3D Printing Enters The Dining Room With These Cool Ceramic Dessert Dishes
There is beautifully-plated food (just check out any of our Plate Deconstruction stories), and then there's food that synthesizes with the plate for an enhanced dining experience. That was the intention behind designer Henry Richmond Young's collaboration with New York City chef Veronica Duboise on his series of 3D-printed ceramic dessert dishes.
Comprising a three-dessert tasting courses, Ad Tempus features specifically-designed dishes and bowls that are as integral to the dish — and a requisite amount of playing with one's food— as the ingredients themselves.
The project is "50-percent food, 50-percent design," says Young, who explained that the basis of his thesis was the growing relationship between food, presentation and dining. Case in point: a deconstructed creme brulee presented on a round platter with protruding arms upholding a sheet of clear vanilla tuille. The diner must crack through the tuille to get to the rest of the dessert.
Not a fan of overwrought smears, sauce dots, and other bits of "frou-frou" that might typically appear on dessert plates, Richmond Young said he chose to focus on the dessert course for that reason — and designing conceptual plateware that actually functions to enhance the performative aspect of eating. Check out all the courses below.
For "Milk/Tea," a performative soup course in which two state changes occur, hot rose milk is poured over a lemon sugar dome, dissolving it and melting the chrysanthemum sorbet (served with pomegranate seeds) below.[/caption]
"Toast," an assembly of pain perdu, maple gelée and grapefruit sorbet is hidden under a sheet of white chocolate, which the diner must break through. [/caption]
For "Crémeux," a quasi-deconstructed crème brûlée, the designer and chef present a shield of clear vanilla sugar tuille, which is meant to be gently hammered into by the diner. Underneath: a pistachio crémeux with chocolate mousse. (Studio photography by Martin Seck; Food photographs by Henry Richmond Young.)[/caption]