Kasper was presented as a guest speaker at the Danish consulate in sydney
The speech is about his personal story and the impact of the nordic food movement and Noma.
Good evening and thanks to everyone for taking place in this years Danish connect, first of all I want to thank our dear general consul Michael Hansen for giving me the opportunity to tell you my personal story about a life in the extremely demanding fine dining kitchens, through Europe and all the way here to Australia, where my carrier path created a perfect circle and I finally got the chance to work for the worlds most influential chef, Rene Redzepi at Noma Australia.
I will also tell you about the world wide recognised brand of the Danish invented, Nordic food revolution, and what it’s done for our food culture and cooking trends all over the world.
My story begins back in Denmark, way before the birth of the Nordic cuisine and noma, at a time when the essence of Danish cooking was based on a type of meat, boiled potatoes and a sauce thick enough carry the wait of a small person.
The elite of Danish restaurants was either run by Frenchmen or by chefs who would have been brave enough to gain experience at one of the great restaurants in France.
For me my first introduction to the French haute cuisine, was the discovery of this thin sauce that didn’t stick to the much beloved boiled potatoes.
My birthplace and starting point was a fisherman’s village called Hirtshals on the north west coast of Jutland, its by all means not a pretty little place, and in Hirtshals the norm was, that you either become a fisherman or do something related to the fishing industry. As a son of a fisherman, my dad still the day today, regrets that I newer became a fisherman.
A classic stubborn quote of his is that if it wasn’t for the hardworking fishermen, there would not be any fish for us chefs to cook.
Now I guess he was right and I’ve stopped arguing with him years ago, as I’ve since then learned never to enter a loosing battle.
I always wanted to become a chef and I started my carrier at a not so glamorous place called skaga hotel, our sauces where maybe just a touch thinner then the other places in the region, here I learned something interesting about cooking. to have experienced how not to do things is also way to learn in life, and looking back, that’s probably how I would describe my 4 years as a young apprentice.
My passion, dedication and probably my inherited stubbornness, gave me an advantage in the kitchen, I somehow, for the first time in my life ended up with top marks in my final exam.
I was hugely disappointed that I couldn’t straight away go and make use of my hard earned grades to capture a job at one of the fine French restaurants in one of the bigger cities.
My compulsory 9 months’ army service was the last hurdle before I could make this happen, by a twist of fait, I in front of numerous other young chefs, I was appointed the remarkable position as the Royal Chef at the Danish Royal Yacht.
I was terrified, I’m going to cook for the royal family, surely they are used to thinner sauces then I’ve ever cooked, and by a quick study of their eating habits and a quick training course at the royal palace, I discovered that all they eat is French food, well that and the classic Danish dish of biksemad, to the not so Danish people in the room, bikes mad is leftover potatoes and meat diced and fried to a delicate crisp and served with fried eggs, sometimes yesterdays leftover sticky sauce is also tipped in, and now were really talking about the top of the Danish cuisine.
Now back to the story, I had the experience of a life time and it matured me as a chef, and as a person. My first meal for the royal family was on my 21st birthday and I’ll be forever thankful for being put to the test so early in my carrier, I had so much to learn, and being a chef is really about being humble and eager to discover new things, I think they, or at least our dear self announced king, Henri, a French man and now prince of the Danish potato people, was very good at spotting the strengths and weaknesses in my cooking, I still wonder if that’s why they had the strange love for Biksemad!
He was my first meeting with a true lover of fine food, and would take me along to markets around Europe, it was extremely inspiring to watch his excitement when finding amazing produce, he would even step into the kitchen and taught me a good handful of classic French recipes, recipes that I still cherish and cook in this great memory.
My next challenge was a sous-chef job in a great place just outside Aarhus called the Gamle Mejeri, my chef Soren Pedersen, was hugely inspirational and a great personal character, here the foundation of my culinary skills was finally made, and the cooking I was doing, was of course French inspired, our beautiful produce was delivered fresh from Paris once or twice a week, and I finally mastered the thinnest of sauces.
I remember serving a beautiful meal for my dear old dad, and his disregard for the missing boiled potatoes and thick sauce just confirmed that I clearly had failed, and becoming a fisherman was still an option.
