The Restaurant Lab

We have collected historical menus photographed at leading restaurants, ranked by La Liste. Each menu is dated, so a dish carries the year it was served as well as the kitchen that served it. Coverage is deepest where menus have been photographed most often, and we are still extending it across regions and back through time.

The synergy scores between ingredients calculate how strong the affinities are between the flavour facets of the ingredients. The affinity scores are a measure of association between flavour facets. We calculate how often flavours appear together in dishes, adjusted by how common each flavour facet is. This indicates the strength of association between the facets. In other words, how much more likely are we to see Flavour Facet 3 among dishes that contain Facet 1 and Facet 2. The more strong flavour affinities that ingredients share, the greater their synergy. These scores are not a definitive answer on whether a combination works, but a simple observation based on the data we observe.

We model the flavour of each ingredient by analysing thousands of sources, including recipe books, tasting notes, restaurant menus, and food & drink reporting. We find patterns in how they describe flavour and map those descriptions against 150 distinct flavour notes, from smoky to floral to citric, building up a detailed picture of how an ingredient actually tastes based on the collective experience of thousands of cooks and writers. The profiles are then refined by our Flavour Society members, who can adjust anything that doesn't ring true to their own palate. Further details about our modelling method can be found at Flavonomics | Methods.