bar, Má Pêche, Milk Bar, Momofuku Ko all in NYC and Momofuku Seiōbo in Sydney, Australia. Since 2009, Ko has held two Michelin stars.

After graduating from Trinity College, where he majored in religious studies, David pursued a variety of jobs, including teaching English in Japan, bussing tables and finance positions. He worked at Mercer Kitchen then at Tom Colicchio's Craft for two years before returning to Japan and a small soba shop, followed by a restaurant in Tokyo's Park Hyatt. Once back in America, he joined Café Boulud.

In 2004, he opened his first Momofuku restaurant, Noodle Bar, in the East Village and Momofuku has been growing ever since.

A Short History of the Beet

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Daniel Patterson is an American chef, restaurateur and food writer; he is also considered a leading proponent of California cuisine.

A self-taught chef, hee began working as a restaurant dishwasher at age fourteen and attended Duke University before dropping out. In 1989 he moved to Sonoma, California with his then-partner, with whom he opened Babette's, a French-inspired restaurant in 1994. It closed in 1999 when the lease expired. The pair then launched Elisabeth Daniel together in 2000, before he moved to become head chef at Frission.

In 2006, Daniel opened Coi and went on to win two Michelin stars two years later. Two more critically-acclaimed restaurants have followed, across the Bay: Plum and Haven.

Daniel is also an avid writer about food, contributing to New York Times Magazine, Food & Wine Magazine and San Francisco Magazine.

Beautiful People Eat Ugly Fruit

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

The Portuguese Isabel Soares is co-founder of the cooperative Fruta Feia (“Ugly Fruit”), which fights food waste by selling fruits and vegetables whose appearance does not meet the EU’s standards for distribution. Since fall 2013, Fruta Feia has sold over 20 tons of “unwanted” fruit to its members.

At MAD 4 she explains the importance of fighting food waste, go against the standards of food-beauty and eat ugly fruit.

Conviviality for One

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Julian Baggini is a UK-based writer and philosopher. He is the Founding Editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine and has contributed to several publications, including the Guardian. His most recent book is The Virtues of the Table: How to Eat and Think.

Benchmarks Not the BMW

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

In his presentation from MAD4, California Cuisine pioneer Jeremiah Tower walks the audience through his career, which includes running the kitchen at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse and, of course, serving as the chef of the glitzy and influential Stars. Tower was among the first modern-day celebrity chefs.

A Diner's Confession on The Flavor of Fantasy

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Anya von Bremzen grew up in the former USSR black-marketeering American chewing gum and dreaming of Cuban bananas. Now she writes about global restaurants as a contributing editor at Travel+Leisure magazine. She is also a regular contributor to Food & Wine and Saveur, recipient of three James Beard Foundation awards, and author of five acclaimed cookbooks including The New Spanish Table. Her latest book Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing is being translated into 15 languages. Anya lives in New York and Istanbul.

How Food and Design Interact

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Paola Antonelli is the Senior Curator of Architecture & Design at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, where she is also Director of Research and Development. She is interested in how design interacts with and influences all aspects of life.

Be Afraid

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Albert Adrià spent 23 years at elBulli, working pastry and overseeing innovation at the restaurant’s test kitchen. He left elBulli in 2008 and now has a growing stable of acclaimed restaurants in Barcelona, including Tickets and Pakta.

Loco'l: Fast Food Made With Ideology

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Daniel Patterson and Roy Choi are chefs based on the west coast of the United States. After meeting at MAD in 2013, they decided to join forces and start a chain of inexpensive restaurants to combat the fast food chains that dominate low-income areas.

The Perennial Plate

Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

This couple makes up ‘Perennial Plate’ – a 2013 James Beard Award-winning online, weekly documentary video series devoted to socially responsible and adventurous eating around the world. Daniel has spent time at some of the world’s best restaurants (St John, Mugaritz, Fat Duck included), Daniel went on to study at NYU before beginning a career in film. Mirra comes from a background in marketing and graphic design – she is also a vegetarian.

Move Your Guts or Be Gutted

Tue, 15 Oct 2013 00:00:00 GMT

In this video from MAD3, chef Christian Puglisi shares the full story of opening the Michelin-starred Relae on a drug-infested street in Copenhagen and explains what it means to create a restaurant that cuts everything down to its essence.

Feeding Hunger: The Promise of Street Food

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00:00 GMT

L.A.'s Roy Choi, known to most as the man who set in motion the food truck movement with his Kogi BBQ truck, explained at MAD3 that one of his principal motivations for the project was to bring food to areas with more liquor shops than grocery stores.

