Chapter 51
The archmages of the Mage Tower reserved Maison Monbel.
The moment I heard that, I paused.
“The archmages?”
“Yes.”
Uncle Bernard said calmly.
“Three elders of the Mage Tower and two high-ranking mages from the research division. Apparently, it’s a private meal reservation, not an official visit.”
“Well, archmages are people too, so they can come here to eat. Still, this is going to be a hassle.”
In this world, mages were just as troublesome as nobles.
They had money, strong pride, and occasionally wielded the laws of the world however the hell they pleased.
The difference was that nobles sent people when they got angry, while mages could blow something up themselves.
From a chef’s perspective, both were exhausting.
Marie looked at the reservation list and frowned.
“They’re not going to turn me into a rabbit with magic if they don’t like the meal, are they?”
“That would be cute, though.”
“Was I not cute before?”
“You’re occasionally cute.”
Instead of answering, Marie smacked my arm and ran off.
“……?”
We put together a slightly different menu for the Mage Tower guests.
Mages were different from nobles.
Nobles cared about what story they belonged to.
Family, honor, the gaze of high society, who had eaten first.
Mages, on the other hand, were curious about principles.
Why something had a particular aroma, why its texture changed, why something hot felt cold.
So this meal needed a story too, but structure mattered more.
And when it came to mages, I decided to play around with their senses a little.
“Welcome to Maison Monbel.”
“Oh-ho. So this is the famous restaurant.”
The Mage Tower guests really did look like mages.
It sounded like a lazy description, but I had no other way to explain it.
Men in purple and black robes entered and looked around.
Some carried staffs and had waist-length beards they kept neatly groomed.
There was even someone in a pointed hat, and a female mage whose eyes seemed to leak madness as she looked at people behind her glasses like experimental materials.
If they had been ordinary customers, they might have looked a little comical.
But it wasn’t funny when I considered that a single snap of their fingers could extinguish every candle in the room or send a table flying out the window.
I personally escorted them to their seats.
“Today’s course has been arranged a little differently so that the Mage Tower guests can enjoy both the sensory experience and the principles behind it. I’ll come out and add an explanation each time a dish is served.”
An elder mage with a white beard reaching down to his chest nodded.
“It is a good attitude for a chef to consider the guest’s profession when creating a dish.”
“However, I won’t explain too much.”
I added,
“If you learn the principles before tasting, the dish will be less interesting.”
Another mage laughed at that.
“Good. Are you saying you’ll conceal the hypothesis before showing the experimental results to a researcher?”
“It’s not that impressive.”
“An unimpressive chef wouldn’t say that.”
That irked me a little, but it was true.
The first course came in a tiny glass.
It was chilled herb consommé.
Chicken and vegetables, along with mildly aromatic herbs, had been steeped for a long time and strained clear before being chilled again.
At the bottom of the glass, finely chopped shellfish and white fish had been set in a very thin gel. At the end, I added a single drop of a peppery spice and aromatic oil extracted from warmed herbs.
The guests first lifted their glasses and inhaled the aroma.
“Cold.”
“It’s cold, but the aroma is warm. Just smelling it makes it feel hot.”
One mage took a sip and closed his eyes.
“A taste that deceives the tongue and nose simultaneously.”
The mage beside him immediately objected.
“It didn’t deceive them; it changed the priority of the senses. The tongue says it’s cold, but the nose sends a warm aroma first, so the brain becomes confused.”
“How is that different from deception?”
A discussion began with the very first course.
I headed back toward the kitchen, thinking to myself,
‘These are tiring guests.’
Still, it wasn’t bad.
A good guest wasn’t simply someone who said the food was delicious.
They were someone who paid, remembered it, and found a reason to come back.
At least the mages probably wouldn’t forget today’s dishes.
The second course was a chilled appetizer made from white fish I had obtained through Count Rosenhart and cured for only a very short time.
