Pierre Gagnaire creates the world's first entirely synthetic dish

Multi-Michelin-starred French chef Pierre Gagnaire is set to put fellow culinary wizards Ferran Adrià and Heston Blumenthal to shame today by unveiling the world's first entirely synthetic dish.

Comprising a starter of apple and lemon flavoured jelly balls, with a creamy texture on the inside and crackling on the outside, Gagnaire has worked for months with food scientist Hervé This to create the recipe from chemical compounds.

Entitled "le note à note", the dish, which will debut at his Michelin-starred restaurant Pierre at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hong Kong today, is a combination of "ascorbic acid, glucose, citric acid and a few grams of 4-O-a-glucopyranosyl-D-sorbitol, a sugar substitute otherwise known as maltitol". 

Hervé This, widely considered the godfather of molecular gastronomy, hailed the dish as a step into the future of haute cuisine.

"Tomorrow's chefs will frown upon plain vegetables, such as carrots and will instead use the molecules which make up carrots - caroteniods, pectins, fructose and glucuronic acid," he told The Times.

So is this the future of fine dining? 

Picture of Pierre Gagnaire supplied by Rex Features.