THE FUTURE FORUM WELCOME EVENT: CHALLENGE YOUR SENSES

8:00pm-10:00pm

After a welcome drink and a flying buffet this evening introduced an exciting world of tastes and scents to guests of the Design Hotels™ Future Forum 2010. Wine, aroma cuisine, chocolate and fragrances: six experts in their specific fields demonstrated how important olfaction (the sense of smell) is in the context of hospitality.

OLFACTION – THE MOST POWERFUL SENSE
Sissel Tolaas, a Norway-born and Berlin-based expert in fragrances and scents, bridges the
gap between art and science. She has built a library of more than 7,800 fragrances, teaches
at Harvard Business School and serves as a consultant to international companies such as Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Estée Lauder and Sony. She opened up the Challenge your Senses event providing a sneak preview into her work and preparing all Future Forum guests for her main lecture on the next day.

AROMA CUISINE – MERGING TASTE AND SMELL
Ottmar Pohl, Executive Chef of the Cosmo Hotel Berlin Mitte, outlined his culinary philosophy and presented his “aroma cuisine” in which he interprets classic dishes using wild herbs and fragrant oils to create new and surprising epicurean experiences. While he prepared
his signature dishes live on stage, Pohl illustrated how different aromas can be combined to create perfectly balanced dishes.

RED AND WHITE – THE SECRET OF WINEMAKING
Irène Tolleret of Domaine Mas d‘Auzières in the Languedoc region (France) and Michael Trenz of Weingut Trenz in the Rheingau region (Germany) explained the all-important role that taste and smell play in winemaking. How do great wines develop their complex character? How are they influenced by various factors – the soil, the climate, the storage? Trenz and Tolleret also delved into the complex relationship between wine and food and spoke about the composition of a perfect wine list.

CHOCOLATE – THE SWEETEST SIN
Hans Decker, Master Chocolatier of Lapp & Fao, and Carl-Lambert Leisewitz, the company’s Managing Director, gave a mouth-watering performance all about chocolate. Lapp & Fao is a Bremen-based producer of fine foods, among them extraordinary chocolate creations. These combine the world’s finest cocoa beans with unusual ingredients such as extra virgin olive oil, morello cherries, chilies, ten year old port, Madras curry or French absinthe. Decker and Leisewitz demonstrated how obviously contrary ingredients like black olives and cocoa can complement and enhance one another to create a memorable culinary experience. Naturally, there were ample opportunities to taste their delicious creations.

10:00pm – 1.00am
Future Forum 2010 - The Party