The Old Street Cinema is one of the dishes Chris has put on the menu himself, a sweet and savoury combo inspired by his memories of going to the cinema. The flavours and textures of cinema snacks are bumped up considerably on the dish, which combines a caramel cremeux, candied popcorn, cola Jelly, mixed nut crumble and vanilla ice cream. For Chris, the dessert had to spend a bit of time in ‘development hell’ before it found its way to the Old Street plates.
The Cinema dish was something I’ve been working on for a very long time, possibly two and a half years. I always had the idea. I want to induce memories in my food. Obviously taste is very
important, but I want that other element, of surprise and shock. I want people leaving going “that was really, really good, that was really cool.” I think that’s what we got with the Cinema, I think people are very shocked by what they get, because it’s just ‘Old Street Cinema’ on the menu. When I was in Amuse two and a half years ago, I pitched the idea to the Head Chef and he said “there’s no way I’m putting Coca Cola on the menu”. I went to The Greenhouse, which was Michelin Star, they had a very different style to me, very clean, 1-2-3 get this on the plate and everything perfect. Which is a perfect style, just not my style.
But then when I started writing out pastry for here the Cinema came back up. I asked people and thought back about my memories of going to the cinema. Going to the cinema was very important to me as a child, me and my mam used to go every Saturday and probably one of my earliest memories is going to the cinema. I wanted to bring back memories of being a child in the cinema, so that’s where the dish started. The cola I thought was a very important thing, I think that’s cool that people enjoy that, the caramel, the nuts, the sweet element, then the popcorn element.
Much like a trip to the movies these days, going to a fancy restaurant means loosening the purse strings a little. You want it to be worth it, and Chris feels the same way about his food.
“For me the cinema-going experience is more of an event. You watch a film at home more to relax, if you go to the cinema now with your girlfriend or whatever it’s the part of a night out, you might have dinner beforehand, go to the cinema, you might go out for a few drinks afterwards, so it ties into an event experience. I think when people go to the cinema, confectionary is crazily over-priced but you have no problem paying for it just because you want that experience. It is an experience going into the cinema, big dark room, lot of people there together, and you experience the film with all the people there. I think of it as an experience and that’s what Old Street Cinema is.”
The visuals are the main attraction of going to the cinema but it’s the little details, the smells, the dark lights, the sticky floors, popcorn all over the floor, that make going to the cinema stick out in people’s minds. Inversely, in dining taste is the most important thing but the visuals are vital as well. The plating of the Old Street Cinema really helps it pop, the perfectly quenelle of the ice cream, the way the colours pair together. It’s a feast for the eyes even before you taste it.
“The visuals are a very important thing for me I’m not gonna lie. Obviously the taste is first, but I have a very particular style, I think my brain works a little differently to other people and I can see this as I’m making them in the sense that on paper, I can see how to work things. Coming out for dinner at a restaurant is an expensive thing, and I think to nbe thinking “I had a great time, the food was amazing but secondly I had a great time and the whole experience was great.” I think that shock factor that wows people and makes people laugh in a sense is a very big influence in terms of how I plate things, it is very important to me. The girls downstairs working in the pastry section know everything has to be perfect, down to the small things. People are paying good money, working hard and spending their money on our experience, so it’s our job to give that to them. For me everything has to be perfect ; look perfect, taste perfect. There’s no too small of a mistake, if there’s a hole in the ice cream, it’s not right, and the customer deserves better, that’s my point of view.”
Actual food critics can describe the taste of the Cinema better than I can, with TheTaste.ie praising how “nostalgia, superb presentation and luscious flavours made this the best dessert of 2017 for us so far” and the Irish Independent lamenting that “The snacks must have been a lot better where (Chris) grew up than they ever were at the Forum in Dún Laoghaire..” It’s delicious and different, and a great example of cinema inspiring art in a very different media. Nostalgia may be a key element of the Old Street Cinema, but Chris is still looking ahead, and it isn’t just in his dessert that he’s bringing that experience into the future.
“It is still that event. My nephews love going to the cinema…I find joy going to the cinema with them, it’s a fun experience for me, brings me back to my childhood. I don’t think it’s changed, I think we’ve changed, we’ve grown older and our perceptions may have changed, because it’s our money we’re spending I suppose!”
CinÉireann / December 2017 61