I thereafter went to Copenhagen, again driven by the desire to learn more about this amazing trade, I joined a chef by the name of Per Toestesen, he had returned to Denmark after holding a head chef role, for the almighty chef, and culinary leader Paul Bocuse.
The restaurant was called some thing as casual, as Café Ketchup, it was the hippest place in town and the Danish jet set, was the regular following.
I was presented with the opportunity to gain a sous-chef role at their sister restaurant in the famous Tivoli gardens, as a Danish chef it’s a well known saying, that you newer become a real chef, before working a season in one of the busy restaurants in Tivoli, so I of course was up for the challenge, once again I had an experience of learning how not to do things, not only as a working chef but the life that quite commonly would come with a job in a top restaurant back in those days. The life I was living, was not far from that, of a touring rock star, a life of late night drinking and use of illegal drugs played a big role in my life, and something had to change.
The change finally came when I was given a chance to enter the mighty motherland of haute cousine, I was going to France.
Now honestly speaking there was nothing grand or culinary exiting about my choice of restaurant from a work point of view, but sometimes in life, one skill will have to suffer for another one to gain, and my move was probably as much a step towards something, as it was a step away form the bad habits I had gained while working in Copenhagen.
I got a job at a place called Stars and bars, it’s a huge colossal of an American diner placed at a great location in the harbour front of Monte-Carlo, Monaco, it was the yearly Formula one grand prix, and the need for chopping power, had meant that getting a job there was quite easy, the owners quickly discovered that I could do lots more the just chop salad really quickly, they placed me in the VIP lodge right next to the Ferrari garage, and I fondly remember saying hi to Michal Schumacher on the way, to his shiny and extremely loud formula one car.
After a quick 2 months at the diner and many intensive private lessons in French, the owner, that turned out to be no one else then a nice to the late princess grace of Monaco, she got me a job at the grand hotel Hermitage, finally I was working at a place with Michelin stars and all the madness that comes with it, working here wasa challenge in many ways, I really felt what it’s like to drop your pants and eat your pride, now being humble and hard working was the only way I could show my talent, I was being taught something as holy as religion for a chef, and the majority of the people teaching it to me, un doubtfully saw themselves as gods and me as the peasant who almost wasn’t worthy of learning their religion, a 2 year long second apprentice ship, this time I learned how to do things the right way!.
French food was at it’s greatest and the culinary trend and history showed that it was probably not to change anytime soon.
I remember being humiliated by a young French chef, he asked me, now what does your little country have to show when it comes to fine food, is there even a Michelin restaurant in Denmark, and surly there would newer be a restaurant holding the mighty tree stars, as the one he and a lot of the other guys in the kitchen had come from, the restaurant they had come from, was Luis the 15th at hotel de Paris, just across the road, and the chef in charge was the mighty Alain Ducasse, who was I to think my boiled potato eating country, would ever be able to compete with what, his country had established through the history of cooking, I must admit at this stage, I myself was doubting the success of the Danish cuisine, after all I was in France for a reason, to learn something about food that I couldn’t learn at home in little Denmark.
Little did we know, that at this stage in 2004, a famous Danish chef Claus Mayer had gathered a bunch of the brightest chefs of the Danish food industry, and and together they had written the Nordic food manifest, one of these bright young chefs was Rene Redzepi, I’ll tell you about the Rene and the manifest, and the influential importance later.
The trauma had to come to an end and when finally felt I had accomplished what I was there to learn, I decided to continue my culinary journey, a dream of living and working in some of the worlds top restaurants, and most exiting cities, the main destinations where Tokyo and New York, but before taking on the task of learning another langue, and therefor starting at the rock bottom of the chefs brigade, I felt I now deserved a breathing whole, to get some sun and beach sand between my toes, a 1 year adventure without to much focus on work, I was going to the land down under.
Before leaving Monaco, the kind owner of the American diner, offered me a job as their private chef on board their classic sail yacht, the following 3 months was spend touring the summer blissed Mediterranean wearing shorts and sailor shoos, here I experienced something hadn’t felt for a while, happiness!
I'll newer forget arriving in Australia, the rich natural beauty and extremely kind people, my first job here was for Serge Dansereau at the Bathers Pavilion at Balmoral Beach, and I got what I wanted, sun, plenty of beach sand, and I quickly re-gained my status in the kitchen, I was offered a job as the restaurant sous-chef and I stayed there for 2 years.
