The belly of an architect

Classicism, harmony, balance: good food and good buildings have more in common than just a critical vocabulary, as Jay Merrick discovers in a book of memorable meals chosen by leading architects

The terrible thing about most architecture is that its permanence. The good thing about food is that, good or bad, it tends not to hand around; one can choose to remember it, forget it, or despise it with pleasurable vengeance over the long term. But can food and architecture be mentioned in the same breath – even now, in this season of slate skies, topped-out Erotic Gherkins and grandes bouffes involving boot'ful turkeys from Norfolk?

On one level, the answer is, of course, yes. If we eat and drink well, or horribly, convivially or in abject misery, we tend to remember the physical circumstances. I often recall, for example, the dining room and the stony taste of the Chateau de Pez that accompanied my lamb chops at the Hotel Saint-James overlooking the Garonne river at Bouliac; and the bedroom, too – mechanised with quietly whirring electric motors, like something out of the film Fahrenheit 451, and suitable only for leather-clad couples with a preference for silver lipstick and total silence. Only later did I learn that the hotel had been "done over" by the French architect Jean Nouvel.

Equally, I remember a delightful meal in the wood-panelled cocoon of the dining room at Gravetye Manor in Sussex; Angus steak and a stunningly flavoured mousse of sweetbreads, consumed in a building that (through narrowed lids) might pass for a dashed-off chunk of Lutyens architecture. Vile meals, on the other hand, can have a toxic half-life, like strontium 90, despite promising surroundings. Above Big Sur on the Californian coast, in a tourist attraction called Nepenthe, designed by one of Frank Lloyd Wright's students, I survived an irritatingly slap-dash meal washed down by wine from vineyards owned by Francis Ford Coppola. The Chateau Apocalypse Now did not help.

That's all very well. But what about the gravied gubbins, the cushy cuisine? Can they have anything to do with architecture at a fundamental level?

Try this for size: "I have chosen lobster thermidor with mango salsa not only because I adore the taste but also because I see within it forms that inform my buildings. These forms change as you eat and gradually dispose of the pieces of flesh, revealing new cavities and voids." That's Will Alsop, the designer of Peckham Library, and a considerable trencherman, drinker and amateur nicotiana fumigator.

And what about this: "I love everything about white truffles, from the chase involved in buying them to shaving them so fine over delicate dishes like omelettes or white risotto. It is normally associated with savoury dishes, but turned into an ice cream, it makes the perfect antidote to a gamey meat course like faraona or bistecca alla fiorentina... in the south Tuscan village of San Giovanni d'Asso, every November, the truffle catchers pile their bounty into pyramids, any one of which would be enough to put all the inhabitants of a small city into a swooning state of erotic bliss for a week."

So says Nigel Coates, architect of the Geffrye Museum and the architectural agent provocateur at London's Royal College of Art. He and Alsop are two among more than 20 architects and designers in an amusing literary melange, Food by Design, newly published by Booth-Clibborn Editions. There is even – and if you're a foodie, start bowing now – an hors d'oeuvre of an essay, titled "Deconstruction in Cooking", by Ferran Adria, the coolest chef on earth.

Adria, whose Spanish restaurant, El Bulli, is regularly reported to serve food beyond the dreams of even the most dictatorial of Michelin judges, makes a resonant point. During the decade that he learned to cook seriously, he says he explored three methods of preparation: adaptation, association and inspiration.

It's a progression that he shares with the best architects. He respects "the known harmonies of taste"; but he "transforms the textures, forms and temperature of the ingredients" to put something quite new on the plate. Change the nouns, and he could be talking modern architecture.

The Catalonian chef even offers examples of "classical" versus "deconstructed" food. Fried eggs, chips and bacon: classical; souffle potatoes, egg-yolk sauce, cinnamon, pork juices with honey and crunchy bacon: deconstructed.

Compared to Adria's axioms, it seems that some architects and designers lack any will to be fulsomely sensual where food is concerned, and the contrasts between their work and the chosen dishes that apparently trigger outbreaks of serious knife and forkery are rather unexpected.

Philippe Starck requires only three very hard-boiled eggs, cut in half; two of them to be spread with the gloopy flesh of a sea urchin, two smeared with black caviar, and two dusted with white truffle shavings. Zut-boff. One somehow expects more from him, although obviously nothing involving a lemon, bearing in mind his beautifully unfunctional juicer – the thing that resembles an anorexic silver spider on tip-toe. Surely the man who claims he can design whole hotel makeovers in a day has enough time to eat at length.

Richard Seymour, of the design firm Seymour Powell, plays the gustatory game with a little more wit. His chosen platter is something called Thunder Road, which turns out to be baked bananas injected (yes, injected) with Galliano and vodka, and termed "an original road recipe".

He singles out this recipe because, he says, "it fits our design philosophy – prepared with minimum fuss for maximum result, it uses only waste energy to cook and it's very emotionally satisfying. Secondly, it enhances an already enjoyable experience; and thirdly, it's a dangerous sport just eating it!"

The super-minimalist architect John Pawson is averse to danger in his architecture, and this aversion to risk applies to the munchies. He eats effacingly. Roasted sea bass with lemon and thyme are the adequate sufficiencies of choice because he eats "very little meat, preferring the cleanness and lightness of fish." And for dessert? Alas, there's no hint given – but might four white sugar cubes, arranged symmetrically on a small, perfectly square slab of delicately smoking dry-ice induce an orgasmic groan?

The book that induces this seasonal piece is charming, but fails to maximise the fun and games to be had in counterpoising architecture and nosh. For example: what well-known buildings might be considered to be indigestible? Sample answer: the Great Court of the British Museum, though not its glass roof. And which British architect's design rationales most resemble deceitful, over-blown, foully mould-encrusted crème brûlées? Let's not go there.

'Food by Design', conceived by Jump and Antonio Gardoni, is published by Booth-Clibborn Editions (£24.95)