Pulsating music, neon lights and urban street art warmly embrace patrons, transforming the space into an ambiance akin to a nightlife haven, all in front of an open kitchen where the seemingly quiet chef crafts culinary masterpieces that have garnered him a Michelin star. Daalder, like Dennis himself, is all about contrasts.

Does art imitate life or is it the other way around? There are different ideas about this. Aristoteles believed in the mimesis philosophical position, where art is believed to be a faithful imitation of natural ideas. Oscar Wilde contrasted those beliefs and supported the opposite philosophy, saying that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”. According to Wilde and his essay The Decay of Lying, it’s through the artist’s expressions that we create our own ideas of what life is – and after meeting Dennis Huwaë and going to his explosive restaurant in Amsterdam, Daalder, I’d say that Wilde had a great point.

Huwaë is a quiet and reserved guy. He observes, analyses, thinks and creates. He cooks. But in contrast to his personality, when guests enter Daalder, they are punched with colour, lights, shapes, music and aromas that show his clear intentions: to take you on a sensory journey. Through this concept, Dennis would make any guest believe that he’s a loud and thunderous character, but he isn’t. Through his art, he creates a reality that might not be what is really there. The contrast of it all.

His achievements are impressive and include being named the Most Promising Chef from Gault & Millau in 2018, receiving a Michelin star just two years after opening and ranking as #64 in the Top 100 of The Best Chef Awards in 2021. Now he’s getting ready to embark on an adventure as he takes his restaurant to Copenhagen, one of the food capitals of the world, for a three-week residency at the legendary Tivoli Gardens, and for him, it is just the beginning. Here’s the story of Dennis Huwaë.

A Kid That Couldn’t Eat

Dennis Huwaë’s passion for food comes from his family. His father, also a chef, was born in the Netherlands, and his grandmother in the volcanic Moluccan Islands in Indonesia – once a Dutch colony. Dennis grew up in Amsterdam, surrounded by abundant and exotic feasts prepared by his grandmother where she mixed local ingredients, Dutch recipes and her roots from Southeast Asia. But growing up in a food-centric family presented a unique challenge for young Dennis.

He couldn’t eat anything due to his severe allergies and asthma. He couldn’t get near the family’s Moluccan influenced feasts. He could only enjoy the tantalizing aromas and observe. He could only watch others indulge while usually settling for a humble cheese sandwich. These years of contemplation left an enduring imprint on him, profoundly shaping his culinary journey and instilling a profound appreciation and reverence for the world of food and flavor. And when he could finally try all these wonderful ingredients and preparations later in life, he went in hard.

“I wasn’t able to eat almost anything as a child, and by the time I turned eleven I finally could, little by little. It just sparked my interest in food. I was so used to seeing everybody enjoying my grandma’s food without being able to taste anything”, explains Dennis. By the age of fourteen, he was already lending a hand to his father in a restaurant kitchen, and at just sixteen, he made the resolute choice to pursue a career as a chef, aiming to become one of the best in his craft. 

Becoming A Chef

When Dennis made the decision to make a career out of his passion for food and to become a chef, he began to train and study. He spent a total of eight years in different culinary schools and training programs, combining them with stages and jobs in hotels and restaurants. He went through all of it: front of house, breakfast, banqueting, pastry… basically all of the stations. And unlike a lot of young chefs nowadays, he did it all in the Netherlands before even thinking about going abroad to cook.

He worked for a little less than two decades in incredible places, with superb chefs. Kitchens like Ciel Bleu** in Amsterdam, The Fat Duck*** in London and Brouwerskolkje** in Overveen gave him the knowledge and understanding of the business he needed. And chefs like Moshik Roth from SamhoudPlaces**, also in Amsterdam, simply became almost a part of his family, sharing and cooking all over the world. From a frozen lake in Switzerland, to cooking shows in Israel. From Kuala Lumpur to Germany to the Olympic Games in London. It was his first glimpse at what the traveling rock star chef lifestyle is. But at some point, doing those things under the wing of some other chef wasn’t enough.

“I remember the experience of working for the first time in a two Michelin-starred restaurant. It was very very difficult in the beginning and I was the youngest one there. On the other hand, I liked that it was that hard. It almost felt like I was in the army but I was never uncomfortable. I realized that I could handle a situation like that and more. It was during those experiences when I really learned things. For example, I remember learning how to properly cut ingredients from my japanese colleagues”, explains Dennis.

Creating Daalder

Dennis finally decided to take his own path and opened Daalder in 2016: a place where he finally could develop his own voice. “I worked really hard for many years and at one point I felt like it was just time for me to do something on my own, and be able to have the freedom to cook the way I wanted to instead of following other people’s visions”, says Dennis as he talks about the moment where the idea of Daalder was born. 

More than often, young chefs, no matter how much experience they got from the best restaurants in the world, struggle when the time comes to open their own place. Then, they realize how personal it is and how much more they need to look into other areas than being exceptional cooks. For Dennis, the priority was to let go of all the rules and guidelines and find his own personal style of cooking. It was his time to seek, find and show his true self. To create a new reality, like Oscar Wilde said, by expressing himself.

It all started in a smaller and way less colorful place than today, in the Jordaan-district of Amsterdam. A blank canvas that helped the young chef realize his vision, create his own culinary language and gain the self-confidence needed to leave his comfort zone, let go of the dishes and ways of his former mentors and create something new. In that small restaurant, Dennis won his first Michelin star in 2021 and just some months after, moved his etablishment to its current hotspot location in Het Sieraad on Postjesweg in Amsterdam-West.

“I think that the second Daalder was an expression of myself and what I thought was the restaurant of my dreams at that point in my life. It really is a personal thing, to open a restaurant and to create a whole concept and experience for guests to come and enjoy. You have to put yourself out there to make it unique, and I think we did” tells Dennis. Less rules and more fun, less white and more color, less labels and more freedom. A new space with a bigger kitchen, a cooler space and more room, for the potential to become reality and for guests to ultimately have a better experience. That was the intention behind the move.

The Star Shower

For a chef, receiving a Michelin star is probably the moment that they will always remember. For Dennis Huwaë, it all started in a shower. He was taking a such with his music on and kept getting calls from his best friend, who’s also a chef. Dennis interrupted his shower concert as the calls wouldn’t stop so he finally picked up to a screaming voice saying: “Come downstairs in five minutes. I’m picking you up now.” Dennis rushed, scared that something bad happened, and while he was getting dressed, his wife called his friend who told her the news.

His wife was crying. Huwaë lost it. He thought something terrible had happened and then his wife told him to sit down. “We need to have a little talk and then I’ll let you go. You’re going to get some great news tonight and I’ll give you the first one. Don’t worry. It’s only great news. The first one is: I’m pregnant.” said his wife. His life was upside down and he was the happiest he’d ever been. For a moment, he forgot that his best friend had some great news too.

Minutes after Dennis’s friend arrives and shouts. “You’re getting a star!” Dennis thought he was referring to the baby, but then he clarified. “You’re getting a Michelin star Dennis!” It was the most incredible day in his life and a hard story to top if you ask me. Of course he then went straight to Daalder to celebrate with his family and his team, which to a chef, are basically the same thing.

The Flavors Of Dennis 

Inspiration comes from the most unexpected places for Dennis and he describes himself as a very curious guy who’s extremely interested in all foods, ingredients and flavors from all over the world. One of the things he admits to enjoy the most is mixing. Mixing cultures. Mixing influences, like his grandmother used to do for those Dutch-Moluccan feasts he could never eat as a kid. Mixing unsuspected combinations of ingredients to create something new. 

When he talks about it, it almost feels as if he was trying to get even for his limited childhood. He wants to try everything he couldn’t and mix intense flavors and ingredients with no limitations or rules. The result is an explosive menu with a very unique and personal point of view. His flavors are simply fun. The whole thing is a fun, relaxed and unexpected experience. 

“I never want to set boundaries for myself when it comes to cooking and I find it hard to limit what we do in Daalder to a specific type of cuisine or product. I think that my curiosity wouldn’t allow me to do that, doing only French cuisine, Dutch cuisine, or Moluccan cuisine. I’m really interested in all foods and flavors from all over the world and I always end up taking ideas from everywhere and mixing them in my mind when I have to create a new dish. So why limit it? There are no rules at Daalder other than working towards being the best.” tells Dennis when describing his cooking style and philosophy behind his restaurant.

The Dishes

The constant is always flavor but the menus change and evolve every season as they reflect the present of Dennis and his ideas. Each dish is like a polaroid of where the he is right now in life, sometimes more colorful, other times more serious, but always very flavourful, and of course, with top quality seasonal produce. “I want to stay close to who I am. I feel like I create dishes by making crazy combinations in my head all the time. I think about how a fish would taste with a fruit, what type of sauce I could make, how to cook it, and so it begins and I can’t stop until I have a dish. It’s difficult to explain because it is all very organic to me”, explains Dennis about his creative process.

A dish that really represents Dennis and his style is the Saté Kambing. The peanut sauce that his grandma used to make is now shaped as a real peanut and just a little bit bigger in size. This preparation contains no fewer than 30 different ingredients. For the peanut itself he uses a lot of fragrant cumin seeds, galangal and coriander seeds. And in the salad you will find cucumber, carrot and radish marinated in a sam-tom dressing for a sweet and spicy touch. An explosion and a playbull amuse bouche that sets the tone for a rollercoaster menu. 

Another example could be the hamachi with green apple, tofu and shiso. One of the very few things that Dennis could eat as a kid was tofu and for that reason he has a special place for that ingredient in his heart. For this dish, the chef changed the traditional Moluccan way of preparing tofu for a siphon version. Same flavors, different texture achieved by technique. He combines it with the marinated fish with a dressing of shiso and coriander with an ice cream of yuzu and a gel made of jasmine rice and a touch of wasabi. For Dennis, it’s maybe one of the best dishes he’s ever made. All the flavors you would ever want in one bite.

Dishes like the ravioli with beetroot, cod and green peas; the pigeon with green olive, pistachio and kumquat or the lamb with carrots, kumquat and colombo spice are just a few examples of the unique voice Dennis has in Dutch gastronomy. Not to mention his cold version of the famous Stroopwafel, the must have dessert at Daalder. Those explosive flavors, combined with a colorful and art filled room and a team that without taking themselves too seriously, show a new, exciting way to enjoy fine dining, in contrast to the very reserved chef, are what make Dennis and his work at Daalder an example of “life imitating art”.

DAALDER
Postjesweg 1, 1057 DT, Amsterdam The Netherlands
daalderamsterdam.nl

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It promises to be the ultimate winter culinary experience with pristine flavours, the utmost best of the best produce, unbeatable wines and champagne pairings and a lot of caviar. The good news come just days after the announcement of the new addition to the 50 Best family, the 50 Best Hotels, where Badrutt’s Palace was placed as the 43rd best hotel in the world.

Jordnær: The Love Story 

Jordnær means “down to earth”, and that’s just how Eric and Tina Vildgaard are as people. Years ago, their love story made the chef overcome a dark past and together, they not only take care of their six children, they also built what is now one of the world’s best restaurants. With two Michelin stars and a jump straight into the 38th spot on the list of «The World’s 50 Best Restaurants» in 2022, Jordnær is all about flavour, purity, beauty and precision.

Eric gives extreme importance to the produce that he uses and he’s always searching for the best possible one, always considering the environment along the way. With that in mind he creates a menu that highlights fish, shellfish and caviar as the stars, all done with a Nordic heart, French technique and some influences from Asian culture. 

Tina, awarded with the Michelin Welcome and Service Award, has mastered the art of ensuring that each and every diner enjoys an extra-special experience. She oversees the smooth running of the front of the house and helps to create a warm, relaxed atmosphere. Together, they’re unstoppable and now they’re taking their love story to the iconic Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St. Moritz.

“It is an honour for us to be able to cook in a historic, world-class hotel as renowned as Badrutt’s Palace. We approach this next challenge with a lot of respect and excitement. It will be a type of fine dining cuisine that the Engadine has yet to see,” says Eric. Bringing with him the exquisitely intricate and elegantly crafted dishes he is famous for, providing a spectacle for both the eyes and the palate. “Love can be shared and expressed in many ways, and one of the ways I have found is through cooking. It allows me to convey a range of emotions to my guests. I approach my work through a personal lens, drawing on my life experiences to inspire and create dishes that are emotive, pure and raw. Every plate served is with passion and love.”

Eric and Tina’s motto is “only the best for our guests,” and this is precisely where the philosophy of the Jordnær restaurant coincides with that of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel. The cross-over stems to ingredients, Eric predominantly works with superlative quality from caviar to lobster – all of which are not foreign to guests as well as the Executive Chef of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel, Jeremy Degras. “I am looking forward to an exciting collaboration with Erik,” says Jeremy. 

Gastronomy aficionados at Badrutt’s Palace Hotel will have the opportunity to experience seafood flare and extravagance with a Japanese-Nordic twist, such as the Balfegó tuna tartare tartlet with mild wasabi, platinum beluga caviar, aged soya and zalotti flowers. “It will be a culinary journey to the Nordic sea – combined with a touch of Engadine – at the very highest level – a very special menu to delight all palates,” says Eric.”And we and all our guests in St. Moritz owe this high-altitude gourmet experience to Badrutt’s Palace Hotel, which, in addition to its tradition, is valued for its innovation – which we hope to showcase in our cuisine”.

The Badrutt’s Palace Hotel, an institution.

