Find out what happened when ChatGPT cooked dinner for TOM PARKER BOWLES

As a professional chef, I haven’t had much reason to get involved in the big panic about artificial intelligence.

Do I see Wall-E on the grills, flipping prime rib? No. Do I envision a near future where I pass a guinea fowl to an AI-powered robo-chef and receive a flawlessly plucked and gutted carcass back in my department? Negative, chef.

However, I think AI could come up with completely original ideas for dishes, even if they still require a human chef to execute them. After all, what it lacks in flavor it certainly makes up for by putting most of the work of any published chef at your fingertips.

I’m told the way to make the free AI tool ChatGPT work for you is to ask it the right question. Trying to think of something to really impress Tom, I kick things off with this: “Okay, Chief. Give me a custom dish, never made before.’

AI starts off timid and rather sickly: ice cream tacos, popping chocolate cakes. It seems to be targeting the experimental teen market.

I push it. ‘Even stranger! Come on! Think bigger!’ Now things start to get adventurous (although still sugar-based), but the results are often alarming creations of exotic meat infused with candy. An example of this: kangaroo cassoulet with bubble gum bacon. (Read on to find out what Tom thought of that idea.)

I persevere. ChatGPT now seems to have found the formula for merging cuisines and then adding something it knows will be a controversial ingredient – ​​majoring in exotic meats, seafood and confectionery.

At this point in the exercise I feel like I’m dealing with an overcaffeinated Ainsley Harriott: “Behold and enjoy the chai-chocolate scallop serenade!” explains Chef GPT.

‘A creation that promises an elegant dance with an exotic flavor that captivates the senses!’ It all feels less MasterChef, more bush tucker trial.

I realize that what I should do (for the sake of my human brothers and sisters in the kitchen) is to roundly reject Chef GPT’s efforts. “It’s okay, everyone. No danger of AI gaining the upper hand in this sector of the service industry. The uprising is over, we have won. Nothing to see here.’

But part of me wants this bionic new kid to have a chance, so I persevere and ultimately settle on three dishes that – I sincerely hope – will impress my critic with some tweaks and substitutions.

Welcome, Mr. Parker Bowles, to Robo House – the world’s first ever cyber-managed dining club.

The recipes

Wasabi watermelon wonton wonders

AI said Combine diced watermelon and wasabi-infused cream cheese, envelop the mixture in delicate wonton wrappers and fry until lightly golden brown. Serve with a drizzle of honey-soy reduction and garnish with cilantro microgreens. This fusion of heat, sweetness and crunchiness creates a taste sensation that dances on your palate.

said Alasdair I found it was remarkably difficult to get any watermelon flavor while frying with the wasabi cream cheese. Instead, I cooked the fruit in the honey-soy reduction for a subtle but clearer presence among such dominant flavors.

Maple miso mango tango pork belly

AI said Marinate the pork belly in a fusion of maple syrup and miso, slowly roast it to perfection and serve on a bed of coconut-infused quinoa. Top each slice with fresh mango salsa and finish with a ginger-lime reduction. This bold dance of sweet, savory and tropical notes promises a flavorful extravaganza on the palate.

said Alasdair I was confident that this would be tasty if interpreted properly as all the flavors add up. I slowly simmered the belly in miso for ten hours and then dried the skin for extra crispy crackling. I stuffed mango salsa between the belly and skin, almost like a millefeuille, and added maple-glazed rainbow carrots.

Turmeric tango tiramisu

AI said Top the turmeric-spiced ladyfingers with chai-infused mascarpone, creating a vibrant tiramisu. Garnish with a sprinkling of crushed pistachios and drizzle with a chai caramel reduction. This unique blend of Italian and Indian flavors promises a dance of warmth and richness in every heavenly bite.

said Alasdair I was intrigued by this fusion of Italian and Indian and wanted to see the crazy colors clash. So I swapped the instructions on flavors, putting the turmeric in the mascarpone and the chai in the base, while putting the pistachio where chocolate would normally be in the Italian classic.

Tom’s verdict

‘In the realm where gastronomy meets the avant-garde, a new culinary luminary has emerged, inviting us to join an expedition through the uncharted territories of virtual taste.’ Yes I know. It’s hardly Nabokov. And it is certainly not modest either. But that’s what you get when you ask ChatGPT, the infamous “AI language model,” to write an introduction to a piece about a real chef, Alasdair Gill, who asks the same AI program to to create a ‘completely customized menu’ that has never been seen before. Welcome, dear reader, to the culinary metaverse.

