The rise of humour in creative cuisines

This paper explores the diverse expressions and meanings of humour in contemporary creative cuisine restaurants, challenging the conventional idea that fine dining is incompatible with humour. Before examining culinary creations as potential mediums for humorous expression, the paper first traces the intellectualisation and artification of cuisine (Csergo & Cohen, 2012) and the development of new culinary paradigms (del Moral, 2020), such as “Nouvelle Cuisine” and modernist approaches led by Ferran Adrià. These shifts have redefined the role of chefs and encouraged the intentional use of culinary creations to evoke emotions, tell stories, and employ various tones, including humour. The article analyses forms of culinary humour from playful whimsy to dark sarcasm, through dishes from seven creative restaurants across Spain, Italy, the UK, and Denmark. Using semiotic analysis and observational methods, it demonstrates how humour strategically placed within tasting menus enhances dining experiences, which evolve into intellectually stimulating and memorable dining encounters. Humour emerges as a significant tool for chefs, allowing them to deliver food for thought (Adrià, 2010) thanks to interesting (Ulla, Aduriz, 2012) or even to shocking (Spence & Youssef, 2022) dishes or sequences, thus extending beyond “eatertainment”, and even the confines of the plate (Munk, 2021). This approach redefines the boundaries of fine dining, positioning tonalities in general and humour in particular as essential components of contemporary creative cuisines.