Alfred Hitchcock used to be a regular. His suite was the 501 and it’s rumoured that the hotel’s epic wood-panelled and Alps-facing lobby Le Grand Hall – ‘the living room of St Moritz’ – is where the director had the idea for The Birds. Things haven’t changed and even though it is beautiful all year long, the winter is the star studded season at The Badrutt’s Palace Hotel, an institution that has become synonymous with skiing, cocktailing, great dining and people-watching for decades. Last week, it was also awarded as the 43rd best hotel in the world according to the newly published 50 Best Hotels list. A 50 Best hotel welcomes a 50 best restaurant. Magic.

The story of the property is written by one family. Pioneers of innovation and luxury since 1896, Badrutt’s Palace Hotel remains one of the world’s most legendary hotels – and continuously operated by the Badrutt-family. With 300 days of sunshine in winter and summer, unique and unexpected food and drink, joie de vivre and a unique sense of belonging in a historic and iconic mountain resort, the property is a celebration of style, sport, culinary experiences and well-being in the Swiss Alps. 

Winter transforms the hotel into one of the world’s most exciting ski resorts at 6,000 metres above sea level. During the summer, the sun-drenched alpine activities of the Engadine beckon. The Badrutt’s Palace Hotel has 155 guest rooms, all with heart-stopping views of the lake or the charming village centre. 10 restaurants and three bars, including Japanese-Peruvian La Coupole-Matsuhisa, fine dining at Le Restaurant and dine and dance venue, King’s Social House. Badrutt’s Palace Hotel is a member of Leading Hotels of the World, Swiss Deluxe Hotels and Swiss Historic Hotels. And now it will also be the house of Jordnær for two months.

“We have succeeded in bringing arguably one of the most creative chefs of the moment to Badrutt’s Palace Hotel. With their unique fine dining vision, Eric and his wife Tina have conquered the hearts of gourmets in a very short space of time, making a name for themselves internationally,” says Richard Leuenberger, Managing Director of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel. This will be the first time that Eric Vildgaard’s two Michelin-starred cuisine has been hosted outside of Denmark for two months. “Guests at Badrutt’s Palace Hotel will enjoy culinary curations of the finest ingredients,” says Leuenberger.

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Some chefs follow trends and others are in a constant search to try to define their personal style. Neither is the case of Vaughan Mabee from Amisfield, awarded as New Zealand’s restaurant of the year in 2022. The Kiwi chef has taken over a decade to develop his vision, a very personal and unique culinary language that tells the story of his country through dishes like the Putangitangi Duck ice cream cake. 

There are thousands of relevant artists that made an impact and left invaluable contributions and treasures to culture throughout history. But only some have reached a level of stardom and recognition in the collective memory. Dalí, Da Vinci, Picasso, Warhol, Klimt, Monet, Frida, Pollock. These names automatically take many of us straight to an image that we’ve seen over and over again. From history or art books, to museums, t-shirts, mugs and other countless merchandise. Those artists redefined what art meant at their times. They created new ways, techniques and paradigms that later filtered down to inspire others. And so the eternal debate of inspiration versus copying began.

When it comes to food, nostalgia takes over the collective memory. A Danish person will think of smørrebrød, a Venezuelan of an arepa, only to be topped by meals that have undeniably transcended their borders, like a burger, ramen or a pizza to name a few. Then there’s the top culinary world. In this craft there are also several standouts amongst the best of the best. The Adriàs, Rocas, Keller, Ducasse, Redzépi, Bras to name some. You don’t even need to name them and any chef would easily recognize a dish by any of those stars. That’s what differentiates the ones that create from the ones that follow and in the Otago-region of New Zealand, chef Vaughan Mabee has dedicated almost fifteen year of work to discover his own unique style, one that will most likely catapult him into international stardom now that he feels ready to share it with the rest of the world.

His house, Amisfield, is undoubtedly one of the most remote top restaurants in the world, and where the awarded chef tells the story of New Zealand through a tasting menu filled with local and seasonal flavor, innovation and creativity. A menu that expresses his love and respect for nature and has made the chef a local hero. He cooks dishes that smell, taste, look and feel like his motherland. Dishes like the Putangitangi Duck ice cream cake, a dessert that consists of a cake base topped with duck liver ice cream, covered with his own version of New Zealand Chocolate, feathers made out of duck fat icing and a crunchy beak filled with fermented elderberry jelly. 

It was introduced to the menu in 2022 and since then it has evolved into what could probably be named one of Mabee’s most personal creations. The Putangitangi duck, as it is called in Maori, is an endemic species from the country and is an animal that fascinates him. He considers it a romantic bird as they breed in their second or third year and then pairs stay together for life. “I wanted to create a dessert that’s based on the flavor of duck and that looks exactly the same as the native duck head,” he explains.

The inspiration comes from nature, from his love for this product, from hunting, and from the fact that it’s actually illegal to serve this bird in the restaurant. He resorted to creativity and technique to make that same impact without actually using the animal and created an extremely realistic ice cream cake that comes to the table and is meant to be shared by pairs, just like the inseparable pairs of ducks. At the same time the dish is a play on the Kiwi kid dessert “the jelly tip”, and ice cream popsicle that reminds Mabee of his childhood.

Making it was a mission. He had to produce his own molds for the head and even went hunting for some of these magnificent ducks himself during a specific season to create them. The next challenge came when Mabee wanted to make the beak edible, but as real as possible. “Many chefs use parts of the animal as a utensil and as part of the plating to round up the story or the visual, but I wanted to achieve the same impact without actually using the animal, and that meant creating a super realistic beak, one of the most beautiful parts of the duck in my opinion,” explains Mabee. 

The first step is the duck liver ice cream. To make the mix Vaughan heats up milk and cream with tapioca starch till the tapioca is cooked out. Then he mixes egg yolks, milk powder and sugar, pours the hot milk and cream on the yolks and sugar and returns to the pan to cook until it reaches 83C. Then he adds gelatin, paté, salt and beetroot juice. Then, using a paco jet, he turns it into a rich and creamy ice cream, the main part of the dessert.

The beak is filled with an elderflower gel made by hydrating agar with water and beetroot juice. Then the chef adds syrup, vinegar and wine in a large pan and begins warming them. He then brings the agar, water and beetroot juice to a boil for 30 seconds and adds the beetroot mixture to the warm elderflower. When the preparation is chilled down and fully set, he breaks the mixture into small chunks using a spoon and uses a thermomix blend until completely smooth.

A useful ingredient to help bring his idea to life would have been chocolate, but his ethos is to only highlight endemic products of New Zealand, and cacao isn’t one of them. That was the origin of the “New Zealand chocolate”. He created it by emulsifying harakeke seeds and uses the resulting mix to cover the duck liver ice cream. The last details, the feathers, are made out of a smoked duck fat icing and give a natural and organic texture to the cake. This is just a general overview of some of the steps that make this amazing dish. A masterpiece that encapsulates the vision of Vaughan Mabee’s work. His pursuit of excellence through technique, uniqueness and creativity, and of course his love for New Zealand.

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Guido Braeken is a chef of great experience and less than a year after taking the reins of the beautifully renovated kitchen and dining room of the Château Wittem, the accolades started coming his way. He became the youngest chef in the Netherlands to achieve the two starred status in the prestigious Michelin Guide, two stars that he got at once, from zero to hero. This year he also became a candidate on the list of the top 100 chefs in the world by The Best Chef Awards, and he was recognized as The Young Chef of the Year by Gault & Millau in his country.

Awards, lists and rankings that couldn’t look away from the talent and the classically modern personal style that Guido has developed for himself and his restaurant in such a short time. At Julemont, the experience is centred on unbeatable produce, intense but perfectly balanced flavors and a superb combination between tradition and modernity and between local inspiration and international influences. These values also appear in the other dining options in the hotel, from breakfast to bistro.

But how does he achieve such powerful and elegant flavors? For starters he understands the power of great produce and the difference those make in a dish. So much so that Guido doesn’t usually speak about signature dishes. When he explains his vision, he speaks about signature produce. Once he has those incredible seasonal vegetables, top quality seafood or carefully selected meats, then the second thing that helps him achieve greatness are his sauces. They truly are the heart and soul of Guido’s cooking.

This is the story of how Guido Braeken turned a historic castle into a culinary heaven.

An Inspiring Father

Some people look back at their childhoods and realise that they knew what they wanted to do with their lives from a very young age. It’s very common to read stories about how today’s star chefs started their careers cooking at home with their grandmothers or even helping their families out in their restaurants, but in Guido’s case, the influence wasn’t specific to any job or industry. At twelve years old he already understood how important it was to work, and regardless of the job and responsibilities, to always strive for perfection.

“When I was a child my father worked many hours. Work was very important for him and I saw that and understood it  when I was 12. I realised that my father worked for our family and to earn money, and also he wanted all his work to be done in a perfect way. So when I do my work I’m looking at my father. He was a store manager for a big company. He was always the first to come to work and the last to leave. And his store was always perfect”, Guido explains.

At fourteen years old he started working at a restaurant. It was his first contact with that world and of course, he started as a dishwasher. The excitement, intensity and hard work that he saw in the kitchen attracted him, but rhythm and the vibe of the room attracted him even more and he was convinced that he wanted to be a waiter and dedicated pretty much his entire teenage years to that job. After school, Guido found work as a waiter in a Michelin-starred restaurant in Maastricht, and after a few months a member of the kitchen left and the chef asked him if he wanted to join the team for a couple of months. He agreed, left his front of house days behind and immediately found what he was actually supposed to do for the rest of his life: cook.

A Very Special Date Night

After changing from front of the house to the kitchen and working for three years, a date night took Guido and his wife to a two Michelin-starred restaurant named De Leuf. The experience was incredible and sparked his drive and his hunger for more. Even during the meal he would tell his wife that he needed to work there in the future. They ended the dinner, paid the bill and as they left the restaurant they bumped into the chef. He took the opportunity to talk to the chef and one week later he was already a part of the team.

“I worked with Paul van de Bunt, who tragically died in 2014, and today his son is the chef there. It was a tremendous opportunity and a great learning experience. I had the freedom of making my own dishes and also learning about molecular kitchen. I worked there for 5 years with a great team. I think that it is important to stay for long periods when you’re learning and growing. Nowadays it’s very common for young chefs to try to cook for three months in a bunch of famous restaurants but the truth is that that strategy reads great on a resume only. I never focussed on that. I always knew that I wanted to stay at least two years in each section of the kitchen,” he explains.

After that period, he moved to Belgium and got a job as a chef de partie that in only a few months became a job as a sous chef with Ralf Berendsen. “He taught me how to cook. It was probably the hardest time of my life, but also the best. Three times I told him I got a new job and every time I stayed. The final time I said I would finish we received a second star just a month after, and I yet again decided to stay”, explains Braeken with the tranquillity that only comes from reflecting on those years with hindsight. After seven years he finally took the final decision to go back to Maastricht. More years of work under other chefs went by, earning knowledge, experience and stars until COVID came and everything stopped. 

The Historic Castle And Birth of Julemont

When guests enter the property through the driveway and face this national treasure that dates to the 11th century, they surrender to its historical charm. Château Wittem is an intimate, 12-room boutique hotel surrounded by South Limburg’s rolling hills. The latest chapter in the castle’s almost millennium-long history is starred by the Wilden-family. In 2018, Alexander and Nicole Wilden bought it and gave the reins to daughter Victoria Wilden who undertook a huge renovation process to turn it into the beautiful boutique hotel it is today. In other words, it’s a family affair and passion project. The hotel and restaurant opened its doors again in September 2019.

The castle stands in the centre between Liège in Belgium, Maastricht in the Netherlands and Aachen in Germany, and is surrounded by nature, rivers, and majestic trees. The spacious rooms and suites are named after iconic individuals who played a great role in the history of the building and each room has its own story to tell. Some examples are Anna, Floris II, Guda, Willem and Karl V. Of course one of the main attractions is the wonderful dining offering of the hotel, starting with a breakfast worthy of a real castle with one of the best Eggs Benedict in the world, followed by ‘La Cuisine’ a more casual restaurant that opens every Sunday with an exquisite a la carte menu of seasonal dishes.

This is all the result of Victoria Wilden’s vision. During COVID and right after finishing the renovation process she contacted Guido Breaken and invited him to the property to discuss a possible collaboration. It was the moment Guido had been waiting for for years. A chance to create his own culinary language and to bring his own vision to life as the chef. It was one of those moments where everything came together. 

Guido tells: “When I drove there I thought that this was my chance to do it. There were no other chefs, no one. I saw the castle, the restaurant and then Victoria talked to me about her idea and philosophy. The best part was that after that, she asked me how I wanted to bring it to life and what I needed. So we got along very well. I gave a week’s notice at the restaurant I worked in and a month after I came here with my two sous chefs.

Creation Of A Culinary Voice

The menu that Guido offers to his guests at Julemont has a very strong and classic French base. Then he gets creative and plays with ingredients and influences from other countries and cultures, like Asia or Latin America, to put his own twist into things and achieve dishes that are clean but exciting at the same time. Some of his standout dishes include the Japanese Hamachi with ponzu, sesame, radish and imperial heritage caviar, or the Kagoshima Wagyu with unagi, black garlic, onion and Hollandaise. It all starts with getting the best possible products:

“My style and what we do in Julemont is all about great products and flavor. It all starts with the suppliers. When I came to Julemont I had the opportunity to find the very best suppliers for fish, vegetables, meats and so on, and after I know I have the best to cook with, my focus changes to the sauces. It’s my way of creating intense and memorable flavors”, explains Guido with pride. Guido and Victoria also find common ground in one of the restaurant’s most important values. For them, the star should be the food. It’s not an experience embellished with show, smoke and mirrors. It isn’t even about the chef. It’s all about the guests, the food, the produce and flavor.

