It’s a new year and Michael Pollan’s already got a new book of rules that expound on his edict to “eat food” (as opposed to food-like substances). But those unfamiliar and unprounceable ingredients he would have us shy away from? A handful of chefs and bartenders in Honolulu are deliberately mixing tapioca maltodextrin, sodium alginate and xantham gum into their food and drinks, and they’re having a hell of a lot of fun doing it. They’re experimenting with a style most widely known as molecular gastronomy–sometimes also termed “postmodern” or “hypermodern” cuisine–in which they play chemist with a pantry of powders and nifty gadgets to alter the form, textures and flavors of the familiar. Many of their powders originated in the industrialized food world to help create Chicken McNuggets and Cheetos (aka the stuff you’re trying to avoid this new year), but now they’re finding their way to a few of Honolulu’s high-end restaurants by way of temples of hypermodern cuisine like El Bulli in Spain and Alinea in Chicago.

Smoke and mirrors

While some chefs dismiss molecular gastronomy as a passing fad–all smoke and mirrors–for Jon Matsubara, the executive chef at Azure who actually uses smoke for some dishes, “molecular gastronomy [is] a label that’s been sensationalized and overused, but at the same time, I think there’s a lot of things that are ignored about molecular gastronomy…[It’s a] technology that allows us to build on tradition.”

For his Wagyu beef carpaccio dish, Matsubara places a glass dome over a plate and inserts one end of a rubber tube beneath the dome. The other end is attached to a device that essentially acts like a bong–he places wood chips in the bowl, lights it and the smoke is funneled beneath the glass dome. When the carpaccio arrives on the table, servers remove the dome with a swirling action so that the smoke immediately wafts into the guests’ noses.

“I don’t label myself as a molecular gastronomist,” Matsubara says. “But I do have fun creating exciting experiences.” He’ll slip Pop Rocks into an intermezzo–they bounce on the tongue as they pop and crackle, the sound reverberating in the ears. “All these different experiences throughout dinner is what I strive for,” says Matsubara.

He pulls out an Anti-Griddle (probably the only one in the state, Matsubara guesses), which freezes sauces immediately on contact. He creates an after-dinner mint by squeezing a peppermint-flavored chocolate anglaise onto the Anti-Griddle, and three minutes later, has a popsicle reminiscent of an Andes Chocolate Mint.

Liquor molecules

For Christian Self, bar manager or “bar chef” at thirtyninehotel, it’s this experimenting with textures that gets him excited about molecular mixology (the modern techniques as they apply to cocktails). “It’s all about textures and giving people something they don’t usually find,” he says. He’s crafted what he calls an “edible lychee martini” that looks like a whole lychee resting on a scallop shell, topped with a lemon-lavender air. It’s meant to be slurped from the shell, like an oyster, and while the outside is somewhat firm, like a real lychee, as you bite into it, lychee vodka and puree pours out. He makes the faux lychee with a technique called reverse spherification–by mixing calcium chloride with the vodka and lychee puree and then dropping it into a sodium alginate bath, the chemicals interact and “cook” the ingredients to form a membrane. For the bar’s 1920s theme night, fellow bartender Kyle Reutner (who once pursued a graduate degree in chemistry) created the “Saints’ Dance”–in which a “caviar” of St. Germain elderflower liquor was dropped into prosecco; the bubbles sent the caviar dancing in the glass.

Ask Self to make you a molecular-inspired drink on a regular night, and he may pull out foams and airs, techniques that are easier to compose on the fly. He may whip up a pineapple air–fresh pineapple juice combined with soy lecithin, a stabilizer, and then mixed with an immersion blender to create light, frothy bubbles. Or he might make a Thai-style mai tai with candied ginger foam, created by mixing ginger syrup with egg whites and aerating it with nitrous oxide–in other words, squeezing it out of the type of canister most often used for whipped cream, which creates a dense layer of fine bubbles.

Regarding his philosophy on molecular mixology, Self says, “As long as people are trying to make drinks and always pushing the boundaries, molecular gastronomy will always have a place.”

“People don’t order these things”

Nobu pastry chef Rachel Murai is an avid experimenter with molecular gastronomy–she’ll mix tapioca maltodextrin with peanut butter to create a fine peanut powder that melts in the mouth to a smooth creaminess. She’ll use liquid nitrogen to freeze a vodka sorbet (the high alcohol content prevents it from freezing in a normal ice cream machine). Her newest find is gellan, which she’s experimenting with to create a sorbet she can light on fire without causing it to melt too quickly. Despite her let’s-see-what-happens enthusiasm, Murai exercises restraint on the dessert menu; most of her creations don’t make it out of the kitchen. Murai sees molecular gastronomy more as flourishes on a plate–mostly out of personal preference (“I still prefer classic desserts,” she says) and perhaps a little because like Matsubara suggests, “People don’t order these things. Most people don’t understand and don’t order it if it’s too weird.”

Diners bored with the restaurant scene are looking for new experiences, and chefs are looking for a more adventurous audience. Self, who dreams of a molecular gastronomy restaurant opening in Hawaii, says, “I think Hawaii is always behind the times. Of course, there’s a certain kind of stigma to [molecular gastronomy] as well. You have to sell the guests…but you also have to sell it to the proprieter to be able to do it behind the bar. A lot of people say it’s just some kind of trend or fad…they don’t know that it’s actually here to stay.”