“Is it possible that you just need to slow down? Have more time off?” It took me a good few years of therapy to understand why I was so enamored with the thought of moving to the countryside. I dreamt of that life so well connected to nature and disconnected from everything. else. The therapist had listened to my visions and business plans, nodding thoughtfully through all of it. She was never impressed, much to my disappointment. I had, and still have, a knack for persuading everyone around me to join my vision and share my dreams. But I guess her emotional detachment was exactly what I was paying her for.

In 2016, I established the Farm of Ideas to supply my small group of restaurants with fresh vegetables, and since then, both raw milk, eggs, and a steady supply of ideas feasible in theory and impossible in practice. I was obsessed with reconfiguring what it meant to be a chef. I wanted to get out of the kitchen and swap the Birkies to Blunnies so I could tread around muddy fields with my desire to reconnect the land and the kitchen. Agriculture and gastronomy. Why I wanted to do so, I am still not sure, maybe future therapy will get me there. I believe the small amount of hands-on farming I witnessed in my Sicilian childhood gifted me with a special connection with the land, and more so, with the people of the land. I never moved out of the city: a failed relationship oddly saved me from taking the personal leap, so instead of moving out with a family, I became single and kept the pastoral vision strictly business. Lucky for me, less for my business partners at the time. A curious, energetic, and experimental chef can cause as much havoc as innovation, and it might be in the interest of the shareholders to limit his scope to at most a couple of kitchens and restaurants.

But my vision was about much more than me (future therapy might disagree). It was about the cultural role of gastronomy and what a chef’s responsibility was, or at least COULD be. My venture was 50 min. outside of Copenhagen, and as the culinary scene of the city was coming to a boil, I believed the culinary magic could spill out into nearby supporting communities. I was dreaming of my restaurants becoming the engine that could shift the gears of the surrounding landscape. Increase agricultural ambition and provide greater diversity and higher-quality produce. All to satisfy the clientele screaming for more and more “New Nordic”. COVID successfully reigned this chef back into his couple of kitchens and restaurants, and my large-scale dreams and visions of gastronomic “change” were reasonably filed under “Not a Priority.”

I have had the pleasure of living out many of my dreams, though, and I struggle to name emotions that can rival the feeling of accomplishing what you set out to do. More so when the vision had seemed impossible, and my peers more than skeptical.
As I am returning from a trip to Norway I have just experienced a different sense of accomplishment. A feeling of accomplishment and genuine appreciation for the success of others that I never had access to, when I was myself in the “game”. The cheffy “game” of opening restaurants, “projects”, and the race towards new ideas. The doubling down on everything from aging your meat longer than your competition, to coming up with something to ferment that no one had ever thought of, or forcefully attempting a new way to cut mackerel. The dedication towards novelty is driven by vision, yes, but sure as hell by ego as well. I wanted to be first with my ideas, so anyone who seemed to be catching up or ahead of me would be a target for my envy, packaged in admiration and respect.

Today, I feel a sense of freedom in appreciating the great work of others. Even when they seemingly have realized the dreams that I once had, and in all honesty, gave up on. Halvar Ellingsen has achieved exactly that with Kvitnes Gard. I was convinced that farm life was the missing alma mater of my cooking, but my attempts to bring kitchen and farming together were always limited by my hesitancy to unplug from the city. My restaurants did well, too well to relocate, and maybe my therapist was right, I did need something else, and it took me years to realize that living a slower life was not achieved by more restaurants in the countryside, but perhaps by less.

Walking around the farm with Halvar, not the pretty, manicured veggie patch that insinuates more than it provides, a real farm, I was not jealous. I was truly impressed. Halvar, like me, prefers trying what seems impossible to sticking to what seems to work. As we enter the root cellar after the stable housing rare breed Norwegian cows, the sty with wooly pigs frolicking in the mud, observing the goat kids playing freely, and the experimental green house with tiny plants still very far from being planted out in late april, it is obvious that he likes his plate full and that he rarely stands down from the opportunity to try something new (on the day we first arrived, so did 3 tiny running ducks he picked up from a nearby farm.)

His cooking is delicious and as casual and rurally relaxed as he is. He sees the farm’s limitations as his greatest advantage and wears the failures of the farming experiments with great pride. “We only harvested 6 precocious corn last year, enough for half a service, but you know we grilled the plants and made a great dashi,” he said laughingly. The farm is his playground, and, just as I had been dreaming of, the process involving the chefs is redirected to the source. The chefs seeking to work for him can find themselves deboning the goats they helped chase earlier that season, and remembering to weed between the turnips becomes part of their daily Mise En Place. In return, the celeriac is barely manipulated once the chefs have midwifed it into this pastoral wonderland. That was the exact recalibration I was dreaming of: the chefs craft tilting more towards the source of the product and stewardship and less towards unnecessary decoration and manipulation of nature’s bounty.

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I believe the Copenhagen scene, and perhaps all of the Scandi capitals, are over-saturated with restaurants and increasingly bored with a New Nordic, local first, kind of approach to cooking (see my YouTube video discussing it to hear more), but on this trip, I have caught myself dismissing the value of this type of gastronomy a little too soon. Halvar Ellingsen had invited me to this year’s Mat og Prat event, where locals and professionals discuss culinary culture. Amongst the speakers were a chef from Oslo producing ferments from scraps, the director of a Cod Museum, and a couple with a similar vision to Kvitnes in Mo i Rana, Til Elise.

Both Kvitnes Gard and Til Elise, both situated in very remote areas of Northern Norway, are examples of how the culinary anchor created by a restaurant can also become the cultural gathering point for a small community. Both restaurants are creating a type of tourism unheard of in the area just 5 to 10 years ago, and the positive effects are obvious and tangible. So are the workplaces they create and the local pride they foment. I have a hard time imagining how local talent could return home and create a business with that kind of impact that would not be exactly that: a restaurant.

When Halvar slips off the muddy Blunnies (the restaurant has a strict shoes-off policy) to enter his dining room and chat up the full restaurant, he is truly living my dream. He is actively leveraging gastronomy to create workplaces in a dwindling and remote society. As much as I appreciate his work, I understand how much work all of this is. Putting yourself at the very center of such an enterprise is risky, because if you start losing your breath, your momentum, and your energy, the consequences will spread fast.

My project never had the local impact it could have; maybe my dreams of a slow life couldn’t change the fact that I am a true city boy. Maybe my therapist was right, and maybe no restaurants is exactly what I need.

I am an immigrant son of a waiter and a social worker. I grew up in Denmark, which offered me a simple childhood with nothing ever missing. Our small family did well, but it was always clear why: My parents worked hard and toiled for our financial security, and they did so without ever uttering a single complaint. It was a classic working-class background, and no one judged me when I chose a pursuit in cooking and hospitality. I did so after I dropped out of high school for an interim year of doodling around and eventually getting a job as a bellboy in a hotel. On a slow winter day, I was observing a young and pimpled chef apprentice slicing button mushrooms fast enough for me to make that my future path in life.

My mother is Norwegian and a very typical Social Democrat. What else could you expect from a female Scandinavian working with disabled citizens?? My parents were not in any way political, but I was brought up on classical socialist values, with equal parts sympathy for the struggles of the working class and skepticism towards the wealthy capitalist class. Briefly before my culinary adventures, I was really getting into politics, the way you do it when you are 16: Listening to Bob Marley in a Che Guevara t-shirt, I felt I had it pretty much sorted out. The world was unfair, and equipped with Mao’s little red booklet, I convinced my parents to sign me up for a socialist boarding school as a gap year before my brief stint in high school.

As I became a chef and, soon, a business owner at age 27, my egalitarian and progressive values increasingly focused on climate issues and sustainability, and I went from red to green-ish around 2010 or so. My first restaurants, Relæ and Manfreds, were (in my mind at least) restaurants for the people. Relæ was an attempt at making high-end gastronomy accessible for all classes with a 4-course menu priced at 325 kr (50$), and Manfreds was a vegetable-based neighborhood restaurant. Those restaurants were smashing successes, and I credit the hard work and toil my team, my partners, and I put into it for hours on end. The restaurants embraced everyone but shunned the bourgeois idea of the traditional fine dining restaurant and all of its decorum and stuffiness. I was a man of the people, and so were my restaurants.

In 2013, Relæ became the first Michelin-starred restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star AND be certified organic, and my business approach became increasingly idealistic and, to some extent, even political. I eyed a culinary revolution where restaurants, chefs (and me)could champion organic producers and create actual sustainable change for the climate, agriculture, and what the hell, even broader society. The revolution was no longer attended to by wearing a red Che Guevara t-shirt, but in chef whites and Blundstone boots, and Utopia was to be achieved by chefs stepping out onto the fields with their farming comrades and making the world a better place. A red banner with a chef’s knife and a sickle was not far from representative of my sense of a cause. I felt like an activist, and I acted like it: Self-absorbed and better than everyone else. Had you not understood how important it was to choose organic chickens and buy local vegetables from local farmers? You just did not get it.

I was radical, and my timing was perfect because I was in a world that had historically been very conservative and, with the advent of a younger generation of diners, was about to be disrupted. Natural wines in tiny glasses poured with remarkable laissez-faire by bearded waiters, and tattooed chefs serving small dishes marked an incredible shift in values from white tablecloth luxury to loud music and discomfort. From cooking for the elite to cooking for the people.

But I had also become a businessman, and while my roots had allowed me to place a foot in the camp of the supposedly oppressed, my career had, over time, relocated me to the camp of the supposed oppressors. I had gotten that far, fueled by the immigrant mentality towards work. Work hard and do not complain. I was lucky, I have no doubt about it, you can work hard and never be successful. My parents made the best possible call to bring us to Denmark of all places and I owe them eternal gratitude. They are a living example, as every other immigrant is, that even if society might be broken, oppressive, and unfair, you can break your mold and move to better pastures. It has instilled in me a set of values that today clash with what I feel has become the progressive narrative.

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The conversation sparked by the Noma Scandal has brought a renewed critique of the restaurant industry and its intrinsic issues, and structural problems. All of which is useful so long as we aim to improve the conditions of our peers. The main issue I have with the debate is how preoccupied it is with pushing people into a box of oppressor or oppressed by removing both from their agency, free will, intentions, and humanity. I see many reasons why a young generation is angry with a system that seems to break down before our eyes. Keeping those in power accountable is as relevant as ever. But using the same axis of oppressed/oppressor locked into a power structure that is necessarily malevolent to explain every single issue will never offer any solutions. It just creates more tribalism and mistrust.

Given my own history and the opportunities that both my parents, the restaurant industry, and the fair, but capitalist, society I live in have offered me, I can feel caught in the line of fire between two standpoints I feel capable of representing. I have strong feelings about global justice, and I have strong feelings about personal responsibility. I am very interested in critiquing “the system,” and I am the greatest supporter of those willing to pursue entrepreneurial ventures in a system that might very well be corrupt and stacked against the individual. I believe in offering equal opportunity to anyone, regardless of skin color, gender, sexuality, or religious belief, and I have the greatest respect for those who have seized the opportunity they have been offered and run with it. The politicizing of these issues, the “you must take a stand” rhetoric, and the public judgment of people not based on what they are actually saying, but on what their position in the power matrix might be, is flattening the discussion into binaries. It becomes us vs them. I don’t feel like them or us, and in return, I have gotten a sense of political homelessness that I cannot seem to make sense of. Am I still a progressive? Or did the progressive movement move on? Did I simply grow?

This piece is based on thoughts I expressed in this video:

related writings

It has been a good 5 years since I cooked the type of dishes that this guest-chef invitation required of me, and I was admittedly both excited and nervous to step back into a kitchen of the highest caliber.