The sauces are also a big part of what makes Guido’s food exceptional and he describes that trade as the result of year and year of trial and error, of trying every single preparation he and his chefs have done over the years. I asked: “If you were the Yoda Jedi master of sauces how would you teach me how to achieve the perfect one?” He laughed and said: “I can teach you that in ten minutes but you need to stay for three years doing it every day to understand it. People say “I can cook and I’m 25.” No, you can’t cook, you need to have a process for years and years to master it. Of course I could do a turbot ten years ago, but it was different every time. Now it isn’t. I’ve been doing this sport since I was 14 and now I’m 39.”  

The Menu

During my visit to Château Wittem I had the opportunity to chat with Victoria Widen and Guido Braeken about my experience and there was a great moment when I asked them about what defines a great product that simply has to transcribed, as it perfectly defines the level of respect and understanding they both have as leaders of this project.

Me: “What defines a good product?”

Guido: “When you get fish it must be fresh, it must be in season. You have to see, smell, feel and taste the quality. It’s also something that you learn with time. Then at the next stage you have to make something good out of this product. The starting point is the quality. When the strawberry looks good but has no taste, it’s not a good strawberry.”

Victoria: “And also I think that you handle the product with some kind of love.”  

Guido: “When you have good suppliers and a good team, it’s not difficult to find the product. When you have a good product you must handle it with love.”

Victoria: “That’s what I see in the kitchen. A bunch of tough guys that handle every vegetable or piece of fish with so much love.”

Guido: “Like with langoustines. I only want the best size. And when you clean it you have to be gentle with it. Sometimes I see how people clean it and they destroy it in the process.”

That tone of mutual respect is the core of what has made Julemont a successful endeavor. But as they explained during our conversation, it all comes down to the food. The menu starts with an array of tasty snacks served in the bar next to the restaurant. Examples can be the beautiful crab tartlet with fresh apple and trout caviar, the goose liver, apple and beetroot bite, or a crunchy and creamy bite of sea bass tartare. A quick change of scenery takes guests to the main dining room, with high ceilings and full of light, to begin with the tasting menu. A meticulously plated hamachi with sesame, ponzu, radish and imperial heritage caviar sets the tone and is a clear message of Guido’s intentions. His base comes from tradition but his style is explosive, fun and takes a lot of inspiration in other culinary cultures, mostly the Asian one.

The second dish’s main product comes from the southern region of Japan: The Kagoshima Wagyu is prepared as a tartare with unagi and wrapped in a perfect cube by two strips of marinated Wagyu. Then a vinaigrette and two spoons of Hollandaise round it up as one of Guido’s most celebrated dishes.  The langoustine comes next, served with strawberries, sepia, green peas puree and a slightly spicy tomato sauce and tomato and strawberry jus. Unexpected, cooked to perfection, rich and balanced. A 10 out of 10. For every dish, sommelier Philipp Peter Bock recommends a well-thought pairing.

The impressive servings keep on coming. A Breton turbot with eel, dashi, fermented white asparagus Beurre blanc and shir. Kombu is another great example of a carefully treated product that got elevated by a sublime sauce. Or the red mullet, that brings a different influence of flavours with its mala, coconut and tandoori masala, topped with a generous serving of lobster. The last dish is also a star: Lamb fillet with a foam of green curry, green asparagus with tarragon and lime. A very well curated serving of cheeses follows to finally end the meal with desserts like the raspberries with goat yogurt, shiso, basil and caramelised white chocolate, petit fours and a much needed walk around the castle, before going upstairs to one of the rooms and realising what the meaning of culinary heaven really means. 

The post Julemont, Netherlands: The Culinary Treasure of a Medieval Castle appeared first on Honest Cooking.

There’s always been a debate about evolution. Anaximander, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, concluded that our race descended from fish back in the 500s B.C.E, for example. Then Erasmus Darwin and a group of scientists and philosophers in the eighteenth century also proposed different ideas but it wouldn’t be until the times of his grandson, Charles, that those would take the form of an actual theory. The theory of evolution by natural selection explains how species evolve, or change through time, and I couldn’t stop thinking about that word, EVOLUTION, when I interviewed Hans after experiencing his wonderful work at Ocean Restaurant.

He comes from four generations of cooks and became the first one to take the very difficult and sometimes ungrateful leap into fine dining with success. He was born in a small town in Austria, that he pretty quickly outgrew, and traveled the world looking to please his hunger for more. He grew up and succeeded in an industry that has gone through outstanding changes over the time of his career and worked his way to the top in every step of the way. And he even helped his second country, Portugal, develop a culinary language of its own. All with a great sense of humor and humility that everyone around him can vouch for. Hans Neuner’s story is the perfect example of evolution.

Nowadays the celebrated chef who also holds the 62nd position in the top 100 list of The Best Chef Awards finds inspiration for each menu in Portugal’s age of discovery, an idea that he got by chance after the pandemic. That same hunger and curiosity to learn and try more that got him to move to Portugal fifteen years ago, is now the fuel for a yearly adventure that he and his team take to create his flavorful dishes. The “India Route” tasting menu from last year, for example, showcased a journey that starts in Portugal, passes through Africa and culminates in Goa on the coast of India, and the current season is named ‘Memories from Brazil’.

From A Tyroler Town To London

Originally from Austria, Hans Neuner started cooking at fourteen years old. He didn’t really have to think too much about it as he’s the fourth generation of his family to work in a kitchen. Restaurants, cooks, pots and ingredients have been a part of his life since he can remember. He grew up in Leutasch, a very small village in the state of Tyrol, and started cooking school at fifteen. He describes it almost as military, with a 5:30am wake up call to clean the rooms, followed by study and breakfast at 8:00am. Then the school day started. 

“I started before my fifteenth birthday. If I think about it now, when I look at fifteen year old kids, I mean, they’re kids. But in our time it was normal. At seventeen years, I finished school and moved to Switzerland until I had to come back to do military service in Austria for almost a year. I quickly returned to St. Moritz after that to make some money and there, during the St. Moritz Gourmet Festival, I met the chef from the Dorchester in London and took the opportunity to ask him for a job”,  Hans explains.

His move to London was one of his dreams, as he always wanted to change his small town for a big city, and his new job at the Dorchester was his first taste of the rough reality of the culinary industry. They started at six in the morning and finished at eleven at night in the basement of the hotel, and from the group of twenty chefs, pretty much everyone left. He resisted for a year and a half and then did a 180 and moved to Bermuda. How did he choose that destination? He simply grabbed the book of the leading hotels of the word, found ten places that looked interesting, wrote them asking for a job, and took a plane to the first one that replied.

Growing Up In A Kitchen

Social conventions and timings have also evolved a lot over the last few decades and for an European teenager of current times, maybe it would sound insane to have already moved countries five times before twenty years old, and to already have six years of working experience in the kitchen. After Bermuda, young Hans found a new adventure that would take him cooking all over the globe: he joined his older brother, who’s naturally also a chef, on a cruise ship that started in Los Angeles and went over Hawaii to Asia, Arabia and back to Europe. It sounds like a Jules Verne book, but it was just a tiny chapter in his path towards becoming one of the best chefs of the world.

“We went on a world tour and it was amazing. Also cooking wise. I had the luck of being responsible for all the guest chefs and we hosted some amazing ones, so when the guest chefs came, they gave me the list of ingredients and the recipes and I had to make everything happen. A cruise ship is a completely different ball game. I was lucky to learn so much, travel the world and to have my brother and another friend, so we had an amazing time”, Neuner tells.

He then traveled through the US with his brother, and went back home without a plan but pretty quickly found himself moving to Berlin, where a friend invited him to be a part of the team that would reopen the legendary Adlon Hotel after a remodel. That same hotel where Michael Jackson infamously dangled his baby son out the window. Hans was only 24 and was already the sous chef at one of the world’s most luxurious hotels.

An Evolving Industry

Hans still thinks back to his teenage years with awe of how early in life he started and recalls having to fight extra hard sometimes to be taken seriously because of his young age. It was a harsher industry twenty five years ago, where nobody was talking about sustainability, gender equality and working conditions. The focus also wasn’t on local cuisine or seasonality. It was all about strength, perfection, respect for the command line, technique and luxury (for the guests).

“When I was a trainee I got slapped two times and I remember calling my dad, who’s also a chef, and him telling me that I probably deserved it before hanging up. They came from a different generation of chefs and that’s how it was, no speaking out, no complaining, just pushing or leaving. Then as a young executive sous chef in Berlin, I had to be very very strong to make a group of forty chefs respect me, much of whom were older than me. Two things helped me: I was younger but with way more experience than most of the other chefs, and my boss had my back”, says Hans.

He now confesses that he would be way more relaxed if he could go back in time. But he just wanted to tear the world apart and become the best chef he could be. It was a part of a learning process that led him to his current understanding of what it means to be a leader. And today he’s very clear on the importance of a good team. One that stays together for years and grows. That can come up with ideas, develop them and bring them to life without having to start from scratch every time a team member changes. Today, he has achieved to create such a team at Ocean. 

A View Into The Ocean

The Adlon was where Hans first experienced being a part of a team that received a Michelin star. After leaving that job and working at another starred restaurant in Mallorca, he returned to Germany, this time to Hamburg, to help his former boss from Berlin open a new place. They also received a star there. These years of great culinary success gave Neuner the idea that it was time to open his own project, and after exploring possibilities in Russia, England, Italy and a much younger Dubai, he got an offer to move to Algarve.

“I had a phone call with the F&B director and we ended up having a two hour conversation about the idea and the project. After that I agreed to doing it without even seeing the place. I had just seen one picture from the old cafe. It was old school, but the view was incredible. I knew that we could remodel the place later on but that view was the selling point for me. It’s amazing and it still takes my breath away every day, even fifteen years after the first time I saw it”, he says.

That was the birth of Ocean. It’s safe to say that the only similarities that that version of the restaurant and the current one have are the chef and the name. Hans explains that it was a very different scene in the Portuguese culinary landscape in 2007. He had also never been to Portugal so the menu consisted mostly of renewed versions of old dishes he had created in other projects, all with a strong mix of French and Mediterranean influences. They even had to import most of the produce from France or Spain as in those days, he didn’t know a single local producer.

Embracing Portugal

The restaurant started off very different, safe and reflecting the chef’s experiences in previous countries. Naturally, he had to soak in the culture and little by little he translated that into his work. But that didn’t stop him from earning his first Michelin star in 2009 and the second already in 2011, becoming only the second restaurant in Portugal to ever achieve that status, four years after opening.

“My process of embracing the local culture has been a super interesting journey for me. I think that it mostly started by me visiting a lot of markets and restaurants, and also because of our Portuguese team members. We would just talk a lot about food, ideas, ingredients, traditions, and find inspiration as the restaurant evolved and as I discovered the true essence of my new home and Ocean. Then the second star gave us a lot of visibility and more and more chefs from Portugal knew about me and the project. Today I definitely feel the respect and love of my Portuguese colleagues, and I’m very proud of that.”

With the years, Hans embraced his new surroundings, which provided him with a new gastronomic passion. He still remembers that the first Portuguese dish he included in his menu was a version of the chicken Piri Piri. After the worst time of the pandemic, when we all had time to reflect and redirect our lives, he decided that he would go on an expedition throughout the different regions of Portugal’s age of discovery for inspiration and to translate the eclectic and diverse influences that make up Portugal’s vibrant food heritage into his cooking. Since then, Hans and his team embarque on a discovery trip every year during the off season to create the new menu for the following year.

Ocean Today

There’s no trace of that old looking café anymore but the view is as stunning as ever. The restaurant is in one of the buildings of the luxurious Vila Vita Parc Resort in the sunny Algarve region. It is sophisticated and luxurious in a very laid back-mediterranean way. When the doors open, a hallway of Murano glass serves as a frame for the first glimpse of the view in the back of the room. Then guests step into a luminous dining room, decorated with a tapestry specially made by the Algarvian artist Vanessa Barragão on one side and with a huge display of corals and shells on the other. Every detail is taken care of and combined with a very well choreographed service to round up the experience.

Last year it was all about the “India Route” tasting menu. It showcased a journey that started in Portugal, passed through Africa and culminated in Goa on the coast of India. The current season is named ‘Memories from Brazil’, and was inspired by a trip that Hans and his team took through the giant South American country earlier this year where they had the opportunity to explore and discover the roots and origins of Brazilian cuisine, like the young explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral when he, on his way to India in the 1500s, came across this new land.

“It really was a trip of discovery for us and we tried everything. We not only had traditional food like moqueca, we also tried a lot of ingredients and got inspired by them to create dishes for our current menu. For example ants. Everybody cooks with ants in Brazil and we made tribute to that in one of our desserts without actually using the insect. In the end, our goal is for guests to enjoy the meal and to translate a part of that rich and wonderful culture to them, but we do it in a way that guests can recognize and without pushing it. I know that if I used the actual ants on a dish, a lot of my guests wouldn’t enjoy it. That’s a part of the challenge”, Hans says with a smile.

Os sabores do Ocean

Hans Neuner is a restless chef. Curious, energetic and creative. If he isn’t thinking about his next move, he gets bored. Even after almost 30 years of cooking there’s always something new to learn and try. This is also the reason for his yearly expeditions and 2023 is all about his ‘Memories from Brazil’. The menu includes classics like manioc, pão de queijo, feijoada and of course the moqueca.

The first bite is a bang: a taco made out of manioc, one of the most important ingredients in Brazilian cuisine, and filled with smoked eel and imperial caviar, because yoo want to have some caviar in there. It comes on a plate that’s also designed by Hans and made out of waste, specifically smashed cans, a commentary on waste and recycling. The Pão de queijo comes next and is done in two ways: the traditional one, with guava and cheese, and Ocean’s version made out of blue cheese ice cream, served between two cow faces made out of crispy bread and topped with apricot jam. It’s almost as if it was done that way to show guests what’s next: a display of Brazilian flavor, but done in a different way. There’s tradition and then there’s Oceans take on it.

