Serving up a slice of the future

Peter Thornley, Bracu's chef, and his state-of-the-art steak cooker. Picture / Greg Bowker

I cook with a computer," says leading chef Peter Thornley, opening the door to a state-of-the-art kitchen and a food future to set traditionalists at boiling point. He's only half-joking, but while his tools are high-tech his approach is refreshingly direct.

"There's more stainless steel in there than in five herring-boned milking sheds," he says of his gleaming new purpose-built kitchen at Bracu.

The outlook over 30,000 olive trees in the Bombay Hills is rustic, but the interior is a glimpse into a post-microwave world, where machines can grill steaks to order, chill wine and churn sorbets in minutes.

Home cooks looking for help will be waiting for the technology to downsize and drop in price. Those who make their living cooking a cut above the rest may be rattled, until, like Thornley, they embrace technology as a tool rather than a threat.

"All this is doing is being able to deliver a consistency and give you more time to do other things ... to make a better sauce, for plating up, to perfectly caramelise the onions served on the side."

Along from the rows of gas cookers is a computer where menus and rosters are planned.

While that's not unusual, fibre-optic cables connect the computer to a soon-to-be installed screen where the ideal image of the upcoming meal will be shown near the plating-up area.

But what really catches the eye is Thornley's combination cooking oven, with its 500 sensors. Looking like a giant pie warmer crossed with an automated espresso machine, it has stacks of racks and a bunch of buttons, except these say "grill, medium rare" rather than "froth" or "steam".

Programme the right setting, walk away, wait for the buzzer and out comes a perfectly cooked steak. Gone is the messy rotating of pans, the standing over hot flames and stooping down to warming ovens.

What this guarantees Thornley, and the diner, is, for example, a perfectly cooked steak - every time. And unlike a steak cooked the traditional way, medium-rare means medium-rare all the way through. "What you normally get is well-done beef with a medium-rare chunk in the middle."

The steak moves down the cooking chain from what Thornley affectionately calls "The Beast" to be seared on the stove top and then: "You can cut through the meat with a butter knife."

Thornley can rest secure that each steak is cooked to exact specifications, provided, of course, the right cut and weight is selected in the first place.

"If you're five grams out with the weight it won't be cooked properly."

So output still depends on input, but even then there's a clear bonus - the cooking method reduces the costly shrinkage, where a 220g steak loses 40g on the stove-top to a loss of just 10g. Times that by 500 diners and you're talking hundreds of dollars in savings.

The technology is in use in a few of New Zealand's bigger kitchens, Thornley thinks he pretty much leads the race across the board.

He became interested during his time at Icon at Te Papa, partly to deal with labour costs, but as he swatted up overseas he became a convert to using technology so he could spend less time slaving over the stove. He jokes his traditional ovens are now there just to hold the top up - and for a bit of baking.

"The Beast," he says, "will handle all the things that require complex cooking. Anything you can put in a pan - except pasta - you can cook in this oven."

And it can cook simultaneously in different modes, handling different meats at once, adjusting colouring on each rack. Water quenches odours out of the oven on regular cycles, and it self cleans.

For around $16,000 it's not expensive compared with top-of-the-line cookers. A smaller six-tray version means domestic application will soon be within reach.

"I think it's got a huge appeal to the home user. It's got the security of putting in a piece of meat, broccoli, whatever, and it comes out to specification."

He points, too, to his Paco jet machine, which whizzes up sorbets for 20 in five minutes. This, he says, costs no more than a good home-espresso machine and also allows the easy preparation of sauces and chutneys using the freshest of ingredients.

A blast chiller is another way to capture produce at its best - and get wine to serving temperature between courses - but that needs an industrial-sized kitchen, for now.

Thornley rejects the notion that all this technology will inevitably lead to a lessening of real cooking skills or that the role of chefs will be reduced to plate decorators.

But he says it will be vital for good cooking techniques to remain the bedrock of good cheffing.

"Whatever we do we cannot say this is the only method of cooking."

So chefs don't forget their stock in trade, Thornley wants industry training groups to ensure "culinary history" is on their menu. Once, that might have been called Cooking 101; now that time might need to be spent on understanding that mastering technology is a tool, not the cook's true talent.

With Thornley, the future is already being served. 

In the thick of it
 
Diners at Bracu can book a table for four to six in the middle of Thornley's kitchen. The top chef says there's no set menu and chefs will chat to the customers.

"They can see if Gordon Ramsay is for real."

Sitting next to the plating-up area and near doors opening on to the verandah, they should be well protected from the full heat and any fury, but get a bird's-eye view.

"To eat in the kitchen is to become totally and absolutely involved," says Thornley. "To feel the food, the heat, the environment, the pressure, to see the orders being taken." Sounds like fun.

Ph (09) 236 1030.