Esse restaurant is Matt Orlando’s new restaurant. If you remember what Amass was all about, you know very well what Esse has to offer. An uncompromising dedication to sustainability and excellence brought together by inventive uses of waste products, offcuts, and the like.

When Matt asked me if I wanted to return from my retirement and do an event together, my answer could only be: “For you, anything.” That was obviously a stretch, but you get the point. Matt Orlando is one of the most dedicated human beings I have ever crossed paths with, and his enthusiasm and excitement for our craft deserve all the respect he enjoys from his peers. Including mine. But besides wanting to show my respect, he is also a guaranteed good hang, and when the lineup included Jonathan Tam, Claus Henriksen, and Milton Abel, there was no doubt.

Besides the good times, I also had my purely selfish reasons to chip in; I had started to feel the itch. Since closing Relæ in 2020, which I did for several reasons, but very much because I had grown tired of the pressure the kind of inventive cooking implies, my “creative” cooking had been limited to the kitchens of Bæst and Mirabelle. Not exactly restaurants where you are looking to get challenged on the mind and palate, rather places where comfort-cooking would be added a little twist.
This was my first opportunity in years to get a little more twisting going and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I made a boiled leek dish dressed with fermented leek juice and pistachio, and another starter based on scallops, maitake, and confit roe emulsion, both of which I was quite satisfied with. The leek dish was trying to enhance the juiciness of leeks and was bathed in the cooking liquid made tangy by the Esse team’s fermented leek juice and some additional Japanese Quince juice. The scallop was about mid-menu and was more of a deeper, creamier round of chopped-up scallop-and-mushroom salad, really. I go deeper into the dishes on YouTube. Scratching the itch was quite a relief, but while I mentally needed the culinary stimuli, my feet were hurting for days, and my body made it clear that it preferred my new life with plenty of opportunities to take a seat throughout the day.

I have 25 years of experience in cooking, and while I have described selling the restaurants as me “leaving” the industry, that does not feel like being the case. After a bit of a hiatus and a firm focus on family, I am starting to shift my perspective, now enriched from a healthy slab of time off. I truly love this industry, and I hope to contribute in some other way. I hope that writing, thinking, and sharing my experience on social media is a plausible way forward. Getting plunged straight back into the reality of the cooking life simply reminded me of how great it is to do great cooking shoulder to shoulder with great people, and how it is deeply embedded in me. While there is no chance in hell I would want to start a new restaurant project, on a night like this I feel like I am back home where I belong. I go on at length about my brief return from retirement on the YouTube channel that you should check out!

My greatest memories are all from experiencing a group of people becoming a team. A team that reacts to the highest pressure with harmony and focus as it starts moving in synchronous rhythms. When the mackerel is at the pass at the exact moment you need it, and all there is time for is a quick smiling nod to the chef de partie. She knows. She is killing it. When the waiter shows up out of nowhere and picks up the plates the moment they are wiped and ready. When you carve the meat and realize it has rested perfectly, and when you taste the sauce before dressing, you realize it needed correction, and a sous chef has already placed a squeeze bottle of vinegar for you to use. Anticipating your colleagues' needs and getting the same in return gives you the feeling of moving as one unit, and it fills you with incredible confidence and satisfaction. This is when I have experienced cooking at its highest level. As ballet. As a true art form. If you have never been touched by this spirit, you have never worked in a great kitchen or a great restaurant.

The structural issues

As the Noma case moves into its next phase, the restaurant industry is being asked to reckon with its structural issues. One of the main structural issues that have been pointed out, in my mind mistakenly, is the brigade system. This has been made into the culprit of any sort of wrongs and accused of creating an environment that fosters abuse.

While I very much agree that there are plenty of structural issues to address in the restaurant industry, I disagree with which ones are the problem. What most critics seem to ignore is the system’s purpose, the circumstances that created it, and the benefits it might offer.

The Brigade System is simply the traditional French way of organizing a kitchen and a restaurant. It is a hierarchical system that distributes both power and responsibility equally. Many like to compare it with how a military works and call it militaristic. If you today describe just about anything with the words hierarchy, power, and militaristic discipline, a lot of loud voices are ready to condemn it as toxic or even philo-fascist. This ignores the fact that there is a reason why this system works and why we lack other options.

I have written in earlier essays about how the restaurant industry, at all levels but particularly at the highest, is a very high-pressure environment. This is where a comparison to a military unit might be useful. A group of people has a job. It is very high risk. You are under very high stress, and you must focus and communicate as efficiently as possible. Any potential mistake can cost you way more than you wish for. The right kind of system distributes this pressure appropriately within a group, and very efficiently when the group is under pressure. In other words, you can find yourself in high-risk situations where there’s not much time to ask polite questions, be cordial, or acknowledge feelings. While it might be very legitimate to discuss the purpose of a war, it will rarely serve anyone, including yourself, to do so while you are in the line of fire. Likewise, in a kitchen at its peak of service, you depend on the mutual agreement that for the next couple of hours, it is all about business. No chatter, no losing focus, no questioning the plating of the mackerel when you are about to send 12 of them. A ballet or any other live performance lives under the same kind of pressure. What might surprise you is that that is what makes it special, and even at times, fun.

The brigade

The head chef is at the top of the hierarchy, followed by souschefs, chef de parties and commis and in some cultures, like in Denmark we have apprentices. Traditionally the head chef of the restaurant calls out the tickets at the pass, some sort of return call is made by the chef de parties to ensure that the orders coming in have been received. Everyone starts preparing for when the dishes are to be sent out and ultimately, an incredibly intricate coordination of cooked items, raw items, cold items, plates, sauces, spoons to taste, spoons to plate, cloth to wipe droplets of sauce, souschefs and chef de parties scramble in a peak of intensity to send out the dishes well cooked, well dressed, well seasoned, well plated and still warm. This is NOT easy. I have probably tried it for about 10.000 times and I absolutely love it. I love it exactly because it is not easy, and exactly because of the group organization that makes the seemingly impossible possible.

Most of you have probably enjoyed seeing people fail in doing this: for about a decade that was prime time television with Gordon Ramsay yelling at young cooks for not succeeding. But I make the case that the yelling and scolding are not a part of the system - they are a part of the people within the system. Gordon Ramsay made a name for himself by yelling profanities at failing cooks, and he was celebrated for it in mainstream media. That was not about showcasing the restaurant industry’s problems, it was a perverse type of entertainment targeted to those enjoying the comfort of their couch while enjoying the discomfort of those trying. It still exists, though less about kitchens and more about chasing dreams of fame and failing to much laughter and entertainment.

A high-pressure environment requires a system capable of securing the most possible order where the risk of chaos is incredibly high. When head chefs, sous chefs, chef de parties lose their minds, yell at one another, or lash out at each other, the system has failed, and even more so, they have failed the system. The brigade system is deeply professional; sometimes, humans are not. They fail, but the structure and the discipline that emerges in these environments are not there to make people fail; they are there to protect them and the team from failures. That does not mean that it always succeeds.

The system is not dehumanizing; I find it to be quite the opposite. The loudest critics rest on the assumption that when there is a power structure, a hierarchy, when someone has power over another, they will automatically exploit and abuse. I find that claim to be detached from reality. At least the reality I have lived in myself.

When you enter the brigade, inexperienced, you are not asked to face the entirety of the pressure; you are at the bottom level, and you get introduced to it bit by bit. You will not be roasting meat for the main course on your first day. You might be picking herbs, and yes, that might sound boring, but boring and tedious tasks have many lessons to teach, if you are capable of paying attention, focus, and giving it your best effort.

While it has become the mainstream idea that a fine-dining kitchen is but a bunch of dudes kicking down, with the last kid taking the biggest beating, I cannot deny that might happen in some places, but I refuse to make it the default. That does not represent my own experience.

Pushed beyond my limits

When I was young, I worked for incredible chefs who were tough to the bone but whom I never doubted had my best interests in mind. They were there for me when I struggled, when it was hard, when I could not keep up. At times, that also meant being scolded if I disappointed the team. But effort was what was admired, failure was a calculated risk, and mistakes happened. What was never accepted was failure to show up, being unfocused, hung over, disrespectful towards guests or colleagues. That has, in my career, always given the biggest bollocking, and they were often deserved.

Those chefs also had my back when they pushed me past my limits. When I was told I was ready for a section, I was terrified of or that I had to serve the next course and explain it to the guests. I was pushed beyond my limits by chefs who wished for me to succeed, not chefs who wanted me to fail. Was it scary and intimidating? Yes. Was I afraid at times? Yes. But my role models had a genuine understanding of both the benefits of the brigade system and the humans within it. Failure is no one’s interest, but the risk of it is what makes it inspiring to be a part of. If you are the weakest link in a chain, in a brigade, or in a team, and you are so for lack of experience, and not lack of effort, the brigade system offers you plenty of opportunity for growth, for camaraderie, for friendship, and for having fun while busting your ass.

The spirit I mentioned at the beginning requires a solid system and great humans to interpret it. For men and women to access and experience a world-class team spirit, they must be willing to accept some level of self-sacrifice. You must have your buddies’ backs for yourself to feel protected and strong. I understand that the reward might be hard to make sense of if you have not lived it. If you have not felt what being part of an incredible team effort can do for you, your character, your values and your mental health. This, I believe, is why some are willing to work 16 hours a day cooking strange foods while others cannot see it as anything but structured exploitation.

The cooking life

This life is not for everyone, and whoever says it is not worth the work, trust me, I understand, and at times I agree. What I find completely absent in the current debate is an acknowledgment of the people who simply enjoy this life. At the moment, outsiders are pointing in and shaming cooks and chefs who are expressing any type of admiration for the cooking life, accusing it of normalizing abusive behaviour. Of romanticizing toxic environments. Chances are that they, like me, have seen the beauty you have access to on the other side of toil and hard work. That they, like me, refuse to accept that an entire industry has to be burned to the ground.

I am not making the case that abuse does not happen in a kitchen. It certainly does, and I have seen it with my own eyes. I am not making the case that kitchens are only populated by virtuous men and women; I have seen plenty of self-absorbed narcissism and ego at play during my 25 years of cooking. I have also seen cooks treated unfairly and without respect. I have also seen all of the above behaviour being punished by the system. But I have also seen great people do admirable work and treat colleagues with generosity, sympathy, and plenty of respect.

If you have a better system, please go ahead. I want to know more. But we need to stop telling working people that actually enjoy the loudness, the toil, the ups, the downs, the cooking, the heat, the pressure, the colleagues, the intensity that they should be ashamed of themselves: either for being exploited or exploiting.

The accounts of physical violence at Noma in the NYT article are both shocking and appalling. No one deserves to be hit, poked, or stabbed for anything you could possibly do in a kitchen, restaurant, or workplace of any kind. Words and interactions can be taken out of context and manipulated, but violence cannot. If what we can read in the article is a fair representation of the truth, it is simply unjustifiable.

The reactions to the article and the subsequent apology from both Renè Redzepi and Noma clearly show the outrage that has built up towards both Noma and Renè over the past months, initially triggered by rumours of abuse circulating on social media.

The validity of those rumours had been hard to assess as they claimed everything from physical abuse by Redzepi to questionable behavior by Noma employees on nights out spanning an undefined timeline. Renè has publicly admitted his inappropriate behavior and shortcomings on several occasions, and whether he has actually improved or has been trying to hide behind PR maneuvers is anyone’s guess, looking in from the outside. Assuming one or the other would be speculation, and speculation is inherently biased. Claims of this severity require more serious investigation for both parties. I must assume that the stories NYT has brought forward are confirmed and due diligence has been offered to both parties.

