The Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle comes back with a second global top chefs swap

Thursday 10^th November will see the return of the international “restaurant swap” The Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle Two⁽²⁾. This global collaboration involves 40 of the world’s most pioneering and cutting-edge chefs, cooking simultaneously across continents and time zones in a one-off worldwide restaurant shuffle.

Following the success of the inaugural Shuffle in 2015 – an unprecedented feat which saw 37 chefs from across the globe swap restaurants, homes and personal lives for four days – The Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle Two⁽²⁾ will emulate last year’s formula, but with a greater number of participating chefs. From Brazil to Russia, Australia to Japan, the offbeat project proposes to push culinary boundaries, sharpen the chefs’ creativity and broaden cultural horizons.

This year, a total of 40 chefs from 17 countries and 5 continents will pack up their knives and leave their native kitchens for an unchartered restaurant, the territory of a fellow participating chef. Picked at random by ballot, each chef will discover his or her new restaurant location several weeks prior to the Shuffle itself… but they will keep their allotted restaurant a secret.

On arrival at their destinations, the chefs will embrace the lives of the “absent hosts”, including staying in their homes and integrating with their family, dogs and friends. At the restaurant, the chefs must work with their surrogate kitchen teams to create an eight-course menu inspired by the culinary delights and culture of their new found cities, ready to be served to guests on 10^th November.

The public can therefore buy tickets for a specific restaurant, but will be kept in the dark about the resident guest chef, only to be revealed when the guests will have actually taken their seats for the evening.

Curated by Andrea Petrini and Alexandra Swenden, The Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle Two⁽²⁾ is the latest in a series of projects devised by the maverick pair. Their ideas and collaborations have simply turned the world’s culinary expectations upside down.

Gelinaz! is a collective made by chefs for chefs, never repeating itself with no competition in mind and was, at core, solely created to give something back to an ever-evolving industry, adapting to unpredictable situations and charting new territory. Petrini & Swenden are, in essence, “agit-pop” curators of a culinary hub that brings together artists, musicians, scientists, thinkers and producers with chefs and are renowned for constantly pushing the boundaries of their projects.

Petrini said: “The Shuffle is getting bigger as we incorporate more of the world’s most extraordinary culinary talent into the Gelinaz! collective, and with that every project we do is more innovative and diverse than the last. The element of surprise and endless outcomes of where each chef ends up is truly exhilarating.”

Swenden said: “In last year’s swap we saw René Redzepi take residence at Nahm in Bangkok, Mauro Colagreco make a trip to Hisa Franko in Slovenia and Claude Bosi cross the pond for a stint at San Francisco’s Atelier Crenn. Each and every exchange was completely wonderful, both for the dishes created and the social connections that are born from this existential, cross-cultural experiment. We can’t wait to find out what Shuffle Two will bring out.”

The chefs participating in 2016’s Shuffle Two are: Alex Atala, Inaki Aizpitarte, Massimiliano Alajmo, José Avillez, Massimo Bottura, Danny Bowien, Sean Brock, Manu Buffara, Daniel Burns, Riccardo Camanini, Paul Carmichael, Dominique Crenn, Sven Elverfeld, Anand Gaggan, Adeline Grattard, Sean Gray, Rudolfo Guzman, Zaiyu Hasegawa, Dan Hunter, Mikael Jonsson, Christopher Kostow, Virgilio Martinez, Carlo Mirarchi, Vladimir Mukhin, Yoshihiro Narisawa, Matt Orlando, Christian Puglisi, Dave Pynt, René Redzepi, Niko Romito, Ana Ros, Alexandre Silva, Ben Shewry, Bo Songivsava, David Thompson, Lee Tiernan, Simone Tondo, Mitsuharu Tsumura, Blaine Wetzel, Jock Zonfrillo

By pulling the chefs away from the comfort of their native kitchens and cultures for a few intense and adrenaline-fuelled few days, this year’s Shuffle, once again, is set to spawn an unprecedented spectrum of creations from some of the most legendary names of our gastronomic world. The Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle Two⁽²⁾ is a celebration of the very core of the hospitality industry: sharing knowledge, exposing oneself to new ingredients and learning new practice – creativity without fear.

The editorial unit