Now bathers weren’t the place to rock the town, but the team was good and I loved working there. I now had fallen in love with a beautiful Australian girl, so going to Japan was out of the question, I wanted to excel as a chef so my next move, needed to be well calculated. I tested the kitchens at Rockpool, Tetsuyas and Marque, but my final choice became to join Peter Gilmore at Quay restaurant, the first year working there we entered the list of the worlds 50 best restaurants, the same year noma claimed the number one position.
As much as I disliked my French colleague who had humiliated me with his vision of Danish cuisine, I know felt like giving him a call, now I newer did and probably newer will, but I somehow feel he gave me a gift, a memory that has made me work harder to succeed my goals, so if I see him again, I think I will just thank him, and not bother to humiliate him, I now can rest a sure that he would keep very a close eye to everything that happens in the Danish cuisine.
It was 5 amazing years at Quay, 4 as senior sous-chef, and we where holding the title as the best restaurant in Austral Asia.
In the in the kitchen I experienced how the Danish food revolution was changing the culinary trends all over the world, for years’ food had been almost taken apart, and brought back to an eatable form, not resembling the natural shape or form, its was all to change, now people got interested in knowing about the local produce, the produce, would tell a story of its own, and the one restaurant to change all this was of course noma, something to be very proud about as a Danish person and chef.
I left feeling that many of my culinary goals was partly succeeded, I had with my chef and mentor finally travelled to Japan and New York, I was newer going to live there, but that didn’t matter much as I already had settled in paradise.
Now there’s always a bad side to a story, this one is about what the life of fine dining, does to the people living in it, living their dream and reaching their goals, my goals where partly reached as a chef, but the price, was to be pay was on the family side. I had become a farther to a beautiful boy, and was living a double life in many ways, a loving farther in one, and an extremely stressed out passionate chef in the other.
After leaving quay I wanted a different challenge, I thought fine dining was dying, and I as the head chef opened a 250 seater restaurant called Rushcutters, I first handed saw the ugly side of hospitality, I was in a job I didn’t like, my family life was suffering as I was working between 75 to 100 hours PR week. My questions to myself regarding purpose of life became more then I could answer, then, for the first time in my life, I quit a job without succeeding my primary goal, I needed to find the path towards happiness.
I became a single dad, and while searching for answers I decided that my son and my own personal happiness was the 2 most important things in my life, cooking had until then had been more important then life itself, so this was a very hard decision make.
I have now rediscovered happiness and I work as a lecture at Le Cordon Bleu, a French school of culinary arts, teaching others the skills I have worked so hard to gain.
The creativity and love for detailed food is still within, so I run a business where I create events and specialise in private dining, I call my business Nordic dining.
The latest chapter of this story brings my experience overseas together with the Nordic food movement.
I through a contact at the worlds most influential restaurant, Noma, secured the opportunity to enter an intern program, and work alongside these amazing people.
Now I wasn’t going to get payed in dollars and my weekly expenses of living in Sydney would have to be mentally erased, but my reward has been an experience of a lifetime, its changed me not only as a chef but if possible, even made me more complete as a person, I now look at food in a completely new way and my future goals now seam more possible to achieve, its allowed me to dream again, those dreams and goals I now have a renewed energy reach.
While Noma Australia was here to show us the beautiful gifts of nature in the shape of native produce as the absolute frontier of the world of cooking, I also feel that it served another purpose, it left me and a hopefully many others, with a much needed embracement of the culture and respect towards the aboriginal people.
I now have learned how the Nordic food manifest can be incorporated and adapted into every part of the world, increased my love for local and native product, taught me the importance behind the story of where the food is from, the respect for produce and animal welfare
And then finally how it feels to work, with a smile. The team at noma isn’t just a kitchen team, it’s a family, they live and breathe for creating the worlds best food and experience, to lead the way and inspire others, I felt like I fitted in, and I again had a family, this is such a big part of the reason, why we as chefs can do what we do, the stress, the crazy hours and hard work, is equal parts love for food, giving to others, and the amazing feeling of a loving family, this noma family ill newer forget.
This experience was nothing but life changing, the leader of this amazing restaurant and the voice of the Danish food movement, Rene Redzepi is an extremely important ambassador, not only for us the Danish potato people, but also for the world as such.
Thanks for listening to my story.