Backgroundersdiscovering europe’s creative hotspots

ExplorE EuropE through your tastE budsa sElEction of trEndsEtting vEnuEs, innovativE concEpts,

and thE frEshEst ingrEdiEnts to inspirE your visit to EuropE.

unitEd kingdomMolecular gastronoMy

Taking kitchen science to a whole new (molecular) level, UK-based food scientist nicholas kurti, together with the French physical chemist hErvé this, is changing the world of cookery forever. Together they founded, not a new cuisine, but a new school in the art of cooking: Molecular Gastronomy. Also called ‘culinary physics’ and ‘experimental cuisine’ the term means cooking that takes advantage of many technical in-novations from the scientific disciplines. The words of an amErican travEl bloggEr discovering molecular gastronomy one evening in London, can describe the results: ‘I took a glass of Champagne and dis-covered that in addition to the usual tiny bubbles, my flute contained a number of small pink spheres of sweet molecular “caviar”. The main course was a delicious dim sum of monkfish, jasmine black quinoa, and chorizo caviar ; the dessert was a large “bubble” of chocolate with salt toffee mousse, coconut and pomegranate caviar, and yogurt sauce.’ A visit to the UK’s plethora of modern British eateries today certainly offers more than just a traditional fish & chip supper.

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dEnmarkthe new nordic cuisine & kitchen ManifestoSo you’ve heard about meatballs and seen the muppEt’s vErsion of a swEdish chEf. Clichés aside, one could easily get the impression that 10 years ago, Scandinavians were so tired of their own cuisine that it was easier to find a Thai restaurant, than a restau-rant serving traditional food. But all this has changed. Some claim that the change began back in 2004, when the Danish gastronomic entrepreneur and culinary ideologist Claus Meyer, together with head chef Rene Redz-epi, took the initiative to organise ‘The Nordic Cuisine Symposium’. With the help of some of the greatest chefs in Scandinavia, they formu-lated the ‘New Kitchen Manifesto’. The rules in the manifesto are simple: go back to the roots of Scandinavian cooking; go out into the land-scape to forage for the best and most unusual ingredients; and find new ways of combining traditional ingredients. The results of this ap-proach and the accolades that came with it quickly followed: the British magazine Restau-rant based on a poll of international chefs, res-taurateurs, gourmands and restaurant critics voted Meyer and Redzepi’s restaurant Noma the best restaurant in the world three years running in 2010, 2011 and 2012. So how about some cauliflower and pine with cream and horseradish or some local oyster with gooseberry and buttermilk?

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bulgariathe elixir of the gods

Bulgarian winemakers know the difficulties that come with producing wine from the Gamza or Kadarka grape. It requires windy hills, rich soils and late harvesting. But who said it should be easy to produce ‘the elixir of the gods’, as the Gamza wine is sometimes locally referred to. The result, if one succeeds – and many of the growers up in northern Bulgaria do – is a mellow, vibrant and fresh red wine with cherry and raspberry notes that grows better with age. In recent years, mixing Gamza with Merlot has been found to be a wonderful marriage, and has become an international bestseller. For those interested in finding out more or sampling the local produce, the plEvEn musEum of winE – set in the picturesque Kailaka National Park – has over 100 years of winemaking history to tell.

maltaa taste of history in a restaurant Menu

Loved by the locals, celebrated by the tourists, traditional Maltese cooking stands strong on the European food market. Most restaurants have a dedicated section on the menu dedicated to ‘traditional food’. But don’t be fooled by the authentic recipes from proud Maltese grandmothers; the traditional food is not as authentically Maltese as it first look. On Malta you can study history through a restaurant menu, since the country’s islands have long been a meeting point for sea farers from Mediterranean Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Foreign dishes and tastes were absorbed, transformed and adapted over centuries to become what is today considered to be traditional Maltese cuisine. So how about a taste of history in the form of beef steak wrapped in minced meat, Maltese sausages and bacon, or rabbit marinated in red wine and garlic?

bElgiumwhere MatheMatics Meets gastronoMy

Tired of old Europe bragging about their tra-ditional food? Well, Europe is also the place to invent new recipes! In an interesting fusion between mathematics and gastronomy, the concept of foodpairing has become an indis-pensable source of inspiration for amateur and professional chefs alike around the world. Launched in 2007, foodpairing is a research project and a wEbsitE hosting a unique algorithm capable of calculating the match between ingredients based on their flavour profiles. How about beetroot with raspberry and mackerel, oysters with kiwi, or lobster with peppermint? With top-class restaurants, stylish eateries and cocktail bars commonplace in many of the country’s cities, innovations such as foodpairing prove that Belgium is about more than its traditional crowd-pleasers such as waffles, beer and chocolate.

irElandlocal produce Mixed with pure iMaginationIrish food critic and blogger John McKenna ex-plains the EmErgEncE of modErn irish cuisinE as a consequence of Irish migration: ‘For most of the last two centuries, Irish cooking has been dominated by one ter-rible event: the dreadful famine of the mid-1840s, when the failure of the potato crop – on which the peasant population depended – led to a savage death toll and a global diaspora of Irish people. After this experience, traditional staples came to be regarded as “famine food” – a necessity, and nothing more. The idea of an indigenous fine cuisine seemed ridiculous, and the country’s native ingredients were held in low regard.’ However, as the Irish economy de-veloped at pace over the past decade, bringing Irish nationals back from abroad, the country’s cuisine was opened up to global influences and tastes, from Thai green curry to Spanish tortilla. The new modern Irish cuisine is therefore a bold mix of Ireland’s local ingredients and influ-ences from around the world. So how about some hand-dived scallops, pheasant soup with chestnuts, pig’s trotter pudding, and soda bread with Crozier sheep’s milk blue cheese from County Tipperary?