Feijoada is next. It is this rich and powerful stew usually done with black beans and pork and the first Brazilian dish Hans Neuner ever tried. It’s also one that he ate more than once during his recent adventure in the South American country. At Ocean, he makes it with a twist and combines lobster, pork belly and choriuzo and presents it in three steps. First the pancake, also made out of black beans and inspired in the Brazilian acarajé, topped with white beans puree, dried meats and lobster. The second part of the dish is made to simulate a giant black bean and is filled with the sauce from the actual feijoada, and the final part, a pot with traditional feijoada. 

Other highlights of the menu are the tuna belly with coffee and passionfruit but a very special one is the Moqueca. Maybe because it’s the most personal one to Hans. “Moqueca is a dish from my wife. She’s from São Paulo and if I didn’t put it on the menu, she would probably leave me. It’s actually inspired by her. This is her dish. I learned it from her at home. She cooks it and when we got together, twelve years ago, we cooked much more at home. I was even nervous for her to try it.”

Creating menus like this is always tricky as the inspiration is a completely different, profound, rich and complex culture. There’s got to be a high level of respect and admiration for the task and Neuner admits that he gets nervous every time he presents a menu that introduces a new world. What would Brazilians think after a meal at Ocean? So far they love it, including his wife who’s his biggest teacher and critic. More examples of this exotic meal include the maminha, composed by Kobe, mushrooms, bone marrow, bell peppers and smoked eggplant, and the desserts, a colorful sequence that includes a giant make believe ant with a magnifying glass, the face of the famous Jesus statue from Rio made out of chocolate, and a tray of fun sweet bites that exemplify the most playful side of the chef. Bombons, brigadeiros and fruity bites that replace the classic petit fours and seal the deal for what can be one Portugal’s most exciting culinary experiences of today. 

A true homage created out of pure love and respect by an Austrian, who took Portugal in as his new home and now exploring every era of its history. There’s one big downside from being a nomad. Yes it opens a world of wonders but at the same time, when an Austrian goes to Algarve for fifteen years, there can be a feeling of not belonging to either place sometimes. Where is home? If you think about it, food plays a big part of that sense of belonging and at this point, Hans confesses that Piri Piri and cataplana make him feel at home as much as goulash or salad or schnitzel do. So much so that when he is done exploring the different periods of the era of Portuguese discovery, he would even try to create a menu that mixes his homeland with his new home.

Ocean, Vila Vita Parc Resort & Spa, R. Anneliese Pohl, 8400-450 Porches, www.restauranteocean.com

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Imagination is defined as the faculty or action of forming new ideas, images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. Curiosity is a strong desire to know or learn something. These are words that define Michael van der Kroft. They are great ways to describe his source of inspiration for what he cooks at Tres, but when he was a child dealing with what addictions can do to a family, imagining a different path in life and having a strong hunger to learn new things basically saved his life.

The self taught chef is now responsible for one of the for sure most interesting restaurants in the Netherlands, work that has led him to become one of 2023’s candidates for the top 100 list of The Best Chef Awards. At Tres, Michael turns curiosity into research that results in science and technique that he uses to represent the Netherlands through the four seasons. He imagines flavors and combinations more so than trying to reminisce or recreate the ones from his childhood, and that’s understandable when you were brought up between problems and addictions and abandoned to live with your grandparents who then also gave up on you as a teenager.

Yes, looking back is not a thing for Michael van der Kroft. He looks ahead instead, into the unknown, he looks beyond, into the imaginary, and there he finds unique and intense dishes with which he defines Tres’ ingenious culinary offer with what he would humbly describe as a “simple” vision of making the most out of seasonality and local produce that in reality is way deeper than that. He’s truly creating a unique, new and very personal spin on Dutch gastronomy.

From Nothing To…

One of the main things that sets fine dining apart from every other type of restaurant is how personal these projects are to their chefs. I write this because some people might think: Why do I need to know about this guy’s childhood to understand his restaurant? Is it necessary? Well, the good thing is that if you just want to enjoy a wonderful dining experience, you really don’t. You can just go to Tres, or any other restaurant in that league, and enjoy every dish for what it is. But isn’t it better to stand in front of a Van Gogh-painting when you know more than what your eyes can see? For many food lovers the backstory and the personal or intellectual side of the experience add on to it. It’s like another layer of seasoning that stimulates something beyond our five senses.

In Michael’s case, the past is dark. One that he almost never speaks of and that he seems to have left behind and now just lives on as a cautionary tale. He was a child of a broken home and abandoned when he was just four years old. As it happens sometimes, that terrible moment happened again and again as he was left to live with other family members until he got to his grandparents. That was where he had his first contact with the kitchen.

“My parents suffered from addiction so I moved to different places until I ended up with my grandparents just outside of Rotterdam. My grandfather was always cooking and I was always there, so I was like: I like cooking. That motivated me to take some related classes in mid school, but that got interrupted when I was also abandoned by my grandparents when I was a teenager. For some people it’s a sad story, for me it’s just my life. I don’t feel sad about it. I just make the most of it. And look where I’m now,” he explains.

The Breakthrough

Shock can be effective sometimes. Michael was a rebellious sixteen year old on holiday with his grandparents in Barcelona, and during that trip his family had enough of his ways and left him there. He saw himself in the streets of Spain with no money and no way to go back home and after four days finally got in contact with his grandfather who offered him a way back. The only thing was that he had to move out when he got back to the Netherlands.

Michael tells: “From the age of 16 I was on my own. And I didn’t have the right friends but at least they accepted me for who I was and took me in with them. Then I got in trouble. That was the point when I had to change my life. It was not a big thing yet, but it could turn into it. In the Netherlands there’s this thing when you are under 18, like a minor, where they will drop your charges and I was about to turn 18 so I knew I had to redirect my energy into something else, something good, and I chose cooking.”

This decision gave the young chef a purpose, a goal and a challenge that he started to enjoy. His focus shifted from trouble into learning and from bad behavior into trying to be the best cook at whatever kitchen he was working in. He did it and did it fast. Every time he felt like he had nothing else to learn at a restaurant, he jumped on to the next one, all until he found a job at an Italian restaurant named Tosca.

The Dish That Started It All

Michael remembers the moment when he actually started to leave his troubled ways behind and started to take cooking seriously. He was working at Tosca, an Italian-Mediterranean casual restaurant where his chef told him for the very first time that he could really cook. The compliment came with a challenge that would result in a dish he serves today at Tres.

“The chef told me «Ok, you can cook. But cook something that is you. Start buying Michelin starred chef books and go to good restaurants, see what else cooking can be and give me that dish that is you». It took me 6 months to present my dish. To this day we still have it in the autumn menu. A shallot crème with mini chicory, a cepes sauce and different types of kale,” Michael explains.

For Emy Koster it’s a very emotional dish. She runs the service at Tres, is in charge of the wines and is Michael’s partner in business and in life. She explains that the first time she tried that dish, years ago, she finally understood how someone can get emotional during a meal to the point of tears. 

“I tasted it when we put it on the menu two years ago. And I was eating at the bar because I was supposed to pick the wine. He was also serving it with a duck prosciutto on the side, that you could use after to scoop up all the sauce. Scarpetta. I tried it and he was looking at me like “So, you like it?”  And I got emotional. I just started to cry and I couldn’t focus on what was happening. He had to make it for me three times in total, before I could focus on what I was actually eating.” remembers Emy.

The Science of Tres

Someone creative can imagine things, have a vision and get inspired, but if that person doesn’t have the tools to bring all that to life, it dies. For Michael Van der Kroft being a self taught cook meant having to put extra work into learning and discovering techniques that would allow him to bring his dishes and flavor combinations to reality. After the death of his grandfather, he made a promise to himself to be the best chef he could be.

“At that point I told myself that I was going to give everything to do good. When you know how to cook but you don’t know the science, you get stuck. I went back into the science part because I always wanted to understand what was happening. When you start to understand things, cooking becomes science. I wasn’t a stupid guy, I just didn’t like school and made some stupid mistakes. At this point I was ready to make the right decisions and books were my best tools.”

Here is where the real essence of what’s happening today at Tres started. Michael’s obsession for research and information are now very obvious in his style of cooking, with very intricate and laborious types of preparations that usually start in the hyper-technologic lab inside of Tres. The dining experience happens mostly in a 12 seat bar, but during the meal, you’re also asked to go into different stations in the kitchen and to the lab to have some dishes and bites. The lab visit is a party for the freaky foodies of the world. A capsule of knowledge that makes you understand just a few of the techniques that they used to distil, ferment, cure, dehydrate or cook what you ate just minutes before. Van der Kroft and his team are experts in using koji as well as fermentation, pickling and other similar techniques to give character and flavour to each dish. And they pretty much have to because they don’t use salt, at all. They take flavour from the ingredients and enhance it with technique.

The Netherlands Through Seasons

Most produce-driven upscale chefs are very adamant about what they can do with a piece of fish, great seasonal vegetables or any of the meticulously selected ingredients that they get. Usually, for them, less is more. But when you have a personality like Michael Van der Kroft, cooking a langoustine to perfection and adding salt and a nice sauce just isn’t enough. It’s as if he found pleasure in making things complicated and intricate for himself, and as long as the result keeps being as delicious as the menu that I tried, he can keep doing so.

“My style is all about flavour. Just like I want to be surprised when I go out to eat, I want to surprise my guests. Then I’m happy. I think that that’s the key to having a great experience in a restaurant, and it doesn’t happen very often. When we create a dish at Tres we start with the technique, but always in direct relation to how to get the best flavour.”

His goal is to represent the Netherlands through each season. With that in mind he and his team have created four different menus, four worlds that show a different side of him and his country. The winter menu, for example, is a season where he highlights the sea with produce like dutch shrimp, lobster, smoked eel and crab. The spring is all about the lamb. The summer brings vegetables, fruits and even some insects, that they use for their flavor profile more so than for the shock factor in preparations like the garum of grasshopper. Last but not least the fall is all about the forest. Rabbit, duck, deer, mushrooms… This is how Michael truly translates his country to the bar of his incredibly cool restaurant and what it means for him to be a produce-driven, seasonal restaurant.

The Dishes (Of Winter)

The menu starts upstairs, right near the entrance with a glass of Champagne and different snacks. A starfish made out of milk is the first bite. Filled with a paste of quince, smoked turbot roe emulsion, preserved green gooseberry in sea lettuce, parsley oil and brushed with shrimp water to add the ocean essence to it. It’s a clear message: winter is the season of the sea at Tres. Next comes a black currant leaf glazed with the juice of its own berries and topped with a crab caramel, followed by a shrimp eclair topped with caviar. Delicious.

It’s time to take the stairs down into the basement. The first stop is a kitchen island where Michael presents a tray with all the (local) produce he’ll use that night to create the menu. Aged turbot, oysters from Zeeland, caviar from Eindhoven, lobster, yuzu and buddha’s hands citrus from a Dutch producer that has spent the last 18 years creating his farm and growing fruits and vegetables that are hard to find, koji and more. He then leads guests to the next area of the kitchen to have one of those Zeeland oysters, in tempura with inoculated barley. On to the 12 seat dining counter to get wines presented by Emy and more wonderful dishes: tortellini made out of only squid, with no pasta followed by two intense bites of cuttlefish with a pumpkin “XO”.

The next dish deserves an article of its own and not surprisingly is one of Michael’s signatures. A pear cooked for two days, glazed with broad bean tamari, black garlic gel and sauce from tomato and bell peppers. A perfect example of everything I wrote before about his ways. About imagining crazy combinations and about getting astonishing flavours out of elaborated preparations through technique. This truly is one of the best dishes of my life and my mouth waters as I remember what it was like to eat it. Stages of different, intense flavours layered by complementing textures, and it all comes from a pear. Unforgettable.

The sea of the Netherlands keeps splashing into the bar of Tres with more dishes. A fully edible mussel that’s not a mussel made from blackened lacto koji reduction and mussel juice reduction is next followed by another of my favourite dishes, a savory take on the traditional oliebol, filled with a salty surprise and with a side of trout ‘nduja to spread. Pure heaven. Each dish is presented in a very precise and beautiful way, like the lobster with egg yolk, or the yakitori of eel and lobster, another dish that guests take in the kitchen. 

It’s time for the dry aged turbot, with a rich white asparagus Beurre blanc that’s so good, it needs a special serving of bread on the side, this one equally good: an addictive brioche feulletée with seaweed. To end the savoury side of the menu, a monkfish liver soufflé with crab caramel, marinated sea lettuce and daily picked crab, or is it a pre-dessert? 

If you’re looking for a super sweet dessert, you have to wait for the next day and get a stroopwafel in the market. At Tres the desserts are still wonderfully connected to the sea, in look and flavor. Starting with the millefeuille made out of preserved sea lettuce, blackened amazake and pickled watermelon rind and gloriously ending with a red sfogliatelle that comes hidden in the shell of a lobster tail. Lobster tail pastry filled with a lobster caramel, mousse of rose and red gooseberries and a praline of peeled walnuts and Dutch caviar. 

All this is my evidence and my way of proving that Tres is onto something and that Michael Van der Kroft is not just a great chef that likes to “cook seasonal and with local produce”. He’s creating a new, powerful and exciting way to enjoy and taste the Netherlands through the seasons and by doing so he is living proof of what it really means to succeed coming from nothing.

Tres, Vijf Werelddelen 75, 3071 Rotterdam, Netherlands, www.tresrotterdam.com

The post Tres Rotterdam: How Michael Van Der Kroft Became A World Class Chef Through Hardship appeared first on Honest Cooking.

