Newsmaker: For Chicago chef, it's prepare, print, serve

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We're going to have to get more innovative with the way we approach cooking altogether. The raw materials horizons, CO2 emissions--these are the things we need to factor into a daily basis in the kitchen. Otherwise we're going to be headed for a serious problem.

The statistic right now in the state of Illinois: four out of five nights, people go out for dinner. So energy conservation in the home is great, but this is more important at this point.

Why do you do what you do?
Cantu: If you consider how much we're growing as a population, there will be 10 billion people in 10 years. Just a scant 10,000 years ago, we were a 2,000-person tribe in Africa. Materials are being extracted at an alarming rate.

We need to think of food in different ways. We need food that can sustain organic agriculture and growth. The entire human race needs to become more aware of technology and how we can utilize it, and that'll never happen as long as we have the Third World. We need everybody on the same page, and the most immediate crisis is food.

Let's talk about edible advertising. I'm going to be launching that and the coolest thing about it is, it's probably more local and organic than 99 percent of the products that you buy in the store. It just looks a little different.

Why would I do all this? I realized early on from growing up in a very poor family that the most important thing you need is food. What we do has massive impact. I don't create technologies just to create novel technologies. I create because I see a need or gap that needs to be filled at the social or retail level.

Most restaurants are highly inefficient and use too much energy. We do consume less energy. The laser is a great example. When you turn on a gas burner, you're creating oxygen displacement, and what you're creating in the pan is sometimes carbon emissions. Lasers let you focus energy through cooking at a pinpoint with little or no loss of energy into thin air. It's highly unusual, but the beauty of it is you're not actually touching the food. You're creating a thermal optical transfer system that can be as hot as 2,800 degrees or as low as 1 degree. It's about control, eliminating human error.

The most fascinating part is we can take food to this level but we can still follow the rules of fine dining with local ingredients, all that good stuff.

When did you start thinking about sustainability?
Cantu: I'm from Portland, Ore.--the land of the hippie--and I was a hippie for a while. I always had a passion for the environment, but I believe our shortcomings are technological issues, not moral issues. I believe the geeks will inherit the earth.

How much of the food here is organic?
Cantu: About 80 percent. Organic, this is a loose term with food companies nowadays. They really need to get it together. Organic and local is very important.

Let's talk about edible advertising. I'm going to be launching that and the coolest thing about it is, it's probably more local and organic than 99 percent of the products that you buy in the store. It just looks a little different. The visual aspects are computer-generated. But the products that we use in it come out of the ground. It's coming from a farmer. We're just physically changing it, not chemically changing it. You get into dangerous side effects with health when you start chemically changing things.

So edible ads will be a printed substance you can eat, like a wafer?
Cantu: Yeah. You open up a magazine, there's a small plastic thing in there, and you rip it open. It looks like a cheeseburger, tastes like a cheeseburger, it's made from all organic ingredients. In some cases it doesn't contain the ingredients that we would associate with that picture. But the key thing you've got to remember with edible ads is it's got to be an allergen-free substrate. If it's not, then you go do a peanut ad, and there's real peanuts in there, then somebody's going to die.

Edible ads will fund the nutraceutical applications, which is where we take actual nutritional value, caloric value, amino acids and vitamins and all that good stuff. You put it on and now you have a piece of paper that has some sort of text on it...and you can eat it and digest it much quicker than sending someone a peanut butter bar in a starving country where people don't know what peanut butter bars are. They may not eat it or it may upset their digestive tract.

Take it a step further. You have nutraceutical, which we've done, pharmaceutical, which we've done, and then dental. And you can consume all three in one shot. It's kind of cool.

So then you can clean your teeth?
Cantu: Put a little fluoride in there, and that's sort of where we want to take it.

More Newsmakers

[dargon19888]

Expensive but worth it...

Wild timing. We just ate at Moto this week.

It was an incredibly interesting and fun time.
If you're a vegetarian, you can call ahead and they'll accomodate you.

If you're a foodie and are expecting more traditional fare, this may not be your cup of tea.
If you're a techie,and if you're reading this then you must be, then you'll find it interesting.

Also plan on dinner taking a while.
Think of this of edible art.

[migswell]

would I want to go to BK afterwards?

I hate going to an expensive restaurant and walking out hungry. This seems like a great food gag for wealthy Chicagoans. Eating my menu does not sound like a pleasant experience. Anyone else recommend this place?

[dargon19888]

Well thats one way to never eat at BK again.

We did the 10 course meal.

Was it a lot of food? No. The proportions were enough to get a good chance to enjoy the flavor and texture of the food.

But after 10 courses, you should be ok.

If you want more, there's a 20 course meal, but plan on taking 4 hours to eat.

If you add the selection of wines, you should be full.
(But then again, I don't know how much you eat at a meal.)

If you were to go to BK afterwards, you'll realize just how bland and awful their burgers taste.

With respect to the menu, my guess is that he's using organic inks on rice paper. By itself, not that tasty. But he attaches it to a flatbread that is very tasty. Is it a gimic? sure.

As a restaurant, I would say its a place that you would want to go for only the really *special* occasions.

I recommend the restaurant for what it is. Food as art or entertainment.