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The UK鈥檚 most exciting chef on reinventing the hospital meal and his Willy Wonka-esque plans for the Cheltenham Science Festival.

How did you get into the science of cooking?

I read food science writer Harold McGee鈥檚 book On Food and Cooking: The science and lore of the kitchen in 1985. At the time I was teaching myself classical French cooking and Harold鈥檚 comment about why browning meat did not seal in the juices made complete sense, even though 鈥渟ealing鈥� was traditional kitchen wisdom. I started to question everything.

What plans do you have for the , aside from ?

I am going to present some exquisite confectionery in my 鈥渟weet shop鈥�. I want festival-goers to have the same experience as visitors to my restaurant, The Fat Duck. Customers leave the restaurant with a sense of fun, I hope, no matter how gastronomic or complex the cooking. With the audience at Cheltenham, the more fun the science is, the more I think they will be interested.

You say you plan to make food in UK hospitals 鈥渕ultisensory鈥�. Tell me more.

I鈥檓 looking at using the multisensory approach to cooking 鈥� how you can use sound, sight, smell, touch and taste to transform mealtimes at a children鈥檚 hospital. The different sensations help trigger emotion and memory. In this case, that means balloons that release the smell of a sweet shop, using orange oil on dry ice, and ice creams made with liquid nitrogen. This approach generated so much excitement among the kids that they started eating food they would not have tried before, revealing how important mealtime rituals are.

What do you consider to be your most important science-based invention?

My first was triple-cooked chips to drive the moisture out so they are golden and crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside. I am currently writing my third co-authored paper, which shows that there is more umami in the heart of a tomato than in any other part. Classical French recipe books tell you to throw away this part when you deseed a tomato.

You would not describe yourself as a practitioner of molecular gastronomy. Why?

Molecular gastronomy used to be about the science of cooking, which is what happens in our kitchen at The Fat Duck. It dealt with questions such as why an egg goes hard when I overcook it or the meat grey. These days the term is associated with modern chefs doing funny things with test tubes. It has started to feel more like food science, which is what you study at university and pursue in industry, dealing with questions like how to incorporate more air into ice cream. Today, the term means something that it was never meant to, and I鈥檓 part of the old school.

What do you think we will eat in 2050 that is different from today?

If the world鈥檚 marine stocks continue to be treated the way they are now, we will be eating jellyfish and chips.