All about the Grand Gelinaz! Chef Shuffle November 2016
Usually when people book a table at one of the world's top restaurants, they've got fingers and toes crossed that the chef-god responsible for its place in the pantheon of fine dining will actually be in the kitchen. But this Thursday November 10, for a one-night-only global event known as the Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle, punters will have paid more than usual for a seat at the table (between $250 and $350) even though they know full well the superstar chef won't be in attendance.
Why? Because another superstar chef will be.
For diners, it's a culinary lucky dip: they won't know until the food starts coming whether it's being cooked by Rene Redzepi from Noma in Copenhagen; Massimo Bottura, from Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy (recently named top of the World's 50 Best list of restaurants); legendary French chef Alain Ducasse; Slovenian revolutionary Ana Ros, or any other of the 40 chefs taking part.
For the chefs, the Shuffle is like an international key party. They open themselves to a strange city and food culture and an unknown kitchen brigade. In a scant few days, they trawl the markets, cool rooms and restaurants of their adopted home, mesh their sensibilities with those of their absent host and, on Thursday, serve a never-to-be-repeated meal to a sold out dining room.
Four Australian restaurants are taking part in the swap this Thursday November 10th, with all four dinners having sold out long ago.
Attica, Australia's top-ranked restaurant in the World's 50 Best list is one of them. Chef-owner Ben Shewry will be somewhere in the northern hemisphere that night. "I can't say where," Shewry says. "I'm sworn to secrecy." He does tell Good Food that he's left behind a special welcome pack that includes Violet Crumble, Vegemite and Milo.
The other local restaurants are Dan Hunter's Brae in Birregurra, The Age Good Food Guide's Restaurant of the Year, and Momofuku Seiobo, Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year finalist, plus Orana, the indigenous-focused darling of Adelaide. The impresario who has wrangled this quirky event is Andrea Petrini, sometime Italian journalist, chef star-maker and peripatetic professional diner. He cheerfully admits this project is "complicatedly crazy".
By now, most chefs have arrived in their temporary homes and will be out there eating, exploring and experimenting, all while preserving the secrecy of their mission. So, if you see a mysterious, cheffy type wandering the streets of Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide or western Victoria, they just might be part of the Shuffle.
Dani Valent is a freelance journalist and restaurant critic for Fairfax. She is an embedded ambassador for the Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle, spending five days with Attica's guest international chef.
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