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czEch rEpublicBeer Beyond lager in the MicroBreweries

During the Communist era in the Czech Republic (1948-1989), all production of goods was standardised. This meant that only one type of each product was permitted for manufacture. Despite a rich brewery tradition, it so happened that the pilsner-style lager became the kind of beer allowed to be brewed in the former Czecho-slovakia. This pilsner-style lager still dominates the Czech beer market, but an emerging trend can be seen on the horizon: over the past 20 years many microbreweries started popping up, bringing with them a revival of the country’s old beer-making traditions. Today you can find more than 200 small and microbreweries in the Czech Republic. The annual Czech bEEr fEstival in praguE – in 2013 running from 16 May until the end of the month – allows you to get up close and personal with around 70 of these tasty microbrews. So brush up on your Czech drinking songs and say Na zdraví or Cheers!

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Estoniadefining perfection – nothing to add, nothing to leave out

When Imre Kose, chef, restaurateur and one of the prime-movers behind modern Estonian cuisine (and notably honoured to do the voice over for the chef in the Estonain version of the Disney movie Ratatouille), explains the process behind his bestselling Caesar salad sauce, he says: ‘We worked on that sauce for nearly two years and developed the recipe until we felt that there’s nothing more we can add, nothing more we can leave out.’ A number of modern-day restaurateurs, including Kose, Imre Sooäär, Dimitri Demjanov, and Kadri Kroon have em-bodied this approach by not only introducing international dishes within traditional Estonian cusisine, but also tweaking classic dishes in di-rections they had never gone before. It can certainly be said that Estonian cuisine is on the rise and making its mark on the European stage. So how about some smoked eel with Estonian apple wine, spicy carrot, parsnip puree, and cream of herbs; followed by baby lamb with beetroot hummus, pickled beetroot, nut oil, and rye bread granola; rounded off with a slice of marzipan and poppy seed cake, served with sea buckthorn sorbet and cloudberry jam?

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hungarythe evolution Menu

There is more to Hungarian food than the Goulash soup! Goose liver with plum textures, Danube salmon; luke-warm potato salad, crispy veal, and Mangalitza marmalade with lentil foam are just some of the dishes on the ‘Hungarian Evolution Menu’, developed by nationally-awarded chef, Szabina Szulló. Explaining the philoso-phy behind her cooking, Szulló is enthusiastic about combining history with evolution: ‘We have invested a lot of energy in researching regional ingredients. The result has led to the creation of our Hungarian Evolution Menu, where the freshest, highest-quality domestic ingredients and new technologies are used in the prepa-ration and presentation of renewed and updated versions of traditional Hungarian cuisine,’ she says on the wEbsitE of her Budapest-based Michelin-starred restaurant Onyx.

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latviaBest enjoyed slowly

As 56 % of Latvia is covered with forest, the proximity to nature is a way of life for many of the country’s inhab-itants. According to the national travel agents association, almost every second resident in the country’s capital Riga owns a countryside house. This is where the city-folks grow their herbs and vegetables and buy fresh dairy products. In fact, traditional Latvian cuisine inherently corresponds to the modern slow food and fusion princi-ple, namely, using a mixture of different ethnic and national gastronomic traditions, and with an emphasis on seasonal and home-grown products. Recently, the best Latvian chefs, restaurants and gourmet journalists, fol-lowing the Scandinavian example, launched a culinary movement and signed the ‘Present Day Latvian Cuisine Manifesto’, which supports good tasting, high quality food and is backed up with a concern for a healthy diet. Perhaps you can be tempted with some butter-fried turbot fillet with cauliflower puree, cabbage stew and fish broth sauce, or some whole-grain dark-rye bread served sweet-pickled herring, with onion marmalade, radish, pickled beetroot and mustard sprouts? Visit Latvia, take it slowly, and discover what culinary treats lie in wait.

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portugalsuMptuous cuisine with a conscience

Are you afraid of fatty foods? Then Portugal might be the place to dine in style since the revival of an ancient cooking utensil, the Cata-plana. This traditional cookware item, shaped like two clamshells hinged at one end, not only enables dishes to be cooked slowly at low tem-peratures, but also with little or no fat. This is thanks to the technique of an airtight seal. Now, the kitchen-savvy might say that this resembles the modern pressure cooker. And they’d be quite right about that. The difference is that the Cataplana was introduced to Portugal by the Northern-African Moors in the 8th century (compare it to the moroccan tajinE) and modern chefs in southern Portugal still pre-fer to use the concave pans today. Much like its Moroccan cousin, the Cataplana is both a uten-sil and a dish. The dish – deliciously aromatic – is a combination of all that is tasty and locally-available from the Portuguese coastline: prawns, mussels, crab and fish, mixed with garlic, onions, tomatoes, lemon, coriander and white wine. Try it out and make your very own Cataplana. Or easier still, visit southern Portugal and order it in authentic surroundings!

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