The fish had been sliced thin and layered across the plate, with pear shaved as thin as paper laid on top.
Clear shellfish broth had been set into a transparent gel and scattered between the fish. At the end, I added just a little green herb oil and salted mountain-citrus peel.
From a distance, the plate was almost entirely white and pale green.
But when a fork pierced it, the fish’s springy texture, the pear’s cool sweetness, and the umami of the shellfish broth followed one after another.
The bespectacled female mage ate a piece of fish and said,
“It’s cold and simple at first, but the flavor keeps building as you chew.”
“I didn’t push all the ingredients in at once.”
I explained,
“The fish is sensed first, the pear leaves sweetness afterward, and the shellfish broth rises only at the end.”
She looked down at the plate.
“So you designed the order of the flavors.”
“Putting it that way sounds a little grand.”
“No. Magic is ultimately about order too. It is the act of deciding which power to open first and what to close later.”
It was an impressive remark.
The third course used a root vegetable as its main ingredient.
It was taro imported from the south, an ingredient I had never used in my previous life either, so I had struggled for a while to get a feel for it.
Small pieces of taro were slowly cooked in butter and clear broth, while some were charred only on the surface near charcoal to give them a smoky aroma.
In the center of the plate, I spread aged goat cheese from the west after whipping it into a smooth cream, then layered extremely thin slices of taro over it.
At the end, I drizzled a very thin line of dark sauce made by reducing black garlic and fermented pear.
In a single bite came the earthiness and sweetness of the root vegetable, the cheese’s salty animal notes, and the acidity of the fermented fruit in sequence.
The white-bearded mage ate it and remained silent for a long time.
It was difficult to tell whether that was a good or bad reaction.
Then his body slowly began to rise.
“…What?”
Marie froze while holding a tray.
The mage floated up from his chair and slowly spun once in midair.
The other mages weren’t surprised at all; they simply continued eating their own food.
He spun exactly three times before descending to the floor.
I stared at the sight from the kitchen entrance, dazed.
‘Fuck, this isn’t even a cartoon.’
There had been cartoons like that in my previous life too.
Over-the-top gourmet manga in which clothes ripped, the ocean appeared, the universe opened, ancestors danced, and people flew after eating food.
That kind of over-the-top reaction didn’t normally happen in real life.
No matter how delicious my cooking was, it was only about eleven or twelve times as good as ordinary cooking at most. I couldn’t expect a reaction like that…!
But in another world, an archmage really did somersault through the air.
Marie asked in a very small voice,
“Is that okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Should we stop him?”
“If the guest seems to be enjoying it, let’s wait for now.”
The mage only quietly descended into his chair after finishing his third somersault.
Not a single hair of his beard was out of place.
He set down his fork and said very solemnly,
“Excellent.”
I immediately bowed my head.
“Thank you.”
“The earthiness of the root vegetable creates the ground first, and the aged scent of the cheese moves beneath it like a beast asleep below. Then the fermented pear opens a gap like a spring breeze.”
‘Were the mages in this world humanities types rather than science types?’
He thought for a moment before adding,
“It tastes as though something in the earth has awakened and floated into the air.”
“Is that why you actually floated?”
When I asked without thinking, the elder mage looked at me.
“Yes.”
His answer was so confident that I didn’t ask anything else.
The fish course was much hotter and more elaborate than the previous ones.
The thick white-fleshed fish had been slowly cooked in clarified butter, leaving only the skin crisp.
A sauce made by separately simmering fish bones, shrimp shells, and shellfish broth was smoothly emulsified with cold butter at the last moment. Beside the plate, I placed small pickled vegetables with a touch of acidity and potato purée infused with the aroma of seaweed.
The outside was crisp, but the inside wasn’t dry.
The sauce was rich, but it didn’t overshadow the fish.
As soon as the plate was served, the mages began a discussion again.
“You maintained the moisture on the surface and inside simultaneously.”
“You used different rates of heat transfer.”