Most people have only seen the beautiful lands of New Zealand through a screen. Instagram, traveling shows, National Geographic or the Lord of the Rings sagas are most of the main connections this incredible country has with the rest of the world. And yes, it is as majestic and cinematic as you imagine it. Queenstown, in the southern island and a part of the Central Otago-region, is the house of Amisfield, the restaurant where local hero Vaughan Mabee cooks dishes that smell, taste, look and feel like his motherland.

In 2022, Mabee maintained the most coveted three hats status awarded by the Cuisine Good Food Awards in his country, on top of winning Restaurant of the Year and the Innovation Award. This year the accolades continue as he became a new candidate for the Best Chef Awards 2023, a list that ranks the top 100 chefs of the world voted by fellow chefs and industry experts from all over the globe. These awards come to confirm that uniqueness, originality and hard work pay off and that a talented and passionate chef can single handedly elevate the entire culinary status of a country by dreaming big and being authentic.

In Mabee’s world being authentic means being hyper seasonal. It means including his traditions and customs into the day to day operation of Amisfield. It means loving nature, the way kiwis love nature and honoring it in every single dish. It means foraging, gathering, fishing and hunting what he cooks. Those are the real values of his work in Amisfield and what makes a meal there a majestic, natural and surprising food experience.

Self Discovery

The beginning of Vaughan’s story is not nearly as unique as his present or as his creations in Amisfield. It’s the classic story of the kid that didn’t see eye to eye with school, moved on to working in a restaurant and without suspecting it, found his passion and purpose. A source of curiosity, hunger and drive that again, like in most cases, led him to embarque in an adventure far away from his native Auckland.

When he was seventeen years old he moved to America and found a new home in California, where he evolved through working in all types of kitchens and restaurants. When he was twenty six he was already in charge of a massive operation in a luxury hotel, with over four restaurants and fifty chefs to his charge, and it was then when he really fell in love with fine dining and the complexity of that side of the industry, which naturally led him to Europe.

“I moved near San Sebastian and I took a post working as a demi chef in meats with Martin Berasategui in Lasarte-Oria. He knew that I had been a chef for quite a while and asked me to cook him a few things because the Spanish chefs didn’t speak English. After a year doing service in this 3 star restaurant. He said: Hey, do you reckon you could cook these things for me? And he gave me a few cookbooks from the French Laundry or the Fat Duck, just certain things that he wanted to taste, but no one could do because they couldn’t read the recipe, and so it started. I was running R&D in a kitchen below the restaurant. We had like two weekly meetings and I’d give him the recipes and sometimes he would hate it and sometimes he would love it and we would share some champagne and yell GARROTE!”, explains Vaughan.

Homecoming

After spending his years with Martin Berasategui, Mabee changed locations to Denmark, specifically to Copenhagen, where he went all-in at Noma. As he explains, Noma was a completely different restaurant at that time, 2009, and he was a part of a group of only sixteen chefs. He started with the typical intern tasks and quickly became the chef in charge of snacks after doing time in pastry. Vaughan has huge respect for Rene till this day.

“René put me as chef de partie of snacks and it was very cool, running the snack station. It was pretty hectic, as you can imagine. I can’t even remember how many snacks there were, but there were a lot. And so I did that for a few months. Then we became the number one restaurant in the world. It was a great experience being there as part of the team when that happened because it made you feel pretty good. But quickly after, I felt like I wanted to go home. And I left Noma in 2010.” tells Vaughan.

In America he learned about organization and had a first encounter with truly fresh, quality produce. In Spain, Vaughan learned to embrace tradition and to be proud of his own roots, and in Copenhagen the chef learned about the power of being driven and how a leader can transmit that to his team to achieve greatness. Those are the lessons that the now winner of the best chef in New Zealand still carries with him every day into the kitchen of Amisfield. But over a decade ago, when he was just coming back home with no plan or no personal cooking style, his life just felt like a confusion of other cultures and other people’s ways of doing things. Like the grapes that grow on the Amisfield vineyards, he needed time to develop, reconnect with his land and create his own path.

Finding a Voice

When Vaughan Mabee returned to New Zealand after almost fifteen years of adventures and hard work, his curiosity and competitiveness led him to take a tour down south into nature, away from his native city of Auckland. There he found Amisfield that at the time had a completely different approach. He saw it as an opportunity, a canvas that at the time had an Italian influenced kitchen that had nothing to do with its surroundings. It was his chance to reconnect with his land and slowly create his own voice.

“I took this job when I was 31. And I was like, what am I going to do? Who am I? I was starting fresh and I wasn’t following anyone. I’m in the middle of nowhere and everything else that I like is way above me. I kind of felt like the underdog. I’m away. I’ve got this beautiful stone building that’s surrounded by vineyards, lakes, mountains and farms in the middle of nowhere. And I don’t care how long it’s going to take me, but from the bottom of the world, I want to rise to the top. I considered it a huge challenge. And it has been a challenge and a half, and I’ve been pushing myself for more than a decade and creating what I think is the new frontier of food. New Zealand is an underdog in the food world and my challenge is to change that.” says Mabee.

With that motivation he created what is now a unique type of food. His philosophy is showing New Zealand through his cooking. Like the animals that live freely on his island, he also feels a sense of freedom from being so far away from everyone and everything. Away from the noise and the influences. With no boundaries to create and to transform New Zealand’s own endemic flavors into fine dining and to turn every meal a guest experiences in Amisfield into a brand new experience, one that they can only have in Central Otago.

A Child of Earth

It’s a crazy concept but some people are never going to get to experience nature like Vaughan does every single day. To millions of people, meat is another product from the supermarket like soap or toilet paper and they never make the connection because they’ve simply never seen the animal in real life. Maybe that’s the reason why a city person can eat meat every day of his life but can’t handle hunting or the killing of animals. It’s a complete disconnection. Mabee is well aware of how important that connection to nature is to him, his family and his project and considers it for every single thing he does in life.

When you’re around so much nature and part of your upbringing, culture and life is to hunt and to share with living breathing animals around you, or to go fishing and to go to the sea, the meaning of loving and respecting nature changes. It’s definitely a touchy and controversial subject but Vaughan is very clear on what loving nature means to him and for his cooking. For him, fishing and hunting is a part of the mise en place and there is no other way.  Vaughan has close relationships with fisherman and hunters sometimes he hunts with to keep the wild touches on his menu. There are several aspects that Mabee highlights when he talks about hunting: The amount of wild animal life in New Zealand, the type of life these animals have compared to the farmed ones most people are used to eating and most of all, the respect he has for it.

“When you put in the work to kill an animal, the perspective changes. I’ll look at the animal and I’ll pick which one I’m going to shoot. For example I’ll look for the older, bigger deer. And I think to myself: This guy, he’s had an amazing life. He can go wherever he wants to go. He has amazing food in New Zealand because it’s so green here. He gets to have a family… It’s like he’s got everything that a human wants. People aren’t free, they’re sitting at a desk all day and they hate their job. This guy, he’s what I want to be. He’s got complete freedom and he’s just living exactly how he wants to live. And when I shoot that animal, when I eat that animal or prepare it for our guests, it tastes different from a farmed animal. It’s been in the wild. It’s been able to eat all this different food. It’s not just in a field, trapped. It’s free. So it has this flavor that a lot of people in big cities have never tried before and can only try here.”

In a way, New Zealand reminds you of Faroe Islands, a place where nature is completely intertwined with everything, where the traditions and customs seem to be more sustainable and healthy than most other places, but that at the same time raises a lot of controversy and seems to be misunderstood by outsiders. The truth is that it’s in places like these where I’ve experienced a true and real respect for nature. An appreciation of what is taken from it and a true sense of responsibility for making the most out of it, without waste, excess or abuse. A truly sustainable and functional ecosystem where, yes, even fine dining can be included.

The Taste of Amisfield

The first bite in Amisfield’s menu is a show of intentions. It’s a cone made with Greenbone, an endemic species, and cold horseradish from their garden that comes to the table using three greenbone heads as plates. It’s the first punch of flavor and identity that Mabee uses to set the tone for what’s to come. A rock with bright blue baby paua or abalone comes to the table. They are slightly warmed and served whole to get the true flavor of the paua abalone, that’s also native to the island and they are brought from Bluff, a seaport town in the most southern parts of the country. The wines of Amisfield’s organic single vineyard and other great wineries in New Zealand and the world create an amazing pairing also.

A truffle milk bread comes with a glass of Amisfield Pinot Gris 2016, then a big moment, a charcuterie board that encapsulates the flavors of the island in different types of cured meats from the land and the sea. Jamón, Putangitangi salami and wagyu tongue made in 2018 and treated like bresaola, with amazing texture and explosive umami. From the sea an incredible Paua Saucisson made out of huge oceanic paua abalone and pepper flavors balanced with wild boar fat.

Amongst favorite dishes were the New Zealand Bluff oyster, a national treasure. The Greenbone with a shoal of Whitebait and Beurre blanc, rich and buttery, and the moment of the whole beast that consisted of going outside and seated under the stars, in front of a big fire to have a piece of, for example, an elk that had been slowly cooking with birch wood and brushed in its own fat for 10 hours, all with a glass of Amisfield’s superb Pinot Noir.

Every dish feels as local and as intense as bungee jumping. Every single one has a story that connects it to Vaughan’s love for his own roots and ways. Unapologetically Kiwi, the savory part ends with a lamb’s tale confited in its aged fat, covered with a lamb fat wool that disappears in the table with a flame. “The tale is a history of New Zealand farmers eating the lamb’s tails and burning the wool over the fires while drinking beer after a long long day. It’s possibly the best thing I have ever eaten but you can judge.” My verdict: he’s right, one of the best things I’ve ever eaten, too.

The desserts deserve an article to themselves, but to not spoil the whole experience I’ll just mention them and leave some things to the imagination: an explosive heritage plum, a huhu grub that makes you feel like a character from The Lion King and a mind-blowing spiker antler made out of deer milk ice cream with blood caramel, a dish that took years to make and that now stands as a grand finale of one of the most exciting and unique fine dining experiences in the world.

Springtime at Amisfield

Amisfield Winery

One hour away from the restaurant, guarded by the dramatic and imposing Pisa mountain range, you can find the Amisfield vineyards and its winery, a 35 year old project that specializes in pioneering Pinot Noirs. Not nearly as old as the legacy and traditional wineries from Europe, but determined to make amazing juices that reflect their terroir and that translate Central Otago, a spectacular wine region of New Zealand, into the glass.

“The land is hard and our people are pioneers. They were hardy and determined to make it work. We live in the bottom of the world, we’re far away from absolutely everything. Imagine when our ancestors came here and found this land. They found nothing and built this nation out of nothing and that hardiness continues through our personalities today, into our determination for working the land and definitely through our wines.” Explains Olivia Herbert, an executive member of the Amisfield team.

Here the values and philosophy of connecting to nature are as important as in the restaurant. A winery that elaborates amazing new world wines and embraces hyper seasonality to produce around 35,000 cases every year. Quality over quantity – always. Their magnificent Pinot Noirs account for over 60% of the production – the rest comes from Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Riesling & Chenin Blanc, all done with as minimal intervention as possible and with organic certification.

Sam Davies, the chief winemaker at Amisfield conveys that being a young winemaking country has been a good thing for them. They have less regulations, traditions and restrictions that limit their creativity and ability to use different methods or techniques. Whilst tradition is fantastic in wine making, it’s not good if it becomes stifling or limits what they can achieve and this is exactly where the winery and Vaughan’s kitchen cross paths. Mabee also feels this same freedom from coming from a place that still has a long path ahead in terms of culinary culture.” It opens the box for us in the kitchen and for them in the winery, to be open minded and to actually create an elaborated Kiwi-food culture and wine scene”, Mabee ends.

Amisfield Restaurant
10 Arrowtown-Lake Hayes Road, Frankton,
Queenstown 9371, New Zealand
Website

The post Amisfield: A Majestic Food Experience at the Bottom of the World appeared first on Honest Cooking.

Veteran: a person who has had long experience in a particular field. That’s a perfect way to describe the career of Josiah Citrin. A Californian institution that now accumulates over two decades of success in the kitchen, two Michelin stars in his iconic Mélisse restaurant, one Michelin Star at Citrin restaurant and an empire of casual restaurants that keeps growing by the minute. His motto is “the pursuit of excellence” and that’s exactly how he runs his whole operation and how he manages to stay at the top of his game both as a chef and as a restauranteur.

Josiah comes from a family where food was always important and as a young man, he changed his surf board for pots and pans. His respect for the kitchen came from a very young age. His grandmother was French and always cooked amazing home meals and his mother was a catering chef in Santa Monica, so after high school he decided to become a chef. He quickly got a job as a prep cook for a French chef, a decision that led him to Paris where he worked for three years at Vivarois and La Poste, gaining an understanding of traditional French cuisine.

Video: Citrin, The Pursuit of Excellence

In 1990 Josiah returned to America where he worked in kitchens like Chinois, Wolfgang Puck’s celebrated restaurant. After a few more years of different fine dining work experiences, Citrin and fellow chef Raphael Lunetta opened JiRaffe in 1996, and after separating from that project, Citrin pursued his lifelong dream of opening his own. The dream came true and the first Mélisse was born. A fine dining establishment with a big French influence and traditional style that has evolved over the years but keeps on being one of Los Angeles most established restaurants. Today, with the help of chef Ian Scaramuzza, the second version of Mélisse shines brighter than ever and recovered its two Michelin Stars after the famous red guide came back to town.

