Do you live for that morning cup of coffee? Chef Son Jong-won of one-Michelin-starred restaurant L’Amant Secret in Seoul offers diners like yourself an alternative way to enjoy this special beverage: instead of offering it as a drink, Son uses it to cook savory and sweet dishes.
The idea came from Son’s desire to provide coffee lovers with more extensive experiences, just like those he had during his visit to Colombia coffee farms in November last year. He wants coffee drinkers to know more about the environment in which coffee grows well, and about the people who make it possible for city dwellers to casually extract espresso every day at home.
To be able to do that, it takes more than just preparing a cup of coffee, the chef says. He uses coffee beans and ingredients that remind him of the coffee regions around the world to cook a variety of exquisite savory dishes, taking the experience beyond a simple pairing of coffee and food.
The coffee journey he presents for his guests starts in the small rooftop garden he cultivates. The herbs he uses at his restaurant bear all kinds of coffee aromas because they grow in soil mixed with coffee grounds collected from Nespresso coffee capsules. It’s been years since his restaurant, located inside the L’Escape Hotel in central Seoul’s Jung District, first served dishes made with produce from the rooftop garden.
Using herbs naturally infused with coffee aromas is the first tactic the chef uses to help diners envision the landscape of Colombia, where countless coffee trees are planted in neat rows. Displayed around the rooftop garden, Son even has photos taken during his time in the coffee-producing nation.
These scenes of Colombia become even more vivid with the very first bite you take at L’Amant Secret. The dishes include carrots and crab, ingredients that Son believes match particularly with coffee. The carrots — grown in the rooftop garden — are cooked with smoked butter and placed over a tart shell, and a sauce made with Comte cheese, onion, and mustard seeds is poured over the cooked vegetable. On the very top, he sprinkles pieces of carrot leaves and coffee powder.
All the small bites, including the carrot tart, are put in front of a cardboard image of the landscape the chef witnessed in Colombia during his travels. Another reminder that coffee travels a long way to make it convenient for people in cities around the world to simply push a button on their coffee machine to get a shot of espresso every morning. And for at least a couple of seconds, thinking of these scenes from Colombia can help to free you from your ordinary routine while your coffee is being prepared at home, and for another few seconds while you take a sip.
The flavors of shellfish become enhanced when the meat is accompanied by coffee, according to Son. He cooks crab legs on charcoal and then serves root vegetables cooked in espresso prepared with Nespresso Vertuo Master Origin Colombia. The washed arabica used here are harvested from one of the highest mountain ranges of the Andes and then fermented.
In a small pot filled with extracted espresso, the chef puts a whole parsnip and other root vegetables to boil. The acidity and aromas of red coffee berries help bring forth more flavor from the vegetables.
Remnants of the vegetables left after the dish is plated are again mixed with leftover coffee. He puts them into a blender to make a soft puree to plate over the crab meat, alongside a coffee-infused foam made using crab innards.
For the main dish, the chef uses non-caffeinated ingredients only. He cooks chicken, potatoes, and mushrooms, all of which were used to make the lunch he had at the coffee farm in Colombia. He dices pine mushrooms, which are in season in Korea every fall, to make the international dish feel more local and mixes them with a mousse made with chicken thighs. The mix of the two goes in between a chicken breast and the skin and is cooked in the oven. On the side, he serves lasagna with layers stuffed with small pieces of mushroom, potato and chicken thigh. He also puts mushroom foam around it.
With dessert, diners finally get to drink some coffee. First, you get the ball-shaped tiramisu whose surface is sprayed with chocolate and espresso, and then you drink Nespresso Professional Origins Colombia espresso with a piece of chocolate shaped like a pair of lips.
The cup of espresso comes at last to extend the coffee experience. The smell of toasted bread follows with a sweet note, yet by the time the coffee crema touches one’s lips, flavors of red berry with some acidity come up. You will find yourself reaching out for the chocolate to experience both the sweet and sour flavors at once.
Just as Son suggests, try to spare some of your morning coffee to cook food later in the day. Collecting coffee grounds and putting them over a pot of herbs you grow at home can be the start of your own special coffee journey. And then, boil up the espresso extracted from your machine to cook root vegetables and give your typical dining experience a unique twist. Doesn’t that sound like the kind of luxury a coffee lover can incorporate into their meals at home?