“The butter formed a film between the proteins.”
One mage placed a finger on the plate, then caused a small luminous diagram to float in the air.
Thin lines rose like a cross-section of the fish.
It looked as though they were using magic to estimate how the heat on the surface and the moisture inside had moved.
‘So they’re science types, not humanities types? A person talented in both…?’
The mention of magic brought old scenes from my previous life to mind.
Sauces as light as foam, broth that burst like beads, desserts instantly chilled with liquid nitrogen, and aromas trapped inside transparent membranes.
Techniques that had once become insanely popular in the fine-dining industry, yet were treated like a joke in some places.
‘Molecular gastronomy.’
I had used it several times at my restaurant in my previous life, and it had received fairly good reviews.
I had planned to implement it at Maison Monbel as well, but the problem was that this world had none of the equipment needed to recreate it.
But the moment I saw magic, my thoughts changed.
‘I might be able to use that.’
If magic could hold a temperature steady.
If I could turn a liquid into an extremely thin membrane.
If I could trap an aroma and release it in front of a guest.
If I could turn a sauce into tiny beads that would burst only in the mouth-!
It could become a weapon that would take Maison Monbel’s cuisine in a completely different direction.
The meat was tenderloin from a young lamb brought in from the north.
The lamb was seared quickly only on the outside, while the inside was left to rest without becoming too hot.
Beside it was a sauce made by reducing red wine and lamb stock for a long time, along with black winter mushrooms and roasted onions.
On one side of the plate, I placed thin, crispy fried potatoes and strongly aromatic green leaves so they could cut through the meat’s fat and sauce to the very end.
Even the mages who had begun debating from the first course fell silent while eating this time.
The final dessert was the dish I had deliberately prepared in the most dangerous way.
At first glance, it looked like a small, warm loaf.
But when the bread was cut open, cold milk cream flowed out from inside.
The bread had just been baked and was hot, while the cream inside had remained cold.
On top, I added thin pieces of set honey and a little fermented fruit.
It was a dessert inspired by fried ice cream, which I had eaten a few times in my previous life.
The mages stopped simultaneously as they cut into the bread.
“It’s hot, but the inside is cold.”
“Did you use preservation magic?”
“No. For now, it was made entirely with cooking techniques.”
“For now?”
I cleared my throat for no reason.
“Nothing.”
But the bespectacled female mage didn’t miss my expression.
She took a bite of the bread, and her eyes widened slightly when the cold cream and hot bread mixed in her mouth.
“You.”
“Yes?”
“You’re interested in cooking with magic.”
I was silent for a moment.
“I am interested.”
“What kind?”
“I want to handle temperature precisely, trap aromas invisibly, and release them when needed. I’d also like to change the form of liquids more freely.”
The elder mages looked at one another.
This time, the old man who had somersaulted laughed first.
“That sounds fun.”
Another elder said,
“Is the chef trying to use magic like a toy?”
I shook my head.
“No. I want to use it to make flavor more precise.”
“Is there a difference?”
“A big one.”
I answered slowly,
“A trick is over once someone has seen it, but flavor has to make them want to taste it again.”
After I finished speaking, the mages remained silent for a while.
Then the bespectacled female mage slowly folded her napkin.
“Are you asking us to dispatch a mage to Maison Monbel?”
“If that’s possible, I’d be delighted.”
“Hmm. If we do that, what does the Mage Tower gain?”
“Once a month, I’ll reserve a dinner slot solely for the Mage Tower.”
The mages’ eyes lit up.
“Good. We’ll return to the Mage Tower and discuss it. We’ll see whether anyone is available to be dispatched to Maison Monbel.”
The old man who had somersaulted nodded as well.
“I’ve become curious how far you can turn the little tricks you have in mind into flavor.”
That night, even after the mages had left, I remained in the kitchen for a long time.
‘…So I really can do molecular gastronomy.’
I couldn’t hide my excitement.