But not everything is stars and fine dining for Josiah Citrin. Yes, he admits that the most memorable meals of his life have been at these types of restaurants and that he loves the anticipation, excitement and detail they put into the experience, but at the same time Josiah understands the power of casual food and how much Californians love it. For that reason he runs or co-runs what now can be fairly called a growing restaurant empire that includes Charcoal Venice, Openaire at the Line Hotel in Koreatown, Dear John’s in Culver City, Dear Jane’s in Marina del Rey and Augie’s on Main in Santa Monica. All vibrant establishments where his goal is to offer great food and simply make guests happy. Places that they can come back to over and over. Not pretentious, just great food. 

In a way, Citrin is in a stage in his life where he’s very clear of what he wants and how to get it. Experience gives you that. Time gives you that. Josiah seems to have found a golden formula that not all chefs can find: he’s also a good and dedicated restaurateur. Now, he’s growing his empire with confidence, ease and with the help of a great team of professionals and chefs in each of his projects. I had the opportunity to talk to Josiah to try to get some of the ingredients for that recipe for success that he found and this is what I discovered.

We all know Citrin and Mélisse but how would you describe each one of your more casual projects? 

Augie’s on Main is a fast casual restaurant, with really good products and well prepared food for a very reasonable price. It’ll be the best chicken you’ve ever had – the original dirty chicken from one Michelin-starred Citrin.

Openair is a multicultural restaurant in a greenhouse in the center of L.A’s Koreatown. We serve a multicultural menu with the best Californian product. We mix Korean, Japanese and American with a a bit of French technique. It’s the one that has the most stuff going on, but at the same time, it all blends together beautifully.

Charcoal is a very fun restaurant. A place where everybody has a good time, casual, fun atmosphere, amazing food and ingredients mostly cooked over coal or fire. A lot of people think of it as a steakhouse but it is much more than that. There are as many vegetables on the menu as steak. Almost 80% of the dishes come of charcoal. Even the Margaritas have activated charcoal in them.

Dear John’s is your classic 1960’s steakhouse. It’s a very Italian-American, clubby restaurant. Very dark place with no windows and red tablecloths. It used to be Sinatra’s favourite spot. There we serve a very traditional steakhouse menu. All the classics, with a twist. From shrimp cocktails to oyster Rockefeller, all the classic American cuts like prime sirloin, New York strip or ribeye, and sides like creamed corn or spinach, mashed potatoes or steak fries.

Dear Jane’s is Dear John’s baby bombshell sister in Marina Del Rey and an ode to the old classic American continental fish restaurants. We reinvent a lot of the classic dishes from the past by making them a little lighter and by using contemporary techniques. We still respect the classic ways though. If you order a trout amandine, for example, you get a trout amandine.

Can you tell if there’s a common thread to all your restaurants? What defines a Josiah Citrin restaurant? 

I feel like what brings them all together is our commitment to excellence in the genre that we’re doing, whatever it is. Take Charcoal for example. We don’t need to change the silverware every time and the food is family style but we use the utmost best products and technique to make sure that it’s done at the best level possible. We’re always going to try to make it a great experience for our guests. When you’re going to a place like Charcoal, you’re not going there to be fancy, you want a fun, party, relaxed, tasty experience, a place where you can go over and over. Like when you go to a tapas bar in Spain. 

I think that that’s also a common factor in all my restaurants and something we focus a lot on: the service. There’s a lot of different things that encapsulate good service and you have to think about what the guest is looking for to get it right. What good service in Mélisse is is very different from what good service in Dear John’s is. But it needs to be a good experience in all of our restaurants, one that’s specially designed for that genre of restaurant. 

You obviously have a success story in two areas. Chef and restaurateur. Can you tell me what you think your secret is to have achieved this level of success in both areas?

To be honest I think that some of it is luck and some of it is my focus to learn and grow. And dedication. You don’t come sleeping to what I have. And maybe I’m just cut out to handle both sides. I’m very committed to making things work and the challenge gets bigger and bigger as I open more restaurants. It was one thing to have one or two restaurants but now, all of a sudden, having all these restaurants it’s definitely harder to understand them all and keep them all working. So that’s a daily challenge that I still have to keep working on and I’m committed to learn how to be an even better restaurateur every day.

I feel like at some point I finally understood that I didn’t want to do all this just for the art of it. I did for a very long time with Mélisse, and we reached and stayed at a very high level, but as you start expanding you need to grow and adapt to what you need to do to be in business. I guess I have a little bit of both worlds in my brain, the creative and artistic side, and the business side. 

Apart from Mélisse and Citrin, you seem to be more happy with creating casual places. Do you see a future in fine dining? How do you think people from California feel about it?

I always see a future in fine dining. I love the fact that it’s always evolving too. It’s not that I don’t see a future in fine dining, it’s just that at the end of the day I’ve gravitated towards creating the types of restaurants that I feel like people want to go to in L.A. And also projects that I can grow and replicate. Take Melisse for example. It would be extremely hard not to say impossible to replicate that restaurant in different cities. 

When I started cooking in 1986 and moved to France, fine dining was a completely different thing than what it is now. It has evolved so much. When I heard stories from my grandfather about how fine dining used to be in France and then I finally got to experience it for myself in the 80’s, the stories and the reality were completely different. What he experienced was so different and changed so much, and it’s happened again since then until now. Just like my restaurant Mélisse has evolved over the last 22 years.  

What is fine dining? It’s the best of everything. The finest. It doesn’t mean having a tablecloth, or a certain type of service. It’s about having the finest food, techniques, ingredients, music, china wear, sound system… It is about the whole experience, and I don’t think that that’s ever going to go away. 

I think Los Angeles is definitely a more casual city. It’s hard to explain, but I feel like people here have this strange idea about fine dining. I can’t explain it and I don’t always get it either because these same people also travel around the world to eat at all the best restaurants. I’ve often thought that it has to do with time, but there’s so much going on here in California. So much to do and so much of it is outside, that people don’t really want to spend hours and hours sitting at a dinner table, which is fair.

What’s next for you? Do you want to continue expanding your restaurant empire? 

I’m opening another Charcoal on Sunset in Hollywood. I always wanted to grow this concept and do more of them. I think it’s so successful because it’s a simple restaurant that guests always want to go back to. Still with a lot of attention to detail and flavors though. People just like the food and the atmosphere. I would like to do Charcoals in other states.

What’s your favorite type of restaurant to go to?

Out of all my restaurants I would say Charcoal is my favorite one to go to. But at the same time I also love the experience of enjoying fine dining. The excitement, the techniques, the curiosity to discover what’s next… Some of my most memorable meals have been fine dining and I still remember them perfectly. Those experiences can really impact you.

Can you tell me a dish you would highlight from Citrin, Charcoal’s, Mélisse

From Citrin, I would highlight the Lobster Bolognese. That dish is Citrin’s DNA.

Charcoal is a hard one. Right now I thought the grilled calamari and green bean salad is a great example of what we do. It represents the mix of fresh and grilled. I love how unexpected the combination is and how well it all blends together. 

Then from Mélisse it’s also very difficult because we keep evolving and changing. But instead of mentioning just one dish, I would highlight the whole menu and our use of technique. It really is all about excellence and details when it comes to Mélisse.

The post Josiah Citrin: The Pursuit of Excellence appeared first on Honest Cooking.

Over a decade ago, a young Fredrik Berselius created Aska, a fine dining restaurant where his goal was to cook tasting menus with meaning. Menus that tell his personal story as a whole but where each dish can also stand out for what it is. After opening his first location in 2012 and earning his first Michelin star, Berselius expanded his vision, changed partners and moved locations to then reopen in 2016 – and in only four months, he earned two Michelin stars and shortly after an outstanding three starred review by Pete Wells in The New York Times.

VIDEO: ASKA RESTAURANT IN BROOKLYN

Aska, Swedish for ashes, stands today as one of the quintessential Nordic restaurants in New York City and America. Everything happens in a restored 1860s warehouse hidden in the shadows of the Williamsburg Bridge. A blac dining room is the perfect frame for this experience where 14 dishes are served straight out of the open kitchen by the chefs themselves and where guests are taken on a journey through the natural landscapes of New York, the North East of the US, and Scandinavia.

From Sweden to the United States

The story of Fredrik Berselius’ move to the U.S. can be summed up in one word: Curiosity. As a teenager, surrounded by Sweden’s wild nature and relative tranquility, occasional summer trips to London to visit his sister, who, at the time, studied hotel management, gave Berselius his first experiences working in a kitchen, sparking his interest in gastronomy and planting a seed for the future.

“I never imagined that I might one day become a chef. My sister Michaela was my first introduction to the industry. When I was a teenager, she moved to London to study hospitality and had several close chef friends there who worked with legends like Alain Ducasse and Pierre Koffman. We all spent a lot of time together and I did a few kitchen stints while visiting. The whole experience opened my eyes to the industry in ways I had never considered before. I would listen to stories about cooking at that level and all the pressure and intensity that came with it – it was like putting on a performance every night. I found it fascinating and it planted a seed. Eventually I wanted to see something different from my Stockholm life, and since I had already spent time in London, I wanted to explore New York. During my visit I ended up becoming a model by chance after being scouted on the street one day, and then working as one for almost two years until I decided to change paths”, explains Fredrik.

Ultimately his innate curiosity and creative spirit led him back into the kitchen where he found endless inspiration.

Intuition and Inspiration

At a very early stage of his culinary career, Fredrik worked with a couple of chefs in a Swedish grill in New York. There, he realized that he wanted to pursue a career as a chef. A fine dining chef that would eventually open a tasting menu restaurant. And yes, in 2023 this sounds very obvious, but almost two decades ago, this wasn’t the goal of most young cooks. One experience that left a lasting impression on him was watching how these two chefs created menus and dishes seemingly out of thin air to take care of a group of their friends that were visiting from out of town. For him, this was the first time he noticed people cooking in a restaurant kitchen with a certain level of care and intuition paired with a genuine intention to make others happy, to make them feel taken care of.

“I remember them (the two chefs) having friends visiting from out of town and they offered to cook a meal for them instead of ordering from the menu. It impressed me how they took the time to prepare and create a one-of-a-kind tasting menu and present each dish to the table. I admired their creativity and care, the level of hospitality that I witnessed and the impact it had on the guests. I realized working in a restaurant could be so much more than just cooking food but how the entire experience mattered. I called my mother the next day to let her know I wanted to pursue this as a career.” explains Fredrik.

In that quote, maybe without noticing it, Fredrik mentions his other big inspiration: His mother. Like many chefs he stumbled into this profession by chance but something that he can recognize is the influence his mother had and still has on his cooking style. She was an excellent home cook, preparing dinner every night for the family, and it wasn’t uncommon she would bring Fredrik and his sister to pick wild mushrooms and berries in the forests nearby to later prepare or preserve in various ways. It was a very natural thing to do as a Scandinavian, to have that daily contact with ingredients in this very organic and raw form, and that is still a big part of what he brings to the table at Aska, but now done in his new environment.

Hard Work and Time

One of the most important ingredients in fine dining is time. That’s a big part of the luxury. The time that it takes for a chef to gain all that knowledge, technique and skill and to make their talent blossom. The time that it takes to create a concept, a dish, a team, an experience. The time needed to find the best possible ingredients (that usually also require time to grow or get produced outside of the restaurant) and then to transform them, clean them, ferment them, cook them, and plate them into delicate confections that will get devoured and judged in a couple of minutes.

For Fredrik Berselius this means 20+ years and since he first got in a kitchen over two decades ago, he’s never stopped working hard. From small cook jobs to cooking school, two Michelin-starred Aquavit and three starred Per Se, the road to independence was not easy. Being the first one in and the last one out of service as a young competitive chef who once got a taste of the fine dining world by working at Aquavit and never looked back. Having to overcome failure in the early stages of his career. Having to basically build his restaurant himself. All these things are just a few examples of the conviction that a chef needs to create a vision like Aska in a city like New York. 

After working at Per Se, Fredrik had the opportunity to run a small restaurant as a chef de cuisine for a year and a half. His plans to open his own restaurant were put on hold when the economy crashed in 2008 and he ended up taking different job opportunities. “I ended up running a restaurant where we received a Michelin star. In a way, that became a big motivation for me: Michelin. I wanted to get a star for every restaurant that I worked for. To me it meant that I was delivering the food and experience at its highest level, and coming from Europe, Michelin was always the bar, it was the highest accolade. There’s always something very special and mystical about the Michelin Guide.” says Berselius.

Aska I & Aska II

Aska means ashes in Swedish. When Fredrik first tried to open a restaurant it was called ‘Frej’. Frej is the Norse god of fertility, peace, rain and sunshine and the word means seed. In Norse mythology the world ends in a big fire where Frej is killed and everything burns down, but then the world comes back together, and for the chef it felt like that could be the name of a new start. Ashes. If you imagine a forest fire, so many things thrive after that. So he wanted to look at it as this new growth. Something new, exciting and different. A new energy coming out of the ashes. 

“It definitely didn’t happen overnight and there were several times I was close to pushing the ‘go’ button, yet the circumstances ultimately weren’t right. I dreamed of this restaurant soon after I started cooking and it took a long time to make it a reality. In 2011, after the lease on a space in lower Manhattan fell through, I along with a former chef colleague of mine opened a restaurant called Frej that operated three days a week in a space we shared with a bar and café. It started with only the two of us cooking and serving all the food, however within a few weeks the word started to spread and the New York Times and others wrote about us. Eventually we couldn’t keep up with reservations and the waitlist was so long. Then I launched Aska in the same space and we received a Michelin star within the first year.

It was a dream come true but Berselius soon realized that he needed a proper space to evolve, so he made the decision to close that location in 2014 and star preparing to find a new one. It was a big risk for the chef to move at a peak moment of success, but he simply felt that they outgrew the original building. And even though the process ended up being a prolonged search, it ultimately led them to where they are right now.

