Chef Transforms Big Mac Ingredients Into High Cuisine

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There’s something fundamentally twisted—but definitely inevitable—about the idea of turning a Big Mac into high-end cuisine. If we’ve said goodbye to the Paris Hilton era of up-producing burgers by handing them to bikini-clad models, we’ve said hello to the slightly more respectable age of fast food foodie-fication. And so: Chef Jaimie van Heije rose to the challenge of serving refined fare using all the ingredients of McDonald’s famed sandwich but one.

Success? Of course, if the footage is to be believed. It’s hard to say exactly what the man made out of Big Mac parts (a steak tartare was incorporated to keep things classy), but he fell wisely back on the first rule of fine dining: make it look like only a rube would refuse to take a bite. One of his fellow chefs called it “very pretty”—more than you can say, alas, about what’s usually inside when you open up the box at the drive-through.

If it all sounds weirdly familiar, you’re right, we’ve been here before. In fact, McDonald’s itself once feted top chefs in New York City with the opportunity to incorporate stuff like its chicken nuggets and hash browns into (mostly) beauteous plate candy. No word on whether the Big Mac Macaron received bonus points or minus points.