“I enjoy artistic plating,” Bradley tells us, “and creating forward-thinking presentations. This could include ones that are interactive with guests or more conceptual. I like to think of the dishes on my menu as edible mosaics, as edible pieces of art.”
With each and every item on his menus, he shares that his job is to make the food taste good – which makes perfect sense. “Then,” he adds, “the fun part is to make is also look good.”
We talked about the ways in which creative plating is similar – and not similar – to writing a piece of poetry. In each instance, he says, “you’re trying to get a message across. But, with plating and food presentation, everything needs to also taste great. So, with poetry, you can put ink on paper. With food presentation, you’re in effect creating your own ink out of, say, vegetables so the final product also has the taste you want.”
Besides sharing their own techniques and insights, panelists will offer tangible suggestions on how to improve upon plating techniques – and also demonstrate their most successful and beautiful methods.
He received training in Denver, Italy and Chicago. While in Chicago, he worked at the world-renowned restaurant Alinea before opening L2o under Chef Laurent Gras. Both restaurants went on to receive three Michelin Stars. While still in Chicago, he opened EPIC, which was named as one of John Mariani’s Best New Restaurants of 2010.
Moving on to Miami, he worked at the famed restaurant Azul, which was awarded 5 Stars from Forbes Travel Guide in 2013. He then became the executive chef at St. Regis Bal Harbour under Jean George Vongerichten at J&G Grill, where he and his team were given 4 stars from the Miami Herald. In the summer of 2015, he opened Alter, where he offers progressive American cuisine. You can find plenty more information about him here.
Bradley shared with us how he appreciates the long relationship he has had with both Farmer Lee Jones and the executive chef of the Culinary Vegetable Institute, Jamie Simpson. “I truly respect everything they’re doing to connect farmers to chefs and elevating what farmers do so that chefs can elevate what they do.”
This will be his first visit to a Roots culinary conference and he says that he’s “really excited about connecting with other chefs and about the idea sharing that will take place. There are so many ways to look at food, so it will be great to get inspired by other people’s interests and knowledge, and collaborate with them so that we can all expand and continue to excel.”
You can register for the event online and benefit from hearing ingenious new plating ideas. We’d love to have you as part of this discussion!