Chef-slash-inventor Homaro Cantu's Chicago-based restaurant Moto is revered for food technologies and an extremely rare culinary sleight-of-hand. When we visited the gastro-temple a few days ago to shoot the video above, Cantu revealed his latest invention, "The Matrix," which has nothing to do with edible menus or Class IV lasers. It's a fully-automated, voice-activated software package that manages the cooks and servers during his labor intensive and time-sensitive tasting menu, keeping the frustration level down in the kitchen.
"This little piece of fully-automated software runs Moto restaurant like the man behind the curtain," said Cantu. "And it's just about ready to be distributed to the rest of the world, free of charge."
Cantu first discussed The Matrix a few years back during the early stages of development, but now that a 3,400 page patent document has been secured, he felt it was time to show the restaurant world this game-changing technology.
"The Matrix eliminates the need for shouting in a kitchen. I have a policy about that at Moto," said Cantu. "There's a box upstairs at the serving station outfitted with a camera that recognizes faces, and speaks in different languages for my runners, dishwashers and hostesses, as well."
The system communicates information via colors and visual cues (i.e. a dead fish with a shell logo indicates a seafood allergy for a certain table), and has a descending timer on each table to let the cooks know how much time they have to finish the next plate and send it out.
"It also plays Pandora, runs movies, and every once in a while shows a picture of a shirtless Michael Bolton to keep the mood light in the kitchen," said Cantu.
Once The Matrix is ready to go out into the world, Cantu plans on handing it out as freeware, and supporting it for those standalone restaurants who use it.
"If you're opening one place, you'll get the system free of charge with technical support," said Cantu. "But, if you have multiple outposts, like a Four Seasons, we will charge you a fee, which in turn pays for the little guys. I think it's only fair." [The Feast]
—Video shot and edited by Drake Booth/The Feast.