I have personally not wished to speculate on any of the anonymous claims prior to the article for the same reason. I worked at Noma as a sous chef between 2007 and 2009, and I don’t find that this puts me in a position to confirm or deny any of the allegations.

Some particularly loud critics of mine have then made a great effort in conflating my silence with consent towards abuse. This is an outrageous claim that can only be justified in our current climate of social media, where you can, on one hand, boldly claim that “the victims shall no longer be silenced” and, at the same time, attack the reputation of whoever disagrees with you. If a positive change is the genuine ambition of this movement, one would hope it would commit to an actual dialogue with the industry’s key figures. Instead, it weaponizes loaded words like abuse, toxicity, enablism, gaslighting, power structures, and so forth to knock everyone off the public discourse that dares to do anything but loudly condemn actions they have no insight into.

René Redzepi

The Renè Redzepi I have worked with was highly ambitious, extremely determined, very hardworking, and very ill-tempered and emotionally unregulated. I have seen and experienced him yell at me and others in ways that were completely disproportionate to the claimed wrongdoings we had committed. I saw Renè at his worst when he was the most insecure. Insecure, I believe, about whether what we were doing was in line with his dreams and ambitions. This was in 2007; no one had a clue what Noma could amount to, except perhaps Renè, and it created a pressure gap between what we as chefs were capable of and what Renè believed we could become. I personally grew exponentially under that pressure, but it was indeed not for everyone. What happened in the following years is beyond my direct knowledge, and how Renè has handled the mounting pressure would be to further speculate.

In hindsight, I see his lashing out as a reflection of his ambition. In other words, it was clear to me that his mission was compelling but highly risky. To me, it was equally intimidating and fascinating. It was clear to me that he was bound to go very far, and I was, in return, willing to see how far I could tag along. I believe that I was up for it at the time because my ambition was very much in line with his. We shared ambition and direction for a good period, but it didn’t stay that way. It lasted a couple of years until I had enough and wanted to do my own thing. I was not broken, I was not traumatized, I had not been abused but I can certainly see why some people would have experienced it this way and how his demeanor could have a very different impact on others. He was extremely intimidating, and thinking of it, he can still be intimidating to me today. A man with this level of ambition is scary to most people, and understandably so.

The reason I attribute those characteristics to his ambition and not his persona is because I also experienced Renè Redzepi as generous, honest, benevolent, righteous, fair, polite and even humble. He showed incredible generosity in the early days of Noma, comping meals for young, poor chefs out of pure sympathy. He was incredibly supportive when I resigned and helped me make a name for myself in ways I could never have asked for. I also experienced another shift for the worse when he grew suspicious of my success and started acting less than supportive towards me and disappointing me on several occasions. I also heard plenty of stories of him painting a picture of me that was less than admirable. These are mostly speculations based on stories related to me by 3rd persons. There were not enough to base my entire judgement on him, but enough for me to keep a certain distance. I believe that once I was seen as a potential competitor, I could be a threat to his own ambition, hence the vibeshift. He is, in sum, a complicated person. And so am I.

The restaurant industry

I do not see the world of restaurants as a power system created for abuse, nor am I willing to believe that chefs are abused children reperpatrating the abuse they themselves experienced. The restaurant industry is not an isolated island you can visit for your anthropological studies of the species we want to call “chefs.” The restaurant industry is an incredibly diverse, broad, and complex representation of our society as a whole. The restaurant industry does not have isolated issues with mental health, abuse of power, and bad behaviour–we as a society have these issues, and any high-pressure environment with easy access to alcohol can most certainly bring out both the best and the worst in all of us.

A discussion about how to improve the circumstances and structures that define the restaurant industry should be welcomed at all times. I have yet to meet a chef who disagrees with that. These discussions have been going on since I started hospitality school in 1999, and they have brought about leaps of change for the better. Currently, the discussion has taken on a very different character, implying that the restaurant industry is a tyranny and nothing can change before the tyrants are brought down. “Those in power must be held accountable and they must acknowledge their wrongs” is literally what I can read on social media.

Renè has stepped forward and done just that. He acknowledged that he has gone too far and apologized. He has assumed his responsibilities, he has admitted his issues, and he has sought to repair.

Now What?

Now what? American Express and Blackbird have pulled the plug on sponsoring Noma’s pop-up, and the comment section on Renè’s apology shows how polarized the whole topic has become. Many following up articles are appearing declaring Noma finished and Renè dead. The supposed tyrannical leader of this supposedly corrupt industry is on his knees with the gun to his head. Is this what we needed to make a change? If so, what is the change?

Friends and industry leaders who dare to show support to Renè’s admissions and apology are attacked as enablers of abuse, and the same goes for whoever might show any mercy towards this man we are meant to believe is beyond repair. The accounts of abuse were chilling, but so are the mocking celebrations of the demise of Renè and Noma. Grabbing the opportunity to step on someone lying down is exactly the kind of power structure we wished to protect from, was it not? If you feel morally superior while you celebrate the downfall of others, I am not sure I am ready to trust you and your righteous movement with the future of this industry. Not at all.

The described incidents of violence and abuse seem to date up until 2017. If that is the case, and one would dare to read Noma’s official response as truthful, they took full responsibility and changed practices several years ago: investing in HR departments, mentorship programs, and paying all stagiaires. If the violence, the behaviours, the unpaid labour, and the unprofessional approach to HR are things of the past, then the question remains: What further changes should Noma and Renè undertake to satisfy its critics? That there is no obvious answer to this question should at least make you a little suspicious.

A long history of protests organized by workers’ unions has taught us that workers can demand change and often achieve it. They *can* stick it to the man. They protest, they strike, they stop working and bring the employers–the people in power– to the negotiation table. Outside public pressure can help facilitate and empower the ones it should be about: Noma’s staff. The most pressing question to ask is then the one no one seems to be asking: What does the current Noma staff think? What do they want? What are they asking for?? No one is asking that question, not on social media, nor in the New York Times. If we are to believe that they can only be coerced to work at Noma maybe we should ask them to confirm? Or could it pose a risk to the narrative that has built such great momentum? Maybe, just maybe, the Noma staff does not need you to save them from themselves? That could also be an option. Saving them from the choices they have made and the vision they have wished to partake in. Maybe they actually just want to be let in peace and do their damn pop-up? Is that option really off the table?

If you are so preoccupied with creating a positive change for the poor souls working at Noma, maybe you should reconsider celebrating that Amex pulled their sponsorship and ultimately put their jobs at risk? Consider for a moment that Noma is a team of about 100 people. It is not Renè and a handful of emotionless mercenaries. They are people, they have children, they have jobs they might even enjoy, some have ambitions, and some have shared a dream. Some of them have worked for Noma for 10 years and more!

Consider for a moment that maybe a 1500$ ticket price could be exactly the solution to the problem you wish to solve for them?

Is this a movement?

The planned demonstration against Noma will be held OUTSIDE the restaurant, not inside. This is the most telling part about this “movement”. It might need to be redefined at this point: A movement organizes and mobilizes from within to improve the conditions for a collective willing to fight for their rights. They organize from the inside and can formulate specific demands for negotiation. That is a movement. This comes from the outside, it is fueled by hateful rhetoric and hijacks the lived experiences of thousands and thousands of people with the clearly stated goal to burn down Noma, Renè, and the legacy of all its past and current staff. That is not a movement. That is a witch hunt.

This topic is interesting, and the “debate” seems to get very heated so I did not manage to pen an answer that could fit a comment section. There is a whole number of criticism and I need more space to unfold my response. I will therefore make this a public letter that you can read:

Lisa Dunbar, Thank you for joining this discussion.

I have fond memories of working with you at Manfreds and I remember you as a talented and engaged part time waiter that was studying to be a teacher. Once you went full time you swiftly became an assistant manager because of your obvious people skills. If I am not wrong you quit the first time to travel to Jura and work with a winemaker whose work we all admired at the time. I believe that was a stage, but I am not certain. You then returned to Denmark, and after a short stint in a winebar you joined us again, this time as a fully fledged manager, and at one point left to pursue studies in environmental design.

Our disagreement

I have not had a longer conversation with you for many years, so please correct me if I misunderstand your standpoint or your story. From the words you use: structural power, labour, exploitation— I believe you are drawing on Marxist theory, with some additions. I find those writings very much worth discussing, and I have studied them since I was a teenager. But I do not, at all, share their conclusions.

They are theories, not facts.

On ideological theory, we have the base of our disagreement: you believe in power systems. I believe in the power of people.

I will not dismiss that a system can create coercion, or that you can find power struggles within those systems. But I find that there’s no change in a system without people, and what people need to make that change is agency. My post is about informing people so they can make the right choices for themselves, as individuals.

You think the system is rigged, and you want it revolutionized, but I have still not seen what alternative your theories present. In 25 years, I have seen plenty of its flaws, and I have given it my honest attempt, with both successes and failures in righting the wrongs I had lived and in shaping a culture I could feel proud of.

The restaurant industry

The restaurant industry is high-pressure at all levels, but especially at the fine-dining level. You have a lot at stake, and the deadlines are many, fast, and the guests/reviewers are often merciless. This is not an environment for everybody, and I acknowledge and accept that some people cannot live within that framework. But some people thrive in it, and that deserves to be acknowledged too. I have been one of those, and I admit it took many, many years to accept that this life was not for everyone. Living under high pressure at all times brings the best and the worst in people. Under pressure, I have seen genuinely good people act in ways they would later fully regret. I have myself made plenty of mistakes under pressure; they have shaped me as a person, and I would not have lived a life without them. Experiencing restaurant life as the worst thing you have ever tried and the best thing you have ever done are both valid points. I believe that 95% of the people that I’ve met in this industry are incredibly resourceful, clever, interested, complex people. Whenever we limit ourselves to focus on structures, we strip those individuals of their agency, and I believe they deserve better.

A restaurant is ultimately a business that lives in the reality of supply and demand. You make the point that capital and prestige gather at the top, and that is simply a reflection of every corner of the capitalist society. I do not disagree that fair distribution is worth striving for from a society’s perspective, I just believe that a business has the right to be a business, and not a social model. What I have not seen, in your argument or in the theories you draw on, is a workable alternative in practice. I speak from lived experience, and I have no doubt missed opportunities to do better. But a critique void of any suggested path forward is just a critique. I welcome your suggestions or your visions, if you have any. If the critique is about capitalism in general, I think you should redirect your energy elsewhere. Let me remind you that I opened my own business 10 years after I started my apprenticeship with no real money to speak of. Restaurants/diners/food trucks/food carts have always been vessels of opportunity for families, immigrants, and hard-working men and women all over the world. They have made dreams possible, and they are, by nature, business models accessible to all classes. Taking a very academic standpoint of privilege that makes restaurants something that serves exclusively the rich and powerful is incredibly simplified and ignores the reality that the vast majority of restaurateurs and patrons face. A fine dining restaurant is not Goldman Sachs, a taco stand is not Blackrock. I cannot think of other industries where so many entrepreneurs are motivated by so much else than cold cash. It can be pure survival, it can be artistic vision, it can be fueled by ego or idealism–I know what it means to run a business and have a vision and anyone who dares to launch themselves into hospitality deserves all my respect, no matter the motivation.

A debate must be free from traps.