“I fell in love with this particular space the moment I found it, although it required a lot of imagination to get it where it is today, and we did quite a major renovation and reconstruction. The time between closing and opening was perhaps after all a blessing in disguise – it allowed for me to refine my vision, not only in terms of food, yet in every aspect of the process from the design of the restaurant, to building the team and developing the style of service. The process of reopening was truly a labor of love and I worked on it constantly, on every element beyond just the food and concept. Even though I had contractors and a team of builders I can say that I probably know every single screw in there. Since we faced certain delays, at one point I just had to decide to open it, even without it being fully ready. The building is from the 1860s and in addition to our main dining room has a cellar, garden and private dining room. I wanted Aska to have a home that we could grow with. I wanted a space where the food, service and atmosphere work in harmony.” tells Berselius.

The struggle to open following turned into the struggle to stay open. But a text message that the chef got during a meeting with investors to discuss the situation changed everything. The famous red guide leaked days before it was supposed to be announced and Aska, after only four months of opening in this new location, received two Michelin stars. The restaurant went from zero to a hundred in days and Fredrik didn’t even have time to blink for almost two years. It was the confirmation that his then unseen talent needed for people to give it a chance and the result was pure love.

A Storyteller of Nature

Nature has always been the main pillar of Fredrik Berselius’ life and the main character of the story that he wants to tell with his cooking at Aska. This doesn’t mean that it is a static story, on the contrary, just as nature, his ideas, flavors and dishes change with the years and seasons. There’s an evolution. A sense of maturity that the chef has found over the years and translates into his dishes.

“Nature is of course a huge inspiration, and the relationship between where I have come from (Sweden) and where I am now, here in New York, is central to what drives the narrative at Aska. Cooking has always been a medium for me to feel connected to where I’m from and to take guests on a little journey through flavors hopefully transporting them to the seaside, to a rocky beach with ice cold waters, a stunning old-growth pine forest or to fragrant flowering fields,” says the chef in an almost poetic way that defines his love for nature and his source of constant energy and inspiration.

At Aska, Berselius and his team continually go out of their way to find exceptional ingredients to work with, many of which come from New York and the northeast region. 

“One place in particular that I love to look to for ingredients and inspiration is the pristine nature of the Catskills, where I also try to spend as much time as possible when the restaurant is closed. The natural landscape surrounding New York and especially when you drive several hours north of the city reminds me so much of areas you can find in Sweden, and many of the ingredients are similar. When I am there it always makes me feel reconnected to where I grew up, and I try to bring those flavors and feelings back to the restaurant. Many people forget that there is incredible nature surrounding New York. That’s what we hope people will get a taste of when they visit Aska – to create an environment where people can come to the restaurant, have dinner and hopefully be transported in a sense.”

A Place, A Dish

Fredrik Berselius refers to places as his true form of inspiration more so than memories of food. To this day he still does his best to spend time in nature, in upstate New York and when he does, he finds himself trying to encapsulate those trips into flavors for his dishes at Aska. Almost in the way that Jean-Baptiste Grenouille tried to distill the scents of everything that surrounded him in “Perfume”, the chef wishes to distill his impressions and take them down to Brooklyn to share them with his guests.

For example, the first snack which is the bladderwrack, which is this type of seaweed. It grows on the rocks and the chef remembers playing with it as a child while his mother told him not to. Next to the seaweed on these rocks you could find blue mussels laying around. The snack is a dried bladderwrack seaweed with blue mussel emulsion that reminds Berselius of what it tastes like being right there on these rocky beaches with crashing waves and the sun shining.

“Another one is the linden flowers, that we source during the few hot weeks here in New York when you can just pick them from trees. In that season you can just walk down certain streets and they smell like this sweet honey. We preserve them to be able to serve this in the winter time, to bring back a little bit of the summer to our guests. The dish is the Kohlrabi compressed with linden leaf oil and linden flower vinegar,” Fredrik explains.

The Aska Flavor

Another example of the flavor and concept of Aska transformed into a dish is the trout serving. “For me it very much conjures memories from visiting my grandfather’s summer house and the surrounding area, while simultaneously of the Catskills in upstate New York where I love to spend time. It’s basically taken out of the ecosystem of that area, about three hours away from the restaurant and you have birch trees, reindeer moss, white currants, and trout swimming in the creek. You have everything there and we just put those elements and flavors on the plate and it tastes like nature and reminds me of my early days in Sweden,” tells Fredrik.

A bite of any dish at Aska feels like a discovery of a new and exciting way to experience flavors that we all enjoy and recognize. The chef aims towards elegance, thoughtfulness and harmony, and his final goal is to make guests feel just as spoiled as the friends from his two bosses back in the Swedish grill years ago. A meal at Aska should always feel like a celebration and dishes like creme Royal with claw of lobster, trout roe and sauce Sandefjord; the Danish kingfish with pristine oscietra caviar, smoked eel, green gooseberry and juniper or the grilled tail of langoustine with a sauce of the caramelized shells and red gooseberry make for a great one.

In that way it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Michelin inspectors named Fredrik’s seared New York state venison with plump sunchoke-studded morel mushroom and venison bones reduction infused with toasted hay as the first one of their list of the most memorable dishes of 2022.

Aska
47 South 5th Street
Brooklyn NY 11249
+1 929 337 6792
www.askanyc.com

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Georgia is a gracious country. A melting pot of history, culture, art, gastronomy and a wine making tradition that gains admirers around the world, making it become a desired destination for travelers and foodies that want to travel outside the box. The country has been going through a sort of a culinary awakening in the past years. New bars and restaurants are opening all over. Their local wines are coming in from cities like Kakheti and Imereti and provide juice to natural wine bars and fine dining restaurants that dare to go on that route all over the world, and foodies are starting to change their trips to Spain, Italy and France, to venture into this land where Persian, Turkish and Russian influences combine to result in the most bohemian corner of the globe.

Tbilisi is now even the home for a new international food event: Tbilisi Gastro Week organized by Irakli Nadareishvili. Last year, on its first edition, the event hosted star chefs like Maksut Askar from the Michelin star restaurant Neolokal in Istanbul, João Oliveira from the one Michelin star restaurant Vista in Algarve and Janaina Rueda from the super successful A Casa do Porco in Brasil, restaurant that holds the 7th spot on the prestigious list of The World’s 50 Best. Talks, tastings, a special screening of the documentary “Michelin Stars: tales from the kitchen” hosted by its culinary producer Kristian Brask Thomsen, and an array of collaboration dinners and local star chefs events took place during that week, all with the promise to return this year for a second edition.

All these ingredients are turning this country into a recipe for success. The perfect place for a food and wine lover to explore. But gastronomic events aside, what makes Georgia so attractive is its food and how important the whole ritual of eating and sharing is for them. A great example is the fact that their supras, their traditional feasts, were inscribed into their Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2017. Those supras are a celebration of the history of their land through flavors and toasts. An almost excessive show of fresh ingredients, breads, grilled meats, cheeses and of course, bottles and bottles of ambar, white or red wines that flow the beat of the designated Tamada, the toastmasters of the feast. 

The instagram friendly khachapuri, a cheesy bread that hugs your soul, or the explosively flavorful khinkali that reminds you that you are in a land located between Europe and Asia are my two personal favorites local dishes. But the one that surprised me the most as a Venezuelan was the mchadi, a cornbread that reminded me of Venezuela’s most consumed and loved dish, the arepa. It’s simply real food. Tasty, simple, unpretentious, fresh and with a lot of soul. 

Places like Pheasant’s Tears in Sighnaghi, a cellar committed to reviving Georgian varieties and lesser known terroirs directed by John Wurdeman, or Chveni in Tbilisi from chef Guram Baghdoshvili are great examples of this renaissance I’m writing about. Restaurants that represent to perfection this new wave of Georgian cuisine that combines tradition and heritage with creativity and a new point of view. Another protagonist of this culinary story is star local chef Tekuna Gachechiladze, owner of five different restaurants like Cafe Littera in Tbilisi or Silver Lakes Farm in the Allazani Valley. I spoke to her about her role in the renaissance of Georgian cuisine and this is what she had to say.

A lot of people give you credit for this new wave of Georgian cuisine Tekuna. Can you tell me your side of the story?
Georgian cuisine has always been a fusion cuisine because of the silk road, because of so many invitations and rules. We were ruled by Persians, Mongols, Russians…and this all left a significant mark in our culture. You could say that I’ve had a big role in the development of new Georgian cuisine. What I did was to go back into our history, explore, study and then, with my point of view, rewrite and rebuild our traditions. It was something that happened very organically and naturally.

I really never intended to do this. In the year 2000 I was living in New York and the city was leading a gastronomic movement to bring new flavors and ideas into American cuisine. When I came back to Tbilisi in 2004 I wanted to do the same thing for our cuisine, and that’s how it all started, very naturally.

Another thing I did was incorporate raw fish into our cuisine and culture with dishes like the trout carpaccio with peaches, or a new take on our traditional Kharcho soup but instead of using beef, I used shrimp. And even though the shrimp are not local, my intention was simply to open the minds and palates of people and make them see that tradition and creativity can produce great things.

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Berlin is one of those very few cities where anything goes. Where people authentically strive for individuality and uniqueness, where “the norm” doesn’t exist and people (and chefs) get to be themselves. This is exactly what brought René Frank to the German capital to create CODA, and what made this very special restaurant such a big success, earning two stars in the Michelin guide, and many special awards.

At CODA, René changes and challenges pretty much the whole idea of what it means to go to a fine dining restaurant. The first and biggest difference is that the dessert, a dish traditionally saved to end the meal, becomes the star. A desserts tasting menu composed of 13-14 servings that are paired with specially created cocktails and petit fours is presented to every guest, all done without refined sugars or processed industrial ingredients. The key to having an extraordinary time at CODA? Leave all your expectations at the door.

The Beginning

René Frank’s career is testament to what can result from hard work, creativity and vision. He traveled the world to work in all types of restaurants and kitchens. From Barcelona at the legendary Oriol Balaguer’s chocolaterie, to three Michelin-starred Akelarre in San Sebastian and Lampart’s, with two stars in Switzerland.

Asia was also one of the stepping stones towards his future in Berlin. René Frank passed through Nihon Ryori RyuGin with three Michelin stars in Tokyo, and Kikunoi, also with three stars in Kyoto, before coming back to Europe and Centre de Formation from Alain Ducasse in Paris. It was during his time as head pastry chef at La Vie in Osnabrück (the restaurant received its third star during that period) that Ren´Frank realized something that would lead him towards creating CODA.

“I used to work as a pastry chef at a three Michelin-starred restaurant where I acknowledged all this and there I started to create lighter desserts just so that guests could finish my chocolates in the end. I got more and more into plant based desserts, sugar reduced and fat reduced. At that time I algo got sort of obsessed with not using industrial or refined products.”

A Different Project

At CODA, René Frank, his recently appointed co-head chef Julia Leitner, who’s been involved in the project since day one, and the rest of the team draw inspiration from patisserie techniques from around the world. Every course is carefully composed to be different. To deliberately challenge conventions, break boundaries and surprise their guests with unexpected flavor, temperature and texture combinations, all done without processed or artificial ingredients and being environmentally conscious.  

“In pastry all over the world, from Tokyo to Berlin, Barcelona to New York, you get a pastry, and all of them use the same processed chocolate and bases, the same fruit purees and processed fats and even the same molds and shapes. All over the world, the same result. Then even as a pastry chef you get your recipes from the same companies that sell these products and end up having no idea about pastry, and it ends up all being the same. It kills the art of pastry and that’s why we do things differently at CODA,” René explains.

For René Frank, avoiding industrially processed products is an obvious choice at this level of gastronomy. What he wants is to find pure, natural ingredients that have their own distinctive flavor profiles. For him, partially refined products limit the craftsmanship of a pastry chef and as a result, his creativity and potential.  

Sweet Berlin

Before 2016, when CODA opened, René Frank had something very clear. He had an idea that was going to be centered around desserts and cocktails. It’s not the first of its kind as René says himself. You can find other examples of dessert restaurants like Espai Sucre in Barcelona, but they were still sure that they could do things differently and the only place that he envisioned for that project was Berlin.

“When I thought about a dessert restaurant concept I knew that the only city in Germany where you could do this was Berlin. This is why I focused on Berlin and how I met Oliver, my business partner. Berlin is a city where you can do what you want and be what you want. You can go out wearing a pink tutu and nobody questions it or judges you.” 

It was that Berlin freedom that made it ok for him to jump into this adventure without having all the answers. Was CODA going to be a bar? A restaurant? A Michelin- starred restaurant? He didn’t know back then. But now, with perspective he realizes that CODA dessert dining is what it is because he had time to experiment, to develop his idea and to discover his own voice in a city that gave him the space to do so. 

What Is A Dessert?

I personally love desserts and I’m one of those people who are convinced that a meal is not over without that special ending. The origin of the word comes from the French term desservir, which refers to the moment when the table was cleared of all plates and glasses, and left free and ready for the sweet surprises. Those surprises are very different from the rest of the meal. The ingredients, the techniques used to make them, the flavors… it’s all just a world of its own. But one thing that’s very important to understand is that a dessert is not a dessert because of the amount of sugar it has. 

“Techniques are different, flavors are different, textures are different, and that’s what makes something a dessert for me, not the amount of sugar that’s inside. Let’s say you make a cake and you take out all the sugar. It’s the same dish but just not sweet anymore, so I think it shouldn’t be defined just by sweetness,” explains René in a very simple and eye-opening way.

