This story begins and ends with the restaurant dish shown above, called “Chef’s Kiss.”
Look at it again – this is a REAL dish served at a restaurant:
This was served at Bros restaurant in Lecce, Italy. A mold of the Chef’s mouth, filled with foam, and you are asked to slurp it out of his lips.
Yes, you are.
So begins the wacky tale of a dining disaster gone viral!
Rand Fishkin, left, dined at Bros’, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Lecce, Italy. His wife, Geraldine DeRuiter, wrote a review panning the experience as a “4-hour hunger induced fever dream” for her travel blog the Everywhereist. This is Geraldine DeRuiter’s photo, used in a Washington Post story that tells the story of her blog post and the viral reaction that resulted.
This story has been everywhere – a group of 8 foodies who are served 27 courses over 4+ hours. The most bizarre, uncomfortable meal ever eaten. That’s the “Chef’s Kiss” on the left, and another dish on the right – the review notes that the portions were microscopically small.
As The Washington Post reports:
“But perhaps the most bizarre moment of the “4-hour hunger induced fever dream” came when servers brought out a course called “chef’s kiss” — citrus foam, served in a plaster cast that had been molded in the shape of the chefs’ mouths. On DeRuiter’s cast, some of the foam had escaped the parted lips and dribbled down.”
By the way, on the left is a “main course” of crab, what their review describes as a teaspoon of crab.
But, back to the lips:
“We were told that we needed to kiss the mouth of the ramekin in order to slurp out the foam,” she told The Post. She added: “At that point, I was like, ‘Okay … this is a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode. I feel like I’m in a parody of what modernist cuisine is.”
The price for this dining disaster?
The check for the party of eight, which included alcohol, came to about 1,350 euros, or roughly $1,522.
Oh, and as for that “foam in the Chef’s mouth” dish:
Meet The Chefs!
The Washington Post story has the Chef’s reaction to the review – and his wacky lips dish:
Pellegrino addressed “Limoniamo,” the plaster mold that, during DeRuiter’s meal, held the citrus foam. The mold actually comes in the shape of either Pellegrino’s mouth or the mouth of fellow chef Isabella Potì, and you could actually buy one to take home with you for 58 euros – roughly $66.
As the Chef told The Washington Post:
“We thank Mrs. XXX — I don’t remember her name — for making us get to where we had not yet arrived. We are out of stock of ‘Limoniamo’, thank you very much.”
Here is the original review, worth every word to read:
To read the entire Washington Post story, you can see it here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/12/13/morning-mix-bad-michelin-restaurant-review/
I’m all for wacky food – after all, I’ve shared these dishes with you:
It’s almost impossible to turn away – it really is “food art as train wreck”. Remember the restaurant that serves food looking like poo?
See more here:
Yes, food can be designed to look like anything!
I will never watch the film “Alien” the same way again!
Beautiful Food Art!
And if you are a bit stunned by this bizarre food art, don’t fear: even a burger can be upended for fun:
Yes, it’s an inside out upside down chicken sandwich and you can see the recipe here:
I also have eaten “food as art”:
This is a salad we had at The French Laundry, one of the world’s most acclaimed restaurants – click on this story and see the majesty of The French Laundry and their incredible food:
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Leave me a comment and let me know if you’d slurp this “Chef’s Kiss!”
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Categories: Bite Eat Swallow, Bite! Eat! Repeat!, Books / Media, Eat This!, Fine Dining, Food, Food Pictures, Food Porn, Food Writing, Restaurants, Wacky Food, World's Wildest Food
Bite! Eat! Repeat! 
Hi John, the foam doesn’t look very appealing to me. I wonder what it is? If it was something very nice, I suppose I might be tempted to suck it out. That aliens cake is something else.
chef’s kiss doesn’t appeal to me at all, but most of the others, I’m on board with