I very much appreciate you joining my discussion, and your standpoints are always welcome. Your points had been stronger if you did not fall down to presenting me with a false dilemma: When you ask me to take a stand on talks about abuse in a restaurant I have not worked in for 20 years you are simply asking me to join you in condemnation based on rumors and anonymous accusations or face the conclusion that I am in favour of abuse, which is preposterous. That is a trap, and it is intellectually lazy. This kind of tactic could even suggest that you are not interested in any actual debate, let alone expanding your own frame of thought, but you seek to use me to prove your narrative. I think a debate that seeks to discover the truth deserves better.

The weakness of your theories is that people like me, who have lived, suffered, endured, AND enjoyed the “system”, who have accepted to play by the rules of the game and come out well on the other side, must either be portrayed as villains or exploiters for your narrative not to fall into pieces. Because if the system is rigged, how else can you get to the top if not by exploitation? You have no choice but to dehumanize those who have been successful, because within your logic either people have no agency, are oblivious to the world they live in, or they must be truly bad people. It seems, according to your argument, that the restaurant industry, or maybe the world in general, consists not of complex humans, but only of sheep and wolves in constant power struggle. If I refuse to simplify life to that, a true Marxist will dismiss it as survivor bias: that I necessarily must be blind to the suffering of others, to have anything good to say about this work, this craft, and this industry.

I do not agree. I do not agree with stripping people of their agency, nor do I believe in dehumanizing anyone. I believe in people, and my support goes to those who have the courage to connect their morals with actions in real life, rather than use Social Media as a platform to broadcast moral superiority.

Conclusion

I strongly believe that tactics of public condemnation serve only to create the world you say you want to fix. By setting traps and making debate and genuine discussion risky for those with opposing views, you are not bringing about change; you are keeping people with actual reputations to lose, from offering their perspective. Those are the people who can make the biggest change, but if you hold a position of power and dare to try to do better, the very theories you draw on will be weaponized to cast suspicion on your motives and brand you a hypocrite.

There is no such thing as a non-system, and while I do not believe the system we live in is perfect, I am afraid that the system your theories point toward will only serve to make people more fragile, more dependent, less autonomous, and ultimately less capable to make a good life for themselves. This is not just my opinion — it is supported by substantial research in psychology and behavioral science - I am refering to Jonathan Haidt and Nassim Taleb amongst others.

And yes–I do condemn abuse.

Both in real life and online.

I spent eight months working for free in the best restaurant in the world in 2006, a practice that has become very common in the restaurant industry since. I did another 4 months stage the year before and both established my career. This is now 20 years ago and a lot has changed since.

In my own restaurants, I have had the pleasure of receiving and hosting many stages, and I think it might be useful from my position, which has allowed me to live both sides of it, to clarify what it means to be a stage, what you can potentially benefit from it, and what pitfalls to avoid.

What “Staging” actually is
A stage is not an apprenticeship, and should not be considered as such. It should be considered as a temporary arrangement with low commitment on both sides. You are not employed, which means you can leave. You are also not paid, which means that there is a limit to what can be expected of you and what you can expect in return. You come to learn, and in return, you do whatever work can make life easier for those who are taking the time to teach you things you would otherwise not learn anywhere else.

Why I did it
In 2005, before the iPhone existed, there was essentially no way to understand what the best kitchens in the world were actually doing unless you went there. There was no Youtube, no instagram feed. Just legends and rumours. The only way to access that knowledge was to physically be in the room.

I had five years of experience in mid-range restaurants in Copenhagen and Paris. I wanted to see the top. So I sent emails to every three-Michelin-star restaurant in Paris. One responded — Taillevent. I went for four months. It blew my mind, not least because of the produce — the level of ingredients I had never had access to before. And while I was there, I met someone who gave me a connection to El Bulli.

At the time, El Bulli was by any measure the best restaurant in the world. Four thousand people applied to work there every year, for free, for eight months. I became one of them. A lot of the work was tedious — we spent hours boiling squash and picking out the seeds because Ferran believed that was the squash’s essential flavor. Just a vision being executed by an army of hands with no business case to make sense of. Was it worth it? For me, completely. When I came back to Copenhagen, having worked at the best restaurant in the world, I got the job at what soon became the best restaurant in the world — Noma.

But I want to be clear: for a lot of people who were at El Bulli at the same time as me, it was not worth it. What you get out of it depends on what you bring to it yes, but not only. Bad planning, the wrong motivations and skewed expectations can cause a big risk.

The risk
You find yourself in a kitchen doing menial, senseless work for weeks, with no access to the things you came to see, and no way to make use of any of it when you leave. That happens. It happens more than you could wish for. It often happens in very large kitchens of very prestigious restaurants. The prestige is what attracts many young chefs with very low experience and what they get out of it might very well not be much. The culprit is going to the wrong place at the wrong time in your career.

In both my stages, I was offered the job to stay permanently. I turned both down. I liked the freedom of the limited commitment. But that same freedom means you need to use it — if a place is not delivering, leave. Politely, professionally, but leave.

How to avoid wasting your time? — Choose the right place.

A stage should be considered as a working vacation. 2-3 months, that you decide to invest in expanding your horizon.
Don’t go to amass names that sound good on your CV — it will not be worth it beyond the clout.

1. Get experience before you go. Five years minimum. A stage is about observation, and you cannot observe what you don’t yet have the foundation to understand. You are not there to learn the trade from scratch. You are there to expand your horizon.

2. Choose where you go based on what you actually need, not on prestige. Go somewhere that closes a specific gap in your cooking. Weak on fish? Go to the Basque Country. Curious about Nordic cuisine? Go to Copenhagen or Stockholm. The right stage for you is not the most famous kitchen, it’s the kitchen that inspires you right now. Not your CV or your ego.

3. Choose a city. A large culinary city gives you options. If the first place doesn’t work, you can find another. That flexibility is worth more than you think.

4. Keep the kitchen small. Ten people maximum. Ten good people in a kitchen worth travelling for is ten people you can actually learn from. Fifty people means forty-nine others standing between you and everything you came to see. It is hell to manage that many people (I know, I tried) and most of it is just chaos.

5. Two months maximum. Think of it as a working vacation. You wouldn’t stay on holiday for six months. The returns diminish. Two months, planned well, is enough. It can be split between several places if you like, and leaving open space for just dining in the city or getting to know other places will be a smart move.

The stage
You decided to go, found one or more places you want to explore. Here is what to keep in mind once you walk through the door:

1. Do not accept abuse. Needless to say, if you are not comfortable there, get out. No future employer that you will ever want to work for will ever expect you to accept being abused physically or mentally. A blacklist does not exist; if it did, I would have known, trust me.

2. Behave. Respect people around you, and they will respect you back. If you have traveled to a place to see what they do, chances are that the stakes are high and the intensity is very hard. Be an asset to whoever takes the time to teach you things, and by far most chefs will pay you back. If they don’t? Give it a couple of days, and if still not? Leave.

3. Align your expectations. A great restaurant is a busy restaurant, and the hours will be long, and your feet will hurt.

4. Leave your ego at the door. No matter your level of experience, listen carefully and take notes. You did not travel there to teach them a few tricks of your own. Make the most of your time by making it a pleasure to teach you things. Remember that the person looking after you in your section didn’t necessarily ask for you. They have work to do, and you can be an asset or be trouble. Be focused, be humble, be useful. Ego is the fastest way to end up in the corner doing nothing interesting for the rest of your time there.

5. Enjoy it. Ask questions, make friends, shape ideas, and get inspired. You learn both from things you like and the things you dislike. The beauty is that you can strive to both achieve the first and correct the second when it is your turn to lead.

The bottom line
There is a legitimate debate around the stage as an institution, on power, labor, and who ultimately benefits the most from the work done. The debate is very welcome, and I have to be honest about where I stand in it: I believe in people’s ability to make good decisions for themselves first and foremost. What is important is to reach a level of professional and personal maturity before exposing yourself to a system that can give you much, but where you matter very little. By calling it what it is and understanding it well, you can benefit from it, rather than be exploited.
A stage cannot form you as a chef. It can only expand your horizon and, at best, inspire you. If you go before you’re ready, without a clear reason, just to chase prestige, you will waste your time and possibly put yourself off cooking completely. But if you go with five years behind you, a specific curiosity driving you, a city to land in, and a small kitchen to work in — it can open doors you didn’t know existed.

Nobody has to stage. There is no single path to the top of this profession. But done properly, a working vacation in a kitchen that genuinely interests you is one of the more interesting things you can do with your time, and it can definitely be worth your time and investment.

The video is live. Consider it the introduction. A lot is still to come — red flags, how to actually get in the door, what makes a great stage versus a wasted one. Watch it here and tell me what you need. I’ll build the rest around your questions.

Fastelavnsboller have been running amok in Copenhagen since COVID. Somehow, the lockdowns turned this innocuous Danish pastry into a nuclear arms race between the top bakeries in town. In the dullest part of winter, when Christmas feels far behind and spring even further away, bakeries began competing to create the most advanced versions of fastelavnsboller. Back in my days at Mirabelle, I was guilty of wanting to beat the rest. It was fun, and honestly, it was also a great way to generate revenue during the slowest, most boring time of the year: February.

This year, I’m going old school and simple. I’m not charging anyone for my fastelavnsboller, so there is no need to layer up too much.

The traditional version uses a simple sweet dough, while the more advanced ones feature laminated doughs that the pro’s most often will have in production. That is a bit of a stretch for a Sunday bake, so I opted for the traditional approach and created a simplified version.

Like everyone else, I went online to find a recipe to start with. Credit where credit is due: here’s the link to the original recipe I used as my base, which I’ve modified to suit my needs. Valdemarsro.dk is an incredibly popular website for Danish baked goods recipes.

If you insist on fancying it up, you can do the full glaze as stated in the recipe, but the more traditional, and more kid-friendly, version is glazed with powdered sugar, a little cocoa, and a drop of water. There is another caveat to consider: they are by far the best when still slightly warm, but glazing them requires the buns to cool off. You have permission to skip the entire glazing thing and just get at them still warm.

I did a vlog of my process that you can see on Youtube:

Ingredients

Dough

• 100 g butter

• 175 g milk

• 15 g yeast

• 1 tsp vanilla sugar

• 60 g sugar

• 2 eggs

• 1 tsp ground cardamom

• 0.50 tsp salt

• 400 g all-purpose flour

• 1 egg, beaten for brushing

Vanilla Custard

• 3 egg yolks

• 60 g sugar

• 15 g cornstarch

• 0.50 vanilla bean

• 250 g milk

Remonce

• 50 g sugar

• 90 g marzipan

• 90 g butter, soft and at room temperature

Chocolate Glaze

• 6 g gelatin sheets (or 2 tsp powdered gelatin)

• 120 g sugar

• 60 g water

• 40 g cocoa powder (Dutch-processed if possible)

• 80 ml heavy cream (35%)

Instructions

1. Mix the flour, sugar, and vanilla sugar together.

2. Warm the milk to 38°C (100°F).

3. Add the yeast to the warm milk and mix with the flour, sugar, and vanilla sugar.

4. Add the eggs one at a time, then add the cardamom and salt.

5. Cut up the butter and add it bit by bit.

6. Work the dough on the tabletop a little to strengthen it.

7. Leave it to proof for at least one hour.

8. Prepare the vanilla custard by whisking together the sugar, vanilla (scraped from the bean), and egg yolks.

9. Bring the milk to a boil.

10. Add the cornstarch to the egg mixture.

11. Pour the hot milk over the mixture, return it to the pot, and whisk it until it gives a little boil.

12. Cool down the custard as fast as possible.

13. Make the remonce by whisking the marzipan and sugar together.

14. Add the butter bit by bit until everything is whisked together.

15. Bloom the gelatin by soaking gelatin sheets in cold water for 5–10 minutes (or bloom powdered gelatin in 30 ml cold water).