The cherry on top of all these aspects that make desserts different is the nostalgia. For René Frank, most desserts have that nostalgic aspect that reminds guests of a particular season, a moment, a person or a childhood memory, some savory dishes too, but to him, most desserts have that special quality. In that way, a big part of his idea was to take advantage of that nostalgic feeling and make a whole menu out of desserts. An experience of gustative memory and nostalgia.

The CODA Way

Most people define desserts by sweetness. It’s the one flavor you usually don’t have during a meal so if you analyze it, desserts usually have and combine specific types of flavors and textures, completely different from the ones you find on snacks, starters or main dishes. But desserts also change depending on the context. It can be a pastry to end a breakfast or brunch, a piece of cake with a coffee in the afternoon, or the last dish after an eight course savoury menu.

“The context changes what the guest wants and if you have a menu like ours, then you need to include sweet, salty, acidity, bitterness, and different textures. That way, guests don’t leave our restaurant missing anything.” says René. But what is it that they serve at CODA?

The experience begins with the snacks, bites that will make you understand if you didn’t already, that in CODA you will not find the typical cakes and soufflés. A gummy bear made from dehydrated red beet is the first one, followed by a rice churro with a miso-tofu cream that you can pair with Champagne or sake, delicate and balanced. We continue with a candied lettuce with cream cheese and pickle powder and end the snacks with a small but very rich beef cake, done by replacing the usual fat element of a cake recipe with bone marrow. This is one of the very very few animal elements of the entire menu.

My idea is not to spoil the whole experience by revealing the surprises, but to explain the types of dishes and flavors that define CODA and what a dessert can be to them. For example, one of their signature dishes is the parsley dessert, made with parsley root ice cream, crispy parsley leaf and root, parsley leaf oil and a lime vinaigrette with black garlic cream. Yes, this is a dessert and you have to try it to understand it.   

Cocktail Is The Sauce

Drinks are a key element of the CODA concept. Out of the bar come preparations that are thought to make this menu impact even more. You could almost compare the cocktail pairings of every dish to what sauces do for a regular savory menu at any fine dining restaurant. They complete the idea, round up the flavors and elevate the dish.

“We knew that we wanted a place where guests wanted to spend their evening and with that came alcohol. Not always, but most people like to accompany their special diners with wine or alcohol, and again, since we wanted to make things differently, we decided that a wine pairing would be too simple. It also happens that dessert wines are very sweet and it would have been too intense. Then I thought that some traditional desserts, pastries and chocolates include alcohol, like a Crêpes Suzette or a Baba au Rhum… So I figured that it would be a good idea to always combine every dessert with a cocktail,” says René.

For example when you get a dish like the raclette waffle, served straight from the iron with dehydrated kimchi and yogurt, you also get a cocktail composed by Berliner Weisse Kennedy, Aquavit Dill Anis, Dill Eau De Vie and Pear. 

“I love challenges and CODA was a big one, so why not make it even more challenging by adding a cocktail to every dish? It ended up being a very special touch because CODA now offers not only complex dishes, but also complex drinks.” René Frank.

CODA, Friedelstraße 47, 12047 Berlin, Germany, www.coda-berlin.com

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Bangkok is as stimulating as it gets. A city famous for never sleeping, for its nocturnal street food markets recommended by Michelin, spicy food that makes any foreigner sweat, exuberant palaces, reclining buddhas, Muay Thai fights, and crazy parties. There, in the heart of one of the most polluted cities in the world, Deepanker Khosla created Haoma, a passion project where he gives a modern twist to his Indian origins.

After spending almost half his life inside a kitchen, ‘DK’, as friends and colleagues call him, reached a milestone in his career in November of 2022: he received his first Michelin star and a green Michelin star on the same night for his outstanding work towards creating a zero waste, environmentally conscious restaurant. This after being one of the three first ever recipients of the “Champions of Change” award by the World’s 50 Best in 2021, an award that recognises and celebrates unsung heroes of the hospitality sector who are driving meaningful action and creating blueprints for a better world. This is the story of how he got there.

The Result of a Burn

DK was born in Allahabad, a small town in India that’s mostly famous for three things: for being the holiest piece of land in hindu-mythology, for the literature that comes out of there, and unfortunately, for having a high crime rate. That last reason made Deepankers mother push him out of there as quickly as 17 years old, when he took some professional courses that included advertising, business studies and cooking. 

On his first day in culinary school he made friends with a guy who was in charge of a bakery, who instantly offered him a job. He was 3000 kilometers away from home and as soon as he started, without even having a uniform, he had to sift 50 kilos of flour into a bin. “It was like a joke, I was completely white and the whole staff was laughing at me” says DK. From that day on he was in that bakery every single day, even skipping class and only just making his way to culinary class in the hotel school. He fell in love with it and spent a whole year working there until he had his first taste of working at a hot kitchen – and got burned.

“The first time I got a massive burn, working at the tandoor oven, as crazy as it sounds, I knew I had to leave the bakery and get into the kitchen. In the beginning it was just something I did on my days off, but then it became an obsession. I’ve been working 7 days a week since I was 17 years old. It’s just who I am. I am a high energy guy and I need to burn it somehow, working is the best way that I’ve found. It was 2007, I watched Gordon Ramsey on TV and just wanted to be like him. I stayed up at night sharpening my knife for the next day and made it my goal to surpass the other guys that had been working in that kitchen for years,” explains Deepanker energetically. He’s never stopped since then, and at this point he’s been working in a kitchen for 16 years, almost half his life.

From India to Bangkok

In a way, DK used his culinary school and his trainee programs as a way in, as an excuse to get into kitchens where he would quickly stand out for his work ethic and energy. It was so that he ended up being in charge of whole areas of the kitchen in the Luxury Collection hotels in India while still being a trainee, a chain where he had his first approach to sustainability and where he learned to appreciate and admire fine dining.

“At that time my boss was Chef Shivneet Pohoja, the coach for Bocuse D’Or India. He was the first Indian to qualify for Bocuse, and in general the vibe and the energy of the kitchen made me fall in love with that type of cooking. The cleanliness and the beauty caught me. There was also a Chinese master chef in the kitchen, Adrian Chua, and just looking at them and their work made me realize that I was on the right path.” explains Deepanker.

That intense work ethic was the one opening doors for him and the next one would be international. In little time he was a 24 year old executive chef presented with the opportunity to open a restaurant in Bangkok called Charcoal and to keep working with the hotel chain. In its first year it was the 11th best restaurant in Thailand, and DK’s new home.

The Food Truck and The Dream Restaurant

After two years in Thailand, DK left the hotel chain executive position and jumped into an adventure that took him all around Asia. He got a food truck, and yes, even then he thought about how to make it more sustainable. “It ran on natural gas, the electricity was operated on a solar charged battery, it had a solar generator, a gray water recycle tank… everything that I knew, I compressed into a truck.”

He traveled from Bangkok to Phuket, to Vietnam, to Cambodia and all across Southeast Asia looking for like minded people, discovering ingredients, flavors and recipes and even creating relationships that still last to current Haoma-days. It was back then, for example, during a 13 day obliged stop due to a mechanical failure, that he met Keow, a farmer that not only still brings fresh produce to Haoma, but who also planted that first seed that grew into a deep love for farming that DK now applies in his restaurant’s garden in the city and in his farm just outside Bangkok.

It was also at that time when he and his friend Deepak went into business together after a year of managing the food truck. They started NutriChef, a healthy food business that DK still runs to these days with great success and that started in the same house where Haoma stands today. It was that success and the urges DK had to go back into fine dining that led to Haoma. It started small, as a 16 seat à la carte restaurant, but their main investment went into the farm inside the restaurant. They built a rainwater harvesting system, a fishery, and laid a solid foundation for what it is right now: a green heart in the middle of the polluted chaos of Bangkok.

The Flavor of Haoma

It had been a long time since young DK went home and experienced his native city, almost 3 years. When he finally went back, he ended up going to these small alleys where he used to eat lamb kebab and curries out of restaurants that are 350 years old. It was then that he realized (or remembered) who he was and what he loved about food. He understood that his mission was to bring the cuisine that he was born into, to the rest of the world. 

“Why was I trying to defy who I am rather than be the brown man spinning pasta in a parmesan wheel? Now I can look back and acknowledge that in the beginning of Haoma I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do because of the complexes I brought from India. Before Thailand I had never left India, I never traveled, I was in my own shell and came from a very small town. I was chasing this idea of the person that I needed to become to make it outside of India, and in a way, that trip back home made me realize that I was doing it all wrong.” says the chef.

That eye opening trip ended up becoming a culinary reunion with his roots, a time to revisit and try all the food that felt real and familiar and that made him realize that he needed to bring his cuisine and his country back to Haoma. “We were already in year two of the project and as soon as I came back to Bangkok, I sat down to have lunch with the sous chef and said: “we’re going Indian. We’re going to cook our cuisine.” Then the flavor profile in the restaurant took a 360, they identified themselves as neo-Indian cuisine and started cooking traditional Indian food with modern technique and presentations that they had learned over the years. 

A Foodie Emperor’s Chef

Akbar Shah II, who was the last emperor of the Mughal rule in India, the son of the man who built the Taj Mahal, was famous for being a foodie. His last fortress was in DK’s city, Allahabad, and in there, he had a kitchen with more than 60 cooks. To this day there are records of what was being cooked there on a day in 1672. 

When the British came in and abolished the rules of the emperors of India, the chefs were forced to leave the palace and they spread out in the city, opening little shops that are now 7th or 8th generation small restaurants. Everybody talks about how if you go to Japan, you’ll be able to find a ramen shop that’s been cooking the same dish for 100 years. In Haoma, they proudly serve a curry that’s been done for 350 years, in the same shop by the same family.

“I asked myself what I could do as a chef to show that to the world rather than doing a curry spherification. The answer was to do justice to my cuisine and bring it to the highest possible level. That when my mother or my father come to eat at Haoma they recognize the flavors. I wanted them to say: “BAMM, this is it, Son.” And that’s why we now focus on creating undiluted and unapologetic neo-Indian cuisine,” Deepanker explains.

After his first trip back home he had the opportunity to go back and work for two weeks at one of these small curry shops. Madina Hotel, run now by the 6th grandchildren of one of those cooks from the last palace of the Akbar, where they only cook one dish: a curry. A very humble place where the focus is on cooking because cuisine draws people to places. A food legacy. A part of the history of global cuisine and a source of knowledge, information and inspiration for what DK does now in Bangkok.

A World Crisis = #NoOneHungry

The world changed in March 2020. It was on March 17th that DK, his business partner and his restaurant manager sat down to decide the next steps, and very quickly the priority wasn’t the business, it was the people. So, with a very organic and natural urge to make the most out of all the food they had left in the restaurant (including hundreds of kilos of rice) they started preparing very simple meals that they wrapped in banana leaves and took to the homeless. The first day they took 150 meals and just in a matter of hours, they had a line of hundreds of people that they couldn’t help. “The problem was way bigger than what we imagined” explains Deepanker as he explains the birth of his No One Hungry initiative.

It was this initiative that got DK the “Champion of Change” award by the World’s 50 Best in 2021. At that time they had cooked 125.000 meals to people in need in the city by raising more than 20.000 dollars in donations. Today the count has way surpasses a half a million meals and now that Haoma is open again and that the pandemic seems to be under control, DK is planning to move this project to create Bangkok’s first permanent soup kitchen where anyone in need can get a free meal, regardless of their nationality or condition.

Being a migrant himself, DK only naturally feels a special commitment to this usually marginalized and often abused group of the population. During the pandemic he was in awe as he realized how easily thousands of migrants were laid off with no help from their employers or from the government, and that made him put even more energy in No One Hungry. “The migrants are the backbone of this city” says DK. Another way he helps them? The entire team at Haoma is composed of migrants, some of them without the actual experience but all with that same energy and determination that made Deepanker Koshla succeed and become the Michelin-starred chef he is today.

As Sustainable as Flavorful

I could write a book out of DK’s backstory and intense career but after all that context: What is Haoma like today? It is a display of Indian culinary history, modernized through the eyes of DK. It is the result of a deep study and exploration of his roots and a journey that takes guests from East to West, from the land to the sea and through every corner of the immense Indian territory, all done with Thai produce, most of which they grow themselves.

Haoma serves two tasting menus, a meat and seafood experience and an outstanding vegetarian one. It really was one of the best and most powerful vegetarian tasting menus I’ve ever had. Examples? Right off the bat, after guests do a tour through the urban farm in the garden, the fish tanks and learn about some of the sustainable features of Haoma, comes time for Prarambha, the snacks (that come with a very unique and cinematic Champagne serving that I don’t want to spoil for when you visit). In Hinduism, Prarambha refers to the beginning, and in Haoma it is simply a proof of intentions, a small taste of what’s to come, and it is explosive. Pani Puri, Vada Pav and Dahi Ke Kebab are the very precise and detailed first three bites.

Haoma’s Silk & Chicken dish is a stand out and a great example of their style. It is a take on a Coorgi Curry using Haoma Farm’s own free range chicken, Thai coconut and Kachampuli vinegar. This type of curry comes from Kodagu, also known as Coorg, a rural district in the southwest Indian state of Karnataka. Another stand out is the Tandoori watermelon with Haoma Farm feta, citrus sorbet and Haoma Caviar, definitely one of the dishes that shows DK’s modern views on Indian cuisine. 

To continue, a cloud of smoke covers the table to reveal a Lobster Ghee Roast, a staple from the South of India. They use the Guntur chili to achieve the perfect texture, color and aromas of this classic. All this and more, to end with that legacy curry that DK learned to prepare at Madina Hotel, done his way. A dish that will have all guests asking for an extra serving of the home made Mughal breads.

Haoma, 231, 3 Soi Sukhumvit 31, Khlong Toei Nuea, Bangkok, www.haoma.dk

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