Celebrity Chef Stumps For Tech at Indiana IoT Lab

During a visit Thursday to Fishers, a celebrity chef said the future of cooking involves embracing technology. Robert Irvine delivered a presentation at the Indiana IoT Lab and told Inside INdiana Business Reporter Mary-Rachel Redman high-tech advances and the growing availability of home food delivery will never put bricks-and-mortar restaurants out of business, but will cause changes that restaurateurs must deal with. He said the top chefs in the country are already investing in the non-traditional.

One example is New York Chef Daniel Boulud, who has backed a restaurant in Boston called Spyce, which cooks made-to-order meals with robot technology. Boulud and three other big-name chefs recently pumped $21 million into the enterprise. "Look at the top three chefs in this country right now; the Daniel Boulud’s of the world," he said. "What have they gone and done in the last three weeks? Invested in cookless (technology) — that’s no human beings in the kitchen creating food. It gets cooked by a machine, it comes through a chute, goes in, and you pick it up and walk out with it. They are three, four and five-star Michelin (rated) chefs." He says restaurants will always be here, but it probably won’t always involve "me and you cooking."

Thursday’s event, IoT Lab founder John Wechsler said, is part of a "critical" mission to raise awareness among entrepreneurs that technological advances like Internet of Things are "on the verge" of transforming multiple industries. He says the timing of Irvine’s message is important in Fishers because the visit comes as development continues at The Yard at Fishers District.