16. Cook the glaze base by whisking together sugar, water, cocoa powder, and cream in a saucepan.

17. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, whisking constantly, and let it boil for 30–45 seconds.

18. Remove from heat and squeeze excess water from the gelatin sheets, then whisk the gelatin into the mixture until fully dissolved.

19. Strain the glaze through a fine sieve to remove bubbles and cocoa bits.

20. Let the glaze cool to 32–35°C (90–95°F) before glazing the buns.
    

At the recent Convergence Festival symposium organized by Alchemist, the speakers wrestled with the question: Is gastronomy an art form?

I left the symposium with great interest, and my curiosity was sparked, having wrestled with that same question, deliberatively or not, for my entire culinary career. After a few weeks of reflection, I personally find the answer to be quite clear: of course it is.

I had the sense that something was off with the entire premise, but it took me a while to get there. Professor Anne-Claire Yemsi Paillissé went on stage with by far the most interesting talk of the day, presenting her ideas and studies on “Avant garde gastronomy”.

The hierarchy of the Senses

She put forward the problem created by the “troublemakers” of philosophy (Plato, Aristoteles, Kant) that had pushed taste and smell far down to the bottom of the Hierarchy of the Senses and that current “Avant-Garde”, performative, “holistic” cuisines were redeeming the wrongs done and bringing taste and smell back up the ladder to where they belong - at level with sight and hearing. See, the old buggers believed that taste, touch, and smell were almost animal senses. If storytelling, conversation, and the intellect are what made us human and set us apart from the animal kingdom, then speech, hearing, and sight are the tools we use to set us apart. In Western philosophy, that is the case, whereas in Eastern philosophy, it seems far more nuanced.

It started the tradition of separating the mind from the body, the intellect from the instincts. The sense of taste and smell were there to satisfy our desires and our needs, not to heighten our state of consciousness. The professor did not touch much on that, but in my mind, it is exactly between the two, in that tension, that the culinary arts have a special role to play. Where cooking can appeal to both mind and body, in a way that no other art form can.

I sensed the room scrolling their Insta-feeds at this point; the crowd of young chef students did, after all, choose a profession supposedly meant to spare them from lectures. But I have participated in hundreds of this type of cheffy TED Talk, and many seem to be a little unprepared, with chefs expecting to walk out and wing it, just like in a busy service. The format is made for lectures–no, the format IS a lecture–a professor has that format down, and this one had something to say about our industry that I found extremely fascinating. I was at the edge of my seat.

When Theatrics Overshadow Taste

She was referring to the “gastroturgy”, the dramaturgy and performance of restaurants like Alchemist and Ultraviolet, both well known for going well beyond the plate to create a culinary experience, as what really elevated cooking to an art form worthy of recognition and all the accolades. Chefs were performance actors, script writers, and directors of a show that can at times become intellectual and provoking–just like real art. This is where I start to disagree with the premise and where I think we have been asking the wrong questions all along.

The False Choice Between Mind and Body

We seem to have made the question of “is cooking an art form?” into a choice between artistic vision (the mind) and nourishment (the body). So much so that whoever is on the fringes completely denounces the opposite. The very creative seem to believe that there is no art in cooking steak and potatoes (wrong), and the traditionalists believe that challenging, provoking, and experimenting with foods is wrong, almost unethical, and the only purpose of food is to fill bellies, at best, while providing pleasure.

I find that the art of the chef is to insert the right amount of thought, creativity, ideas, visions, and even provocations in the vessel of a spoonful in just the right proportion. Balancing that tension and creating a unique and soon-digested piece of art. When the focus of the guest ends up being everywhere else, in the setting, the stage, the script, the storytelling, I find the experience to become a mere distraction from the bodily senses and on to the intellect. The same goes when spoon-feeding “provocative” art with supposedly ethical messaging, no pun intended. They seem to be off-balance conceptually.

The Instagram era of cooking

Today, high-end cooking serves as much as, if not even more, as a broadcasted experience (Instagram, social media, etc. - sight and intellect) as it does as a lived experience (presence, taste, smell, vision). That is a reality that we cannot escape, but while the professor seemed exhilarated by the movement of “holistic cuisine” championed by Alchemist, I am less of an optimist: When the greatest proponents of the culinary arts are qualified by the level of distraction and the bombardment of senses they propose, I believe we are losing something: The true culinary arts.

The greatest price is paid by the young talent out there who might come to believe that to achieve the opportunity of artistic expression, you must hire builders, scriptwriters, graphic designers, scientists, sound designers, and, more than anything, find a billionaire to sustain your vision. That is wrong. Very wrong. You need just a spoonful to make your mark.

Peter Lodahl, the opera singer who started off the symposium, coined it in one phrase: “The outside world sees me as an artist, but I see myself as a craftsman.”

Mastering the craft is how you master the art.

This piece comes from a talk I had with myself on YouTube, feel free to watch it here and subscribe to the channel if you want more.

The real event was the line-up of 170 chefs cooking 5 nights at Alchemist. At a whopping 16,000 (2.100 kr) kroner per cover, it was not for the faint of heart. I considered joining for a (very brief) moment, but decided the one-day Symposium (30€) would cut it to explore the great question of “Is cooking art?”

For the day event, the stage presented Rasmus Munk, a bit of opera, a few other notable chefs like Guzman, Jessica Boval, and Josh Niland, and a few panel talks touching on this incredibly interesting topic.

As it is often the case with these events, it’s very hard to get deep into the weeds of a subject because a debate lasting 30 minutes is not really a debate.

Nevertheless, this topic lives close to my heart, and I came away with loads of inspiration but far more questions than answers. In my mind, that’s entirely a great thing.

After a brief, incredibly smooth introduction by the Danish minister of Culture, Rasmus Munk hit the stage to explain the motivations behind both the event and the cuisine of his restaurant, Alchemist.

Rasmus Munk had goosebumps when he heard the Minister of Culture speak, and so did I. While I was wondering whether AI had already started giving live speeches for politicians, Rasmus was thrilled by the minister’s stated intention to recognize cooking as an art form. “We are actually thinking about it,” the minister solemnly stated in perfect Oxford English. It almost felt like they’d used the wrong AI model – a hint of Danish accent would have made it more real.

Rasmus presented his cooking and broader ideas around one main topic and one main question: Why can we not be considered artists? We being: chefs.

He then explained how a dish of his had created quite an uproar at an earlier conference. The dish was inspired by UNICEF’s appeal to stop world hunger. It was called “Hunger” and after pictures of a starving child, the picture of his dish showed a metal rib cage with a thin veneer of rabbit skin studded with flowers.

I wonder why that divided the room.

“But why can we not talk about these things?” asked The Best Chef of the Year for two years straight. He proceeded to show pictures of himself thinking and sketching, and asked: “Why can we not be considered as artists?”

As the stage gave space to other potential artists/chefs, something stuck with me that I just could not let go of: Why do we need others to recognize us as artists? Why do we even want the state, the establishments, and politicians–undoubtedly the least artistic people on this planet– to recognize our art?

Art is expression, intent, a gathering of emotions and experiences through a medium of some sort. It can be by watercolor as it can be by wood sorrel stacked in symmetry. If you find it to be art, it is art.

I am deeply perplexed by the fact that what the BBC called “The world’s most Creative Restaurant” in 2023 is asking for permission to be... artistic?

The speakers on stage gave me plenty of material to work with, and I made a video of my first impressions, which you can watch on YouTube.

I wanted to keep this fairly short as an introduction of sorts, and will follow up by writing about a few obvious themes that I found interesting:

Why are Alchemist and Rasmus Munk so focused on guilt and shame?

Cooking is an art, but should it not then put Taste above all?

The difference between craft and art - and cooking and art.

Why food’s utility– and obvious necessity– makes it difficult to consider it an art form - and what to do about it.

If any of this resonates with you, let me know, and I will try to focus on that!

I’ve started a YouTube channel.

This has been in the back of my mind for a while, but I finally committed to it. I’ve always had a slightly bipolar relationship with social media. While I appreciate how it keeps me connected with my peers, I have grown tired of the attention-grabbing direction that the social media platforms have taken. It is rarely social, mostly distracting, and rarely rewarding.

YouTube is a different animal, at least to some extent. It is by far the media that I use and consume the most. It can be educational, entertaining, and rewarding to spend time on. I want to spend my time reflecting, thinking, and connecting, and it seems that YouTube is the platform where the hope of creating meaningful connections and building a community is still alive.

The videos are the unfiltered, raw version of my thoughts and considerations. I consider myself a writer, but I am surely a talker, more than anything. I can ramble on for hours about topics that interest me, and I use these videos as a way to generate ideas for my writing. They touch on life in cooking and beyond, and I ask myself uncomfortable questions about creativity, the cost of building something meaningful, and what happens when success doesn’t feel like you thought it would.

The vlog format lets me think out loud in a different way. Less polished, more raw. The kind of conversations I’ve been having with myself while writing on my book.

The first few videos are up, mostly considerations about why I sold the restaurants, and the underlying reasons that motivated me.

If you’ve gotten something from these newsletters, I’d love your support on this new project. You can help me by watching them, they are around 8-10 min, so make sure you have time for it - if not, the algorithm will kill them. 😄

A subscribe, a comment, or even just watching helps more than you’d think—it tells YouTube that this matters to people beyond my existing audience.

[Check out the channel here ]

I’m figuring this out as I go, which feels right for where I am. Thanks for being part of this, and please let me know if you have any feedback or topics/questions you would like me to touch on.

Thank you!

Christian

There’s something special about watching someone you once worked alongside come into their own and create something that surpasses what you might have imagined. Koan by Kristian Baumann has become one of my favorite restaurants in Copenhagen, and while I’m admittedly biased, it’s not for the reasons you might assume.

A Shared Foundation, An Independent Journey

Kristian and I worked together in the very early years of relæ, when he served as sous-chef. Those were the heady days of the New Nordic movement in the early 2010s—a time of exploration, experimentation, and the establishment of a particular aesthetic and approach to ingredients. That period gave us a shared culinary language: a preference for clean flavors, subtle complexity, and surprising textures beneath a subdued minimal aesthetic.

But here’s what’s important to understand: Kristian’s path has been informed by much more than our time working together. I don’t see myself as his mentor or even a significant influence on what he’s achieved. The truth is, he worked his ass off for years before getting the opportunity to chase his own culinary vision. What he’s built at Koan is entirely his own—executed in a truly exceptional way.

Nordic Tradition Meets Korean Heritage

At Koan, Kristian takes the Nordic foundation we both know and propels it into the next decade through a deeply personal exploration of his Korean heritage. The dishes are stunning, tasty, elegant, and perplexing—a genuine marriage of traditions that, to me, brings exotic Korean flavors into conversation with familiar Nordic approaches.

What makes Koan truly exceptional is how deeply personal Kristian’s vision is. Every choice in this restaurant reflects his journey—exploring his roots, his story, his identity. You feel it in every dish and every bite.

When Story Informs Technique

This is how I believe high-end dining experiences can transcend mere luxurious indulgence: when a personal story creates a genuine need to explore something deeper, and when technical attention to detail is informed by that exploration. When everything is in a certain place because it is truly important to someone, you can feel it. There’s an authenticity that can’t be manufactured.

I’ll be honest—my attention span rarely copes with the level of storytelling in modern fine dining restaurants. Too often, the narrative overwhelms the actual eating experience. But at Koan, many dishes left me with questions I needed answers for: “What was the inside of this one more time?” That’s a telltale sign that the food is interesting enough on its own terms, with flavors prioritized over its particular story.

