Chef’s Table at Spice Fusion, Ombersely.

#Ad Fusion cuisine has acquired an unfortunate reputation because we’ve spent the last thirty years confusing curiosity with vandalism. Somewhere along the line, chefs began treating cuisines like children let loose in a dressing-up box: kimchi with everything; yuzu where lemon had done perfectly well for centuries. The result was less cultural exchange than culinary speed dating. But proper fusion isn’t a gimmick. It’s what happens when traditions travel, settle down and quietly borrow from one another. Every great food culture has done it. Tomatoes wandered into Italy from the Americas, in the 16th century chillies transformed the cooking of India and Thailand, and the British managed to convince an entire nation that chicken tikka masala deserved its own national identity. Food has never respected borders; only menus have. The best fusion cooking feels oddly inevitable. You taste it and wonder why nobody thought of it sooner. It isn’t about surprising the diner so much as…