Meet the chef who cooks what other people THROW AWAY

Dan Barber is the chef of the moment who’s getting diners to think hard about what they consider edible. He believes chefs need to be agents for change, as well as arbiters of taste – as Susan Low discovers

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT Dan Barber creates showstopping dishes from trimmings and off-cuts

Long before the term ‘celebrity chef’ passed into common usage, chefs used to be people who cooked stuff in restaurants – just that. Not any more. Now they’re TV stars and cultural commentators, leaders of gastro-fashion and predictors of food trends; iconic figures who have a huge influence on how and what we eat.

They are, literally, arbiters of taste. And, increasingly, chefs are no longer just hanging around at the end of the food chain and serving up the fillet steaks and other prime cuts their customers demand. Instead they’re turning the tables on diners, challenging them to have a good hard think about what they’re eating (and not eating), and why.

Dan Barber is one such chef. He’s based in New York, where he runs two of the US’s most influential restaurants: Blue Hill, in Manhattan, and Blue Hill at Stone Barn in upstate New York – also a working farm and food-education centre. Barber hit the headlines in the UK earlier this year with wastED London, his spectacular pop-up on the rooftop of Selfridges. The menu was nothing if not thought-provoking, with dishes such as ‘waste rarebit’ made with stale bread, cheese trimmings and ‘off-grade’ apple chutney; and ‘spent hen broth’ made from an old boiler chicken and served with ‘ugly tortillas’ (irregular or damaged rejects) and rape greens, a prized food in many parts of the world, but largely ignored here. There were lettuce ‘butts’, fish bones, salmon skins, deep-fried seaweed and cauliflower ‘ribs’ – a smorgasbord of deliciousness made out of the cast-offs from supermarkets, Selfridges itself and a chain of UK suppliers.