Success as Self-Discovery

I am incredibly proud of what Kristian Baumann and his team have built. The restaurant has achieved enormous success, gaining two Michelin stars in the blink of an eye. But what makes me proudest isn’t the accolades or recognition, as deserved as they are.

What moves me is that Kristian has created a space for himself in which focused, meaningful work serves as a (delicious) tool for his self-discovery.

Well done, Baumann. Great job, Koan.

Last week, I appeared on Euroman’s podcast “Arbejdstitel” (Working Title), where I talked about my years at El Bulli and Noma, about starting and selling the restaurants Relæ, Manfreds, Bæst, and Mirabelle—and about why I chose to step away from the restaurant industry when I had the opportunity.

Life as a restaurateur has given me an incredible amount, and I will always be grateful, but there are plenty of reasons why I won’t open a restaurant again. In the podcast, I gave it a solid 2% probability.

When I first ventured out on my own, it was in the middle of the financial crisis. Those were different times, with a recession and a completely different dining-out culture from what we expect in Copenhagen today. You’d have to be completely out of your mind to show up at a bank asking for money for a restaurant project in 2009. It shows that I was one of the few mad enough to do so.

The industry was bleak and struggling - with empty tables and restless chefs in quiet kitchens. A low-cost startup, “impossible” conditions, raised eyebrows, and general resistance motivated me to my very core. My vision was strong, and so was my belief in myself.

Today, the industry is fat, full, and saturated after 15 years of New Nordic success, international attention, and plenty of good revenue in its belly. The New Nordic ideas and visions have been consumed, digested, and partly forgotten. After raw shrimps dotted with dill and dressed with cream got nautiously boring, it has eaten its way through every global trend within reach: fried chicken, Fastelavnsboller, BMO, ramen, and tacos. Now we’re getting to the more obscure underbush of specialties from distant cuisines like arepas and mysterious Korean breakfasts. It’s a different game—a game others are much better at playing than I.

The obvious question of why I would stop doing something I’m successful at was also raised. That’s the attitude I often encounter, and it’s quite understandable. When I got the opportunity to step away, at the top, it wasn’t the first time. I had already tried it when I closed Relæ and Manfreds in 2020—both roaring successes for 10 years straight. Both back then and after selling my shares this year, the most intimidating and nerve-wracking part was stepping away from what has, through hard work, shaped my identity and forged my tiny place in the world for the last 15 years.

But the feeling of leaving the table with a good hand and an honorable stack of chips calls for more. Once you’ve tried waving goodbye to a large part of yourself, you feel space for a new narrative. A new direction that can be explored. For me, it’s a wildly intoxicating thought that the world can still be completely uncharted if you just change course. Much more so than standing there on safe ground, where everyone knows where they have you.

In these months, I’ve spent an enormous amount of time with my family and my children. I’ve let myself be infatuated by the thought that somewhere out there, the world might be hungry for something else I have to offer. It has given me time and mental space to dwell on art, literature, poetry, philosophy, and conversation (when the small buggers allow it). The sudden feeling of an uncertain future fills me with wonder and appreciation for not knowing what comes next.
It’s a given that I am privileged by the cash I cashed out - but I see no reason to, and I have no urge to splurge on fancy cars og lavish holidays. I realize that the perfect investment for me is just being able to be present.

You can listen to the podcast down below (Danish)

Ireland is not shite.

The weather? It’s shite.

Food on the Edge is a great food festival - and the Irish people are wonderful

Guinness tastes better in Ireland, so I don’t have to pretend I like it anymore. From now on, I can avoid it and point to my excellent taste in beer, rather than the other way around. Except when I am back in Ireland. Soon. Please.

Splitting the G is a thing. Apparently, so much so that rations on Guinness are also a thing.

Agriculinary is my new favorite word.

@sasulaukkonen story of how he went from chef to knifemaker was worth the trip. I wish he had told it on stage.

@lignumrestaurant Lignum means wood (that I knew), which means badass Italian restaurant in the middle of nowhere (that I did not know).

Trying to be a cool, casual @fujifilmnordic x100vi street photographer at a reception requires you to shut up. I could not.

Never am I so not in control of what I eat as when I go to a food conference. Potato chips and a Lion bar for a late-night dinner. And it’s not the first time.

@chefdanbarber got injured by dropping an (obviously) incredibly sharp knife onto his foot while cooking at home. Just as you thought he couldn’t possibly be more cheffy. You were wrong. Even on crutches, he is better than the rest of us, and he will plate his own food at the pass.

The best apple cider vinegar comes from Ireland, and it's very healthy, really.

@mistereatgalway will be running against Conor McGregor soon - I just know it.

You can kayak for 30 days in Greenland, only eat seal and whale blubber, and lose 15 kg. I am not surprised.

Apparently, you can also just eat whale blubber and lose 15 kgs. I am still not surprised. No risk of binging

Foraging is still cool.

A Greek kid is killing it in Athens, and he still remembers the meal at Relæ when he was 19 - the greatest compliment I could get as a chef.

He was inspired to open up in a rowdy neighborhood, just like Relæ. I am happy he succeeded. He could have gotten shot, and blamed me for it.

When you don’t actually have a job, you cannot pull off the “oh, I am a really busy chef” thing. And that’s a good thing.

My talk went well; it shows that when you do a great job of preparing, the outcome will reflect it. Who would have known?

It was about ego, so I cannot talk about the talk, but I will keep reposting anyone praising it - I promise.

San Pellegrino is like the rain in October, nobody really wants it, but it’s fucking everywhere, and it makes the world go round.

Breeding for flavor was the aha moment for Dan Barber - the most intellectual and sharpest chef out there.

So many have been so inspired to change course and find a path in earlier editions of FOTE - well done.

When you do an ambitious organic farmers market in Bangkok, the bestseller is what it always is in a farmers market: brownie. -
Thank you for the Fish sauce, guys! - Bo.Lan!

Going back to the good old days of incredible suffering and toil to grow heirloom varieties is not the path forward - and I agree.

Never try to impress the kingmaker Petrini. on a bus ride - I eagerly had to share the memory of a trip to Ca del Bosco with Redzepi, Ferran, Cracco, and more: he nodded, smiled, and in return told me how he introduced Michel Bras, Passard, Veyrat, and Roellinger to Italy in 1997 and had them taste balsamico for the first time and meet a young Bottura.
Point, set, and match. I’ll just go back to my seat now.

After a couple of Guinness, the locals will reveal what pubs have mummified limbs behind the counter. True story.

Sometimes I apparently do not understand a word of spoken English.
Take that into account when reading the above.

Even when I am at home with my kids, every single day, I feel bad when I am somewhere else.

Next time I fly out for a conference in October, I am flying south, not farther north.

As promised in my earlier Instagram post, I wanted to share my top five books in the three categories that I mentioned.

I’m going to break this into three parts, starting with the first one being of historical relevance. These are books that I believe have changed the world of cooking.

Noma - the second book
I was there for this one. I was actually involved in typing up all the recipes that went into the book, so it obviously has a special place in my heart.
To me, it was significant because it was the most clear declaration of the move from the “Molecular era” into New Nordic. The dishes are stunning, beautiful, and the whole cooking style is defined as unique, and not seen anywhere else before it.

El Bulli 2002
I don’t think any other restaurant has been as meticulous in documenting every single dish and idea they have ever come up with.
El Bulli has published kilos and kilos of heavy-duty cookbooks. I believe this is where you'll find the most relevant innovations, but the older ones are also really interesting when seen in the context of their time.

Michel Bras
This guy was doing Nordic before Nordic and even before Molecular.
I remember buying the Michel Bras book and looking at the front cover with that incredible Garguillou salad, thinking, “Wow, what is this? Is this even food? It is a true piece of art.”
This book, I think, really marked its era.

Etxebarri
What came after Nordic?
Well, somehow an extreme version of it became cooking over fire. We moved from artificial deconstruction in the Spanish era to something more natural in the Nordic phase, then into a kind of primal cooking over fire.

Etxebarri was the first step in this direction, and it spread worldwide. I had one of my life’s best meals there, and I think that this defines another era.

The River Cottage Cookbook
This might seem like the odd one out, but I do believe that, for me personally, this sowed the seed of understanding cooking as going beyond the restaurant and into nature. I absolutely love River Cottage. Back in the day, I was completely enamored by its gastronomic approach to self-sufficiency, which has truly defined the direction I have taken over the years.

I was incredibly privileged to have Hugh eat in our restaurant a good number of years ago, and he is still, to this day, a big hero of mine.

I will get around to sending the next list by the end of this week, hopefully.

Let me know if you have any comments or what your thoughts are.

What are your top five books within this category?

My week has been spent knee-deep in a very particular kind of chaos: sorting through mountains of cookbooks. As I sold off the restaurants, I brought with me some of my dearest possessions, and my cookbook collection was one of them. What started as a practical “get these boxes out of my garage” situation turned into an unexpected trip down memory lane.

Here’s something I’ve learned about myself over the years: the bigger, flashier, and more expensive a cookbook is, the less likely I am to actually crack it open. Those gorgeous coffee table books from my fine dining days? Barely touched. Meanwhile, my beat-up encyclopedia of produce from when I was 17? USED

It got me thinking about what we actually use cookbooks for these days. Do you still buy them? Do you actually cook from them, or are they more like kitchen decoration?

My Four-Category System

After wrestling with this collection, I’ve landed on four types of books worth keeping as I am sorting through them:

The Nostalgic Keepers: Books with personal history – like the first Noma book (which changed everything, in my opinion), The El Bulli collection that eats up half my shelf space, but represents something important in culinary history, or something I was attached to.

The Actually Useful: Surprisingly few. Mostly bakery and pastry books when I need to look up a specific pie technique. Though let’s be honest, ChatGPT is probably taking over this category too, and the Modernist series is just enormous.

Friends’ Books: When fellow chefs brought signed copies to the restaurant, those personal dedications make them keepers. It’s the same courtesy I extended with my own cookbook (still available if anyone’s interested – just reach out! :-).

Books about cooking, not cookbooks: My personal favorites. Dense books about regional cooking, cultural history, and gastronomic traditions. Food systems, connections with agriculture, etc. Less Instagram-worthy, but the kind you actually sit down and study. They make you a smarter cook, and make you think about food differently, not just cook other recipes.

Weekend Question for You

I’m genuinely curious: Do you actually read your cookbooks? Which ones do you turn to, and why? And if you’re interested in my list of books that genuinely make you a better, smarter chef, let me know – I am planning to send out my favorites in those categories in the next couple of weeks.

The entire restaurant scene is in mourning over the loss of the great Jan Restorff. My social media feed is inundated by condolences, memories of dinners shared with the legend, and quirky recollections of conversations had with him over fine burgundy. A true legend has passed, way too early at the age of 57, and I have passed my own sincere condolences for the loss of an extremely admirable man to his family.

He was indeed a legend, so many of us in this industry have been touched by his personality. I am not gonna pretend that I was close with Jan, but he had an important impact on me, and the countless reactions to his passing show how widespread his impact has been. Almost everyone I know has a story.
How he taught someone something they will never forget, how he made a special dinner at Søllerød Kro truly special, how he came to some on’s restaurant again and again. Never seeking any attention, but always, somehow, leaving his mark.

He recently celebrated 26 years of hosting at Søllerød Kro, which during his reign has seen some of the country’s most important chefs in its kitchen, many of them building the French-based foundation for what would later become the New Nordic kitchen. Celebrating a quarter of a decade in one of the finest establishments of this country is a feat on its own, but Jan Restorff did more than just stick around the same place for a long period of time; his time both in and out of Søllerød Kro has a lot to teach all of us.

