"Wowzers London you have got a tough act to follow. 22 servings. What brilliant, enthusiastic crowds at @NoRules tonight, thank you."

Chef Ben Spalding tweeted his impression after our four-hour dinner in London where a group of 13 people gathered to see him created and prepared the entire servings for us with no menu.

No Rules, says Chef Spalding, is the future of food, taking things pretty much as far as you can go as a chef/craftsmen/entertainer.

The chef asked each of us to bring our favorite ingredient and our least favorite ingredient. He guaranteed to serve both ingredients that all the guests bring during some point in the meal.

We arrived on time at 7.30 PM at Allpress Espresso in Shoreditch, East London with dinner guests hailed from many countries including Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the two of us from Indonesia.

It was amazing to see what guests had with them. One person’s delight maybe another person’s disgust. The ingredients presented to Chef Ben Spalding varied from pineapple, celery, zucchini, raspberry and blue cheese, to coconut milk, century eggs, sautéed sliced shallot and chili with shrimp paste.

There was no plan on what ingredients to combine for what dish. In addition to our items, Ben and his team brought with them 300 random ingredients such as toasted seeds, ketchup, a lemon, lavender, and 1⁄2 bottle of sake to create what he called a larder.

The drink list was just a piece of white paper with what are available and the price, written in blue ink.

In his twitter handle, Chef Spalding writes that he is a serious chef aiming sky high. His cooking aims to be delicious, playful, fearless and questions everything.

This young chef, a couple years shy of 30, surprisingly already has 11 years experience working in Michelin starred restaurants over 5 countries. He trained with the best in, among others: Restaurant 28+ in Gothenburg, Bagatelle in Oslo, Per Se in New York, and Vue de Mondein in Melbourne. In the UK he has worked at top dining establishments including L’enclume, Roganic, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and The Fat Duck.

As promised by Ben, we were seated on tables very close to him. We watched him prepared all the dishes, took pictures, and asked all kinds of questions. One of us even teased him that he experimented with the dishes that we all had to pay. To which Ben nodded, smiled and shared his interactions with many guests.

Dish after dish came with stories behind the ingredients including those from the guests. As there was no menu involved we did not know what the name of each dish was, so we just wrote down the ingredients as Ben revealed.

Naturally since we had good company with lots of conversations about food we missed writing down some of the ingredients in the servings. Here are some that we jotted down.

*Sourdough bread with 40% fat butter from Ben’s friend in Gothenburg

*Peanuts with bonfire salt

*Spring onion with mayonnaise and sesame seeds

*Cheese, choco and watermelon molasses

*Jamblang, a Mongolian berry

*Raspberry juice

*Glass noodles with 20 condiments

*Century egg with greens

*Raspberry, cauliflower (roasted for two hours), peanut butter and sour cream

*Crab, leaves, lemon, and  butter

*Banana and halibut on a stick

*Mashed potato and sauteed shallot

*Celery salad, sunflower seeds, and oil

*Meat like mushroom soup

*Boiled pineapple and blue cheese on a stick

*Chocolate moose with toasted oats

*Cookie dough milk and vanilla

Some dishes tasted strange, most were delightful with only enough portions for us to wish for more.

Ben included all the ingredients that we like the most and the least, just enough for a tinge of flavor of each. Surprisingly our chili shrimp paste that he put in the glass noodle did not taste very strong.

Eating with No Rules was a rare experience, earning knowledge that could be applied in our day-to-day cooking. We, for sure, never thought of combining mashed potato with the savory fried shallot. A combination of banana and halibut is unusual but chewy, crunchy and appetizing.

It was almost midnight when we finished the last serving and went out in cold weather to seek a taxi home. Satisfied and in our heart agreeing with what Chef Ben Spalding said about No Rules:

“It is the ultimate eating experience with complete honesty and trust from the guest to me and me to the guest, which I believe will break new ground in eating food.”

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Text: Amanda Niode

Images: Omar Niode Foundation