CHICAGO — Deep in the basement of Moto restaurant, owner and executive chef Homaro Cantu is methodically filling medical syringes with 50 cc of chocolate sauce and shooting the mixture into colorful balloons.
Across the way, a sous-chef grabs a plastic foam box filled with liquid nitrogen, the white smoke billowing out. Nearby, another chef carefully feeds sheets of soybean paper into a Canon i560 inkjet printer, printing out pictures of maki rolls.
Cantu's kitchen has more gear and chemicals than some high school science labs because his goal is to create meals that are so cutting edge they challenge the definition of food.
Cantu's sushi platter routinely has no fish -- instead it holds squares of tuna-and-rice-flavored paper. The Caesar salad has no lettuce -- only a single spoonful of romaine-flavored ice cream. The menu sometimes is edible and can be crumbled into a bowl of gazpacho -- turning it into an alphabet soup.
All this is included in one of the nation's most expensive tasting menus: With paired wine, the 20-course meal costs $240 per person.
That's not counting the tip.
At a time when competition for diners is fierce, a small but growing number of chefs are blazing a strange new trail: creating a dining experience that mixes haute cuisine with extreme science.
In part, the trend comes as a result of the industry's hypercompetitive nature: About 75% of restaurants close within a year of their debut, the National Restaurant Assn. says.
Moto doesn't serve traditional meals, where the plate is piled with food. Instead, it offers a series of plates that often hold no more than a mouthful.
Depending on Cantu's whim, the meal could include pork belly with Kentucky-fried ice cream (tiny scoops of cream that have been altered to taste like crispy chicken skin). Dessert may be birthday cake: Cantu takes a sugary liquid that tastes like cake, and, mixing it with sodium alginate and calcium chloride, turns it into a bite-sized ravioli.
"Cooking is all about technology and having fun with your food," said Cantu, 28. "We're here to help gastronomy catch up to the modern age."
Diners say they are fascinated to interact with their food by tearing up the menu and watching the ink blur with the soup. They puzzle over the sushi paper, which dissolves in a gummy and chewy mess that sticks to the back of their teeth.
Few come simply to be fed.