So basically, I hear you cry, Gill asks a computer program to search every recipe on the internet, pick a few without proper accreditation, mash them all together and come up with something we actually want to eat?

On the contrary, says my shiny cyber chef friend.

“The artful fusion of cutting-edge technology and Epicurean creativity unfolds in the domain of ChatGPT,” he continues, somewhat hesitantly, “where each recipe is not just a set of instructions, but a culinary opus, a testament to the machine’s ability to bringing influences together into a harmonious gastronomic composition.’

Ah. Right. Because when computers outsmart humans, things always end well. Like Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And the terminator. And Yul Brynner in Westworld and, well, everyone in The Matrix.

But until my MacBook starts deboning quails, slurping the cooking brandy and shouting “Service!” calls, I won’t suffer too many sleepless nights.

Although small bits, I think, can grow into huge bytes.

But Gill, an exceptionally talented young chef who trained at The River Cafe, is the perfect flesh-and-blood Virgil to guide me through this digital, and often completely insane, Divine Comedy.

Gill actually uses ChatGPT himself, not for inspiration, but to create an instant shopping list when entering his own recipes, ‘which is very useful indeed’. However, this is different. “I started asking ChatGPT for totally unique, bespoke recipes,” Gill says with a grin as we sit in his west London kitchen.

“But then I started pushing it.” The result? Enter ‘the cosmic candy carnival cassoulet!’ According to ChatGPT, this recipe features “gum-infused bacon cubes in a slow-cooked cassoulet with exotic meats like kangaroo and alligator, served in a bubble-gum-scented cloud of cotton candy.”

It is, our ever-serious AI writer emphasizes, with unusual understatement, ‘an unconventional dish’ with a ‘carnival of flavors that takes your taste buds on a wild ride’. A wild ride straight to the toilet.

It’s also reminiscent of a few other crackers – ‘coconut curry croissant carnival’ (AI loves an alliteration), where a completely innocent croissant is filled with, yes, you guessed it, Thai red curry paste-infused chocolate ganache. And a “chai chocolate serenade” that involves doing humiliating things to pristine scallops, promising us an “elegant dance of exotic flavors that captivates the senses.” Not so much the wilder coasts of gastronomy as the crashing cliffs of insane culinary clichés.

Fortunately, Gill has mercy. “I didn’t want to put you through too many psychedelic trials,” he says. “So I chose three AI recipes that are a little less crazy.”

Wasabi watermelon wonton wonders

Here, diced watermelon and wasabi-infused cream cheese are wrapped in wonton wrappers and “lightly fried to golden perfection.” It may not be a “taste sensation that dances on your palate” but is actually perfectly respectable, the kind of graceful canape concocted by high-end caterers for fashionable parties where no one actually eats. The wonton shell is crispy and the cool, wasabi-scented filling is much improved by the substitution of goat cheese.

Maple miso mango tango pork belly

The pork is marinated in a ‘fusion of maple syrup and miso’ before being ‘slow roasted to perfection’ and ‘topped off’ with fresh mango salsa. This ‘bold dance of sweet, savory and tropical notes promises a flavorful extravaganza on the palate’. Hmmm.

Not exactly, but once Gill has tinkered and improved it, the dish is perfectly edible. I’ve eaten much worse at restaurants that should know much better.

Turmeric tango tiramisu

This ‘unique blend of Italian and Indian flavors that promises a dance of warmth and richness in every heavenly bite’ sounds like hell. But it’s easily the best of them all. The chai flavor is gentle but noticeable, with the turmeric adding its yellow, quirky warmth to the mascarpone. A topping of ground pistachios provides a welcome crunch. It is also an eye-catcher. Even Gill likes this one: “With a little work, this could be really great.”

And therein lies the catch. AI and ChatGPT can search millions of recipes in moments. But their own creations – a kind of strange, Frankenstein’s monster of a mouthful – lack context, cultural knowledge, nuance, experience and taste.

In short, that all-important human touch. Because it’s not the computer program that makes them fun, it’s the skill of Alasdair Gill. The rise of the machines may be imminent. But for now, we live to cook another day.

Photo editor: Stephanie Belingard.

Care: Nadira V Persaud with Lab Series