Delineating the Edible and Inedible

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Nordic Food Lab was a non-profit, self-governed gastronomic research institution, established in 2008 by the head chef of Noma, René Redzepi, and gastronomic entrepreneur Claus Meyer. Its purpose was to explore the building blocks of Nordic cuisine through traditional and modern gastronomies, and to share these results with chefs, academics, industry, and the public. From a houseboat in Copenhagen harbour, a group of professionals investigates old and new raw materials and techniques, developing knowledge and ideas for the Nordic region and the world.

After four years of joint operation of the Nordic Food Lab (NFL), the NFL’s Board of Directors will transfer the entire NFL to the Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH FOOD). The self-governing NFL will close down, while its activities will continue as part of the Future Consumer Lab.

From Nothing 'Till Something

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Leif Sørensen is a Faroese cook at Koks restaurant. At MAD2, Leif combines his knowledge of international cuisine and has also been inspired by New Nordic Cuisine in his work. Leif uses raw materials originating on land, at sea, and in the air and his cooking is an emotional experience. He is also like to share his knowledge on the origin of the particular dish and its traditional ingredients. He is able to transform local raw materials into tasty and delicious dishes. Leif puts the Faroe Islands firmly on the culinary map of the world. Leif is convinced that the food the guests eat should reflect simplicity, freshness, and pureness of the Faroese nature.

Appetite? ... Ah. Hmm. Yes.

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

At MAD 2, Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver engage in a conversation about appetite. Henderson is an English chef. Fergus has founded St John restaurant on St John Street in London that was awarded a Michelin star in 2009. Most of his dishes are derived from traditional British cuisine. Fergus is often noted for his use of offal and other neglected cuts of meat which is because of his philosophy of nose to tail eating. Gulliver is a restaurateur and Fergus´s business partner. Trevor created Wine Wharf and the Brew Wharf microbrewery and restaurant in Borough Market and built the Putney Bridge among other bars and restaurants. Trevor is a true lover of French wines and is often asked to judge food and wine around the world.

Do I Have an Appetite for Creativity?

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

In 1983, a 22-year-old Ferran Adrià took over the kitchen of the traditional French restaurant elBulli on the Spanish Costa Brava. In the ensuing three decades, the chef would transform the space into one of the most trailblazing and influential culinary destinations in the world, propelled by a philosophy that emphasised endless creativity, investigation and an open diffusion of the restaurant’s innovations.

elBulli retained three Michelin stars from 1997 until it closed in 2011. Together with Spanish telecom company Telefónica, Adrià turned the space into a foundation for culinary research without the constraints of a restaurant’s day-to-day operations. This venture, elBulli Foundation, opened in 2013 and more projects came along after that.

We Are Here Because We Have Appetite

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Tor Nørretranders is a Danish author of non-fiction and popular science. His books and lectures have primarily been focused on science and its role in society, often with his own advice about how society should integrate new findings in science. Tor has published twenty books and been translated into ten languages. His best-known books are on consciousness (the User Illusion, 1999) and creativity (the Generous Man, 2005), but he has dealt with many other issues such as network technology, the environment, quantum mechanics, joy and children’s questions about the world. Tor holds an M.Sc. in environmental planning from Roskilde University and is honorary professor in the Department of Management, Politics, and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School.

Cultural Consciousness

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The ebullient Massimo Bottura is the chef behind Osteria Francescana, a three-star-Michelin restaurant in the Medieval city of Modena, Italy. Bottura opened Francescana in 1995. Here the chef celebrates local producers and cooking traditions from a 'critical and not nostalgic point of view.' With dishes like a bollito misto in which the meat is not boiled or a preparation that showcases five textures and temperatures of Parmigiano Reggiano, Bottura encourages change and abstraction while working with the materia prima of his surroundings.

An avid collector of contemporary art and vinyl records, Bottura attempts to incorporate these passions into the Francescana experience.

The Audacity of Hope... and Szechuan Peppercorn

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Mission Chinese Food is a co-project of a restaurateur, chef and food consultant Anthony Myint and chef Danny Bowien. The project has humble origins springing from trucks and fleeting pop-ups and traces its beginning in a different project called Mission Street Food. Mission Street Food was replaced by Mission Chinese Food in 2010 and became one of San Francisco’s top 100 restaurants. Anthony collaborates with chef Danny Bowien, who was named a 2011 rising star chef by San Francisco Chronicle. Head chef Danny Bowien serves some of the most interesting food of Szechuan and Chinese-American classics to Cantonese, Taiwanese and Xi´an tastes. In 2012, Anthony and Danny opened a second location of Mission Chinese Food in New York, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In 2013, Bon Appetit Magazine named Mission Chinese Food the ninth-most important restaurant in the United States. Anthony also opened a charitable fine-dining establishment called Commonwealth Restaurant in 2010. Danny was awarded the prestigious “Rising Star Chef” by the James Beard Foundation in May 2013.