Anne McBride

Food Arts — Enrique Olvera steered the cooking at his Mexico City restaurant Pujol away from a flirtation with the conceits of modernism to a full-on embrace of the exuberance inherent in his nation's foodways (with twists), freeing a growing cadre of compatriots to express their identity. Olvera's next move: New York City.

Food Arts — Traditional Mexican chefs are still held in high esteem and recognized for the quality of their food and depth of their knowledge. But a younger generation has taken hold and received international recognition in the process, transforming Mexico City into a gastronomic destination coming on par with Paris, New York City, or Tokyo.

Food Arts — Over the last 25 years, more and more chefs have added the word owner to their job titles, turning their restaurants into reflections of their aesthetic values. The tableware they selected has followed suit.

Food Arts — Typically, at the culinary conferences that now populate cities around the globe, the world's top chefs share the stage with other experts of similar sophisticated caliber, be they artists or activists. Village cooks seldom feature alongside representatives of the World's 50 Best Restaurants' list, although they are often acknowledged as sources of inspiration. Recent conferences in Peru and Mexico juxtaposed contemporary and traditional dishes for the pleasure of wide audiences.

Food Arts — Chefs are being asked to think about everything from sustainability to how to feed the world. At a recent conference, they were challenged to ponder this question: What if chefs could work with seed breeders from the get-go to influence flavor?

foodarts.com — Guts was the one-word theme of this year's MAD symposium, which took place August 25-26 in Copenhagen. But while actual (pig's) guts were indeed spilled on stage, "guts" referred to courage rather than butchery: Carefully selected by Noma's René Redzepi and co-curators David Chang and the editorial team from Lucky Peach, the 26 presenters of MAD's third edition showed no restraints while sharing life stories, business models, and appeals for chefs to be agents of change in front of 650 chefs, sommeliers, baristas, journalists, academics, and activists from all over the globe.

Food Arts — Katie Button gave up a clear path to the top of one prestigious profession, only to wind up making her name in another-and her family has been with her every step of the way. Anne E. McBride details the chef's carefully curated rise at Cúrate in the mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina.

foodarts.com — The 11th edition of Madrid Fusión, which took place January 21-23, focused less on dazzling with technique and more on expressing sensitivity to one's physical and cultural environment. It can be safely assumed that immersion circulators, rotary evaporators, and other modern technologies are very much part of the everyday repertoire of the chefs featured, and that for most of them, "creativity continues"-this year's theme-beyond technology, especially in times that call for responsible economic and sustainable decision-making.

Food Arts — For chefs around the world, a long walk in the forest is about much more than breathing fresh air; they are there to gather buds, needles, bark, and branches from pine, spruce, and fir trees, which they will then pickle, candy, smoke, or use in infusions.

foodarts.com — For two days this week, the eyes and minds of the food world seemingly turned to Denmark, where culinary royalty René Redzepi and his team organized the second annual MAD Symposium, July 1-2. Introduced by Redzepi as an "annual meeting of mindful chefs," MAD, which means food in Danish, brought together chefs, farmers, scholars, scientists, food producers, and media under a circus tent set by the Copenhagen waterfront. Under the theme "Appetite," the resounding message was to think about, question, and change the order of things, from the relation between tradition and modernity, past and future, nature and culture, down to the order in which a meal's dishes are consumed, with the aim of becoming better chefs and better humans and leaving behind a better earth.