I had my first meal at Søllerød Kro when I was a souschef at Noma. As many others have repeated before me, while the food was fantastic, what made the experience stand out was always the service, and even more so, Jan’s presence.
He and the team made me feel that whatever culinary credit Noma’s early pursuit (in 2007) had gathered, it was all mine to spend. I was there for a special occasion, but it almost felt like it was a special occasion I was there for. I had barely spent 6 months at noma, still, it was as if I had created the place. Nothing explicit, just by pure royal treatment of a 24 year old souschef. Outstanding service at this level not only enhances your experience of the restaurant and its food. It changes how you experience yourself within that restaurant. That is where the magic happens.
The way he would talk about the culinary work being done at Noma was with such genuine respect and admiration that I almost felt like an impostor, sitting there, taking it all in on behalf of a team I at the time only barely had become a part of. This continued in the years to come: he would surprise me with a clear, sharp memory of who I was whenever I met him, and as I opened relæ, he was incredibly interested and ready to pay a visit about 2 weeks into our opening.

As he came on the first of many late-night dinners, our small team was thrilled. Everything was so intense in those first weeks. I felt we had so much to prove. The energy was bustling and he came in with a young somm from Søllerød. They drove straight in as service dialed down at “Kroen” - “the inn.” They were seated at the counter 15 min. before the kitchen closed.
We smashed them with all we had, completely forgetting we were only supposed to serve 4 courses. We sent Jan and his colleague a mix of the two menus on offer, the cheese, and whatever else we got in something like an hour or so.
I remember him sitting there, taking it in; Waving in the aroma of the dish, looking up, looking at me. Smiling eyes telling me - this is good shit, young man. Good shit.
I was so proud.
He loved the food. He loved the vibe. He came countless times, after service at “kroen” in those first 2-3 years. He was again showing such respectful admiration for what we were doing. The work we were putting into it. You could just tell how he would enjoy sitting there looking into the kitchen and all the crazy stuff going on around him. A bit of banter with Kim Rossen over the counter, a bit of leaning back and savoring a wine pairing.

With 10.000 meals under his belt and decades of experience as a diner as well as a host, he never made it feel like he had seen it all.
Many remember his talent as a host, his embodiment of hospitality, and the exceptional service at Søllerød Kro, made possible by his skill, dedication, and personality. They are all completely right.
But what I found even more admirable was how he could bring that same attitude with him outside of his own realm. How his dedication to serving, to hosting, was so ingrained in his persona that it had naturally become his approach to life, going beyond his profession.

That magical feeling that you have gotten a special treatment or great service is, in its essence, a feeling of being seen and acknowledged. To be able to connect and make people feel this way is a truly deep act of humanity. As a father to small children, I have learned that this is now my main job, seeing them, being with them. Admittedly, this does not come naturally for me. It requires intent and, at times, hard work. I have to forget my own needs and interests, and just devote myself to the well-being of others. I was, after all, raised as a single child, with 1000 ideas and interests that I really have a hard time putting down. But these are the same qualities that make for a good friend, a good colleague, and a good leader. It is arguably the greatest skill to master in the world of hospitality.

This applies everywhere - from fine-dining establishments like Søllerød Kro, or a small tavern, a bookstore, or anywhere that welcomes people; Good service is about connecting with people, not crumbing the tables faster than the diners can mess them up. Great service is not just getting what you paid for; it is the feeling of being understood, appreciated, and truly connected. If you have ever walked into a crazy-busy restaurant where a host acknowledges you immediately, apologizes for how busy they are, rather than ignoring you until you leave, you have felt the difference is monumental. In the first scenario, you might really regret that you didn’t remember to book a table; in the second, you will never return. That little blink of a moment, where someone looks up, nods, and really wants to connect with you, is what can save an experience. It’s about a deeply personal trait of character, but it is also a skill that can be honed, and the hospitality industry is the training ground for it.

Paradoxically, when Jan was having dinner at relæ, in those young teenage years of ours, we were anything but hospitable. We were so confident (or maybe that’s exactly the opposite of what we were) that we would not move an inch to make anyone happy. The music was loud because we wanted it that way, the carrots were burned because we wanted it that way, and “yes, the chicken is supposed to be like that.” It was my way, or the highway.

His visits dwindled over the years, and I think it coincided with the opening of Bæst and with Kim Rossen and me being less present on Jægersborggade.
But in the following years, whenever I would meet him, either while dining at Søllerød Kro or just out and about, every single time, he would get back to the first relæ menu, eyes half closed, his lips chewing on the memory of the flavors he apparently remembered so clearly. With his hand waving in the imaginative aroma of dishes consumed 5-8 or even 10 years ago, he would go on:
“The little pickled mackerel..., cauliflower, and what was it...lemon purè?”
“Yeah, exactly, a lemon rind purè.” If it had not been the very first menu, I would probably have had my own memory challenged.
Hand waving in more, chewing on the recalled flavour; “the carrots...wow, the carrots, with black currants, seaweed, and then paired with Domaine de la Tournelle” - referencing the incredible wine pairing of the time by Ulf Ringius. “I remember it so clearly, I can still taste it.”
Coming out of a conversation with Jan, I would come out of it feeling like a champion, feeling like the work that I had done really meant something to someone. Today I am not sure whether his capability to recall these things was based on his fascination for the dishes, or his wish to make me feel heard and appreciated, a way of bringing hospitality with him, wherever he went.
It was incredible, to hear this man, that would probably eat out 5 days a week, had tried any restaurant you could ever think of twice, and that would have such a clear understanding of flavor, of wine pairings and of restaurants in general, have such a clear memory of experiences we had created, and so much respect for the work we had done.

As a host, as a somm, as a guest, and as a peer, Jan Restorff was radiating the calm confidence that can both embrace others around him, and leave space for them to be, and therefore to grow. With every focused sip of wine, with every comment on a dish, with every table-side conversation, whether he was seated or he was hosting, he always took everyone’s experience seriously, while never taking himself too seriously. He WAS the embodiment of hospitality, not because he made the service at Søllerød Kro the finest in the country, but because he could bring that presence, personality, and interest to the work everyone else was doing. Big or small. He had the true confidence to make room for everyone else. Whether he was serving you, or you were cooking for him, he was capable of making YOU feel special. He taught us in class how decades of serving, hosting, and truly living the art of the restaurant hone the most important and at times forgotten part of our world of hospitality. The basic human connection. That is what made him a Legend. In our industry, we have the opportunity to follow his example. With humble appreciation for the people around us, we can simply become better people, better hosts, friends, colleagues, and leaders. While Jan resided at the highest level of restaurants, I believe that the approach can be used in every type of establishment. The mechanical service technicalities are not the ones that make the difference- those are what you pay for. What makes it special is the human connection.

As I pointed out in my first essay about the expectations for MAD7, the chef’s role had changed a lot since the first edition, and to some extent, become intellectualized. In the chef community, some more than others have been thriving in this new role, gathering attention as much for voicing their activist opinions as for their culinary actions, so to speak. Essentially, we have been doing a whole lot of talking, and at times forgetting what brought us into the kitchens to begin with: the work of the hand. The beauty of the “geste,” as the French call it. The touch of a craftsman, the muscle memory of thousands of repetitions doing something truly useful and intrinsically valuable.

While MAD helped give the community a voice to begin with, they still bring us all together with the silent performance of a skilled set of hands. This, to my recollection, has been the start of every symposium, and I am mesmerised as Christine Schauflinger skillfully wraps up a strudel, gathering the first round of excited applause of MAD7.

The day unfolds with touching talks of craft, passions, and purpose as the theme of Building to Last is starting to take shape. Various examples of generational change and proposed ideas on creating something that can truly last in a world that spins faster than ever are presented by a largely varied crowd of proponents in the culinary-ish world. Everything from the self-proclaimed “Psicopata del Mar” chef Angel Leon and his passion for cooking plankton, to the truly volcanic winemaker Arianna Occhipinti, bursting with passion and pride for her land, and what is her mission with her “friend” the Frappato grape from her region. But also the enormously inspiring Roman Krznaric, appealing for us to take up a cathedral project; something we know will last way past our own life, and that we will never get to experience ourselves. Finally, culinary Godfather Thomas Keller has seen it all and wraps the day up comfortably, pointing out that “having a dream is hard, living a dream is harder.”

All of the talks of the first day had a way of making me listen to their stories, with attention and at times pure admiration, as I remember it from the very first editions of MAD. All of these speakers had made great sacrifices to follow what they believed to be their calling. They were truly invested in their purpose, whether that would be to save the agricultural practice of the “Chinampas” in Mexico, or to take over the family restaurant in LA.

The Loss of Belief

Since the last edition of MAD, Covid had changed much more than just my personal traveling habits in 2020. The restaurant industry was severely impacted. The sudden, explosive outbreak of a worldwide epidemic created an incredible sense of insecurity for restaurateurs, chefs, and staff everywhere. In Denmark, we were well supported, with extensive subsidies keeping most, if not all, businesses afloat and allowing most staff to keep their jobs on furlough rather than be fired. I felt compelled to fire most of our staff or face bankruptcy during the first lockdown. A big group of young, skilled, and ambitious people, who believed deeply in what we were doing. Who believed in me, as a person and a leader. Luckily, thanks to government subsidies, they could all be rehired and sent on furlough. Still, the whole process broke something in me, and likewise, I felt that trust towards me had been compromised. Our world had changed, and it created deep insecurities. Rather than fascinating and inspiring, it was dangerous, risky, and without a common goal—I think everyone felt a bit left on their own. Including myself.

My reaction to insecurity was not to doubt, but to double down. To go all in; act, do, move, fight. I felt alone, but I was not afraid to act. My fear fueled my actions, at times making me act too bluntly and inconsiderate of everyone else’s flavor of insecurity. I did not get it: Why was everyone retracting, detaching, removing themselves? “Now it’s the time to show what we are made of,” I was thinking to myself, while I felt more and more on my own with my ideas, my restaurants, farm, wine bar, and wine imports. A million projects, and no one around.

Today I sense another perspective. The scale of global insecurity was new to all of us, and I can now acknowledge that we all reacted differently. But I think we all lost some of our belief. A belief in having a purpose, in striving for something greater. A belief in each other. Our belief is something larger than life. Might that be to farm vegetables as a chef, or explore sourdough baking, or standing on your feet 16 hours a day picking thyme just to see and feel the inside of the greatest restaurants of the world. Without deep belief and fascination, it all became too much asked, for too little gained. I understand that today.

I do think that you have to fall in love with cooking to withstand a life in it. You have to have a disproportionate amount of admiration for the visions or silent gestures of a master to want to put up with the circumstances that most of these people put themselves in. I have done it my entire life, since I left for Paris at 17. As with all true love, it cannot be explained. It cannot be rationalized. You just have to believe it and invest yourself in it, without considering the consequences. Once you pick it apart into small rational pieces, it never adds up, and it never seems to be worth it. Having a true belief in your purpose, a gut feeling that you simply MUST explore any possible cooking technique that could ever possibly be applied to plankton, makes absolutely no sense, for anyone but a true “Psicopata del Mar.”

From Skepticism to Nihilism

The loss of belief, insecurities, and post-COVID anxiety surfaced a new level of skepticism towards our institutions and their proponents. A time of reckoning with the current state of the restaurant industry had long been overdue, after many years of explosive change and an incredible rise into the zeitgeist and pop culture. The newfound role of the chef came under scrutiny, and certain behaviors and practices could not stand the test of time. As lockdowns, fear, and further isolation made our world more and more insecure and restless, it felt like people were pushed past skepticism into outright nihilism. Skepticism balances your outlook on the world and lays bare a system's flaws. Nihilism, on the other hand, makes the whole system pointless, and its flaws become all the disenchanted eye can see. In the years after COVID, it seemed nothing could be salvaged, and the whole system had to be dismantled. Isolation and an outlook on the world primarily through the polarizing lens of social media kindled more rage and more disbelief. The world became unforgiving, and it became an extremely risky endeavor to just try and do something. Making a group of people fall in love with a shared vision, an adventurous project, an ambitious restaurant, a crazy idea, became extremely difficult, as everyone had become worn out, and weary of this untrustworthy world.

I came to MAD looking for answers and to see whether it would once again be capable of pointing our chef community towards a new direction. As I approached the event, I described the world of gastronomy as fragmented and a bit confused. I think that the post-COVID nihilism is to take some of the blame. Demanding a system change while focusing only on its flaws, mishaps, crooks, and dark sides offers very little direction forward. While it might be a necessary first step, breaking something down is much simpler than building something new and better. What nihilism will never offer us is a dream to work towards. A dream will always require some level of belief and enchantment. Nihilism will only point to what is wrong, and it will never, ever let you fall in love with something.

Back to Purpose

I found this year’s MAD refreshingly unapologetic, more forward-looking, and less political than the last couple of editions. Giving a voice to the chef community has been extremely useful, but assuming every chef must be an activist for a better cause is counterproductive.

I don’t think we should take for granted that we (in the fine-dining chef community) must make it our only true agenda to make the world a better place. Coming from the world’s top fine dining restaurants, a moralizing message risks reducing otherwise great intentions to hypocritical virtue signaling. It does so by ignoring why so many of us find ourselves in this industry to begin with. It is rarely because of the work-life balance, or the particular efforts of a Human Resources department. It is more so for the magical “geste” of someone that we can admire, or the way their dedication to the craft inspires us. Chefs who have sacrificed thousands of hours, their personal life, and even their families, to achieve something unexplainable and irrational. The “geste,” the touch, the art, or the 8 variations of successfully cooked plankton. This, I believe, is the true power of the culinary world. To inspire by its love for the values that have been lost in so many other aspects of our world. To show that having a purpose and following it with irrational passion can also be a meaningful way to ultimately make the world a better place.

As the stories unfolded on the stage of MAD7, I had the feeling that purpose might just make its way back. That we have had our dark moment, and while it most definitely has served all of us to bring forward what has way too often been tucked away, we might just be ready to write new chapters. I found that MAD7 did not forcefully try to write those new chapters. Neither did it point the way. It rather reminded me of where we came from, where I came from, and that having a purpose is again; ok.

I think the new generation deserves a more forgiving environment than the post-COVID era has offered. They must feel free to explore new ideas to write the next chapters of the history of gastronomy. They should do so without having to feel the weight of the world on their shoulders, which in itself is too much to ask of anyone, and never offers much else than anxiety and depression.

They should be free to find their own purpose and embrace a renewed belief and love for the unexplainable. Now is the time to build something new and lasting. And to once again celebrate the audacity of those who dare to pursue their purpose.

Expectations ran high for this MAD7, as we unknowingly gathered for the high school reunion that none of us knew we needed. In all honesty, I was doubting the whole point of this event to begin with. Had the world not moved past this? Did we really need another round of self-absorbed, “lets-save-the-world-chefs” event, now, 7 years since the last edition? As it shows, we did. Or maybe I should say, I did.

I used to live the modern life of the high-profile chef. I used to travel the world four to five times a year, which was on the low side compared with what many of my colleagues did. Those trips would bring me to cook dinners in New York, attend events in Australia, visit friends cooking in Mexico, and be a part of what many criticized as the traveling circus of the World’s 50 best.

I thoroughly enjoyed my life. The fun, the attention, the sense of community. I must say, looking back, I was in a different place. Shortly after a breakup, I was a free man, and I intended to enjoy my newfound freedom. My family situation today wouldn’t allow me to travel even close to the same amount. I say that with no remorse. I say it with the simple understanding that my priorities have changed now. But back then, a small, exclusive group would live the same life I did, experience the same problems, and face the same challenges. And I enjoyed the traveling lifestyle as much as I enjoyed meeting them, my peers, all over the world.

I met friends that I staged with at El Bulli in cooking events in Singapore. I met chefs who cooked dinners with me in Mexico for another event in Melbourne. I had parties in New York with former colleagues from Paris or Copenhagen. That’s a great life to live. This was, to me, the golden decade of the internationally renowned chef. Between 2010 and 2020 - we lived an intense and great life, with its pitfalls, yes, but I am extremely grateful that I was granted the possibility. Then came Covid, and for many coinciding factors, my traveling was reduced to almost none.

As I closed off Relæ and Manfred’s in 2020 and my focus became Bæst and Mirabelle, I was also gifted with love and the opportunity to re-establish a family, and I had my second son in 2021, further slowing down my traveling activity.
Gone were the gala parties and cooking events, and my life was “reduced” to operating the restaurants I had and living a more mundane life.

MAD7

As my reluctance thawed at the first little picnic event before the actual event, I just realized how much I had missed this. Ah yes, if you are already mad about MAD being too exclusive, let me just enrage you with the picture of me enjoying the turbot Josh Niland cooked over the fire, while I was chatting with the likes of Matty Matheson and Yves Chounard. Did I miss all this out of vanity? Was I feeling that a good stroking of my ego was long overdue? Possibly true. But while skepticism, critical thinking, and keeping my eyes open have always been ingrained in me, I also revere and admire people with competence, vision, and purpose. Feeling recognized as a part of a small group where everyone has gained their spot because they tried really hard, because they worked their asses off, and because they achieved very special things, is admittedly exhilarating, and while it is humbling, it also fills me with pride, and joy.

I have myself had many conflicting views and thoughts about this “flying circus”. Before COVID, I was already feeling some resistance towards it. It could feel like a private and exclusive club, and my gut feeling would make me hesitant at best and at times distance myself from it. My choice to close Relæ was, de facto, opting out of that club, and I felt that closing on my own terms, finishing while everything was still fun and games, was imperative at the time. But 5-7 years of distancing myself from it have given me some clarity about my role in it and how, as an individual, you can unapologetically be part of a flawed community. And at times, even enjoy it.

This year, I felt free of any responsibility, having sold my restaurants, Bæst and Mirabelle, just a few months ago. Clearly affecting my engagement with both the community and the group, and with the event itself, from the very beginning. So after a long series of hugs and kisses and chit chatting over Coffee Collective, Tim Wendelbo or La Cabra coffees with a backdrop of Spanish, English, Danish, danish and some French, the darkness of the big red tent was again embracing us.

Music pounding, huge green balloons floating around, still recognizing more faces in the darkness, I found a little uncomfortable spot to the side, behind a bearded winebar owner, and in front of a Finnish knifesmith. As the suspense was building, a quiet lady appeared at just the right moment. She did not speak, but the simple movement of her hands quieted the room in respect. Craft is what is at the foundation of everything we do, and if you want to silence a group of chatty chefs just about anywhere, just show them the movement of a great crafts(wo)man. MAD knows this, and has repeatedly shown it.

“Le geste” - Christine Schauflinger, Schauflingers Landgasthaus. Credit: Emily Wilson

As Noma became the world’s number one restaurant, there was only a little piece of the puzzle that was missing to consolidate the change of paradigm away from the Spanish postmodern, deconstructionist technofile cuisine and into the era of New Nordic gastronomy, with its focus back to the produce, nature, local first, and a less manipulative approach to cooking.

Before MAD, the conferences that you would attend in those years would be in the style of Madrid Fusion in Spain or Identità Golose in Italy. Besides a few French events, such as the Omnivore Festival, that had already picked up a slightly more rock-and-roll vibe from the Parisian Bistronomie tendencies, most of it was simply very boring conference spaces and professional hospitality fairs you would find all over the world. You would see people selling meat slicers and Joselito ham, and then someone would be on stage, demonstrating cooking techniques. The ascent of the on-stage masterclass made a lot of sense in a world where an extremely technical cuisine was offered. So the Spanish Molecular Cuisine and the Madrid Fusion conference were closely linked.

The MAD Symposium ushered in a new era for what the chef was expected to do. Before, you would have a chef demonstrating cooking through techniques and how-to’s. You would often have products that they would demonstrate, so you would have a sous vide cooking technique demoed in a conference where you would sell sous vide machines. MAD brought in another idea. They understood, maybe intuitively or by intention, that “the chef” was on the brink of change.

In a sort of Venn diagram of gastronomic interest, the first year of MAD brought together everything from philosophy, climate change, chemistry, culture, farming, foraging, and entrepreneurship to the small and intimate stage. The chef was suddenly presented as someone who would no longer demonstrate cooking techniques for large corporations, but rather formulate ideas, thoughts, and emotions about what it means to cook. Gone were the enormous conference centers with atrocious acoustics and a thousand representatives from different companies. Instead, a small circus tent welcomed an intimate community of peers to a premiere of what the celebration of cooking culture should be. It resonated loudly, with so many of us.

I personally fell in love immediately. Since my early years in cooking, I have been a chef who has always looked for books that are not simply about recipes. The likes of Michael Pollan and Harold McGee were inspiring me as much as the Ferrans and Ducasses of the world. Suddenly, here we were, in COPENHAGEN(!) with a program featuring talks by Harold McGee, David Chang, Tor Nørretranders, Knud Romer, and Michel Bras, all absolute heroes of mine.
MAD not only disrupted the food festival format, but it also changed the position of the modern chef in society for good. We were all of a sudden people who could and would make a TED talk. When you are told that your voice is important and that you can actually make a change, you understand and perceive yourself in a different way. I believe that chefs all over the world were given a voice by this event.

I was deeply inspired by the first MAD event and honored to be invited to present my story about the opening of relæ in the third edition of MAD. But more than anything, I also somehow found a purpose in what had always been my strangely broad range of interests, tending to go further and further away from the technical aspects of cooking.
To me, this meant that as a chef you could be very ambitious, but you could choose a different path than the one with the high toque dreaming of Bocuse d’Or statuettes or Michelin stars.. You could be extremely ambitious with your cooking and obtain a much broader, and to me, more significant, cultural impact.

Tomorrow’s 7th edition comes after a 7-year-long break for the symposium, which, like everything else in the industry, has been scrambling to find its path post-COVID. Needless to say, my expectations are high. As the first few years of MAD made their mark and Noma established itself as the world’s greatest restaurant in the early 2010’s, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Scandinavia and the New Nordic paradigm were completely dominating the gastronomic scene. In the years following, restaurants, chefs, and food festivals globally were inspired by the path set by Redzepi and team.
The world of gastronomy seems to be much more fragmented after COVID, and I have found it hard to spot the direction that our world is heading towards. There seems to be much less ambition to discover a new direction that can rekindle a movement as our focus seems to be scattered, fleeting social media trends and short-lived culinary fads. The role of “the chef” established in the beginning of MAD seems to have lost some glare through the COVID years, which surfaced much different expectations towards the industry leaders of the last decade.
Considering Noma’s announced closing and the general detachment from New Nordic, this era, our era, seems to be reaching its end, and I am wondering whether MAD7 might be the epilogue. In the coming days, I am looking forward to see wether the event will be able to give answers to some of my questions, and while it might be way too much to ask, for a second time, to be capable of pointing towards another new direction

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