Let’s bring people to the table - HOUNO Renzell has just given Atera a new rating in New York as...

Celebrating the magic of a shared meal

Let’s bring people to the table …

Introduction

7 Let’s bring people to the table …

The Meal

12 The taste of New York 20 A meal with goals 24 To change the world through food The Ingredients

32 Kiselgården Version 2.0 Taste

42 TASTE on the brain Preparation

58 Three chefs around one oven Nutrition

70 Gourmet food in the hospital bed Aesthetics

80 1257 °C Surroundings

96 Authenticity, DNA and sexy Scandinavians Community

104 In the beginning there was ... the meal

Published by HOUNÖ A/S, Alsvej 1, 8940 Randers SV, Denmark. www.houno.com.

1st edition, 2017.

Graphic design and layout: OddFischlein

Text: Lousin Hartmann

Photography: Rasmus Bluhme at Moment Studio and Signe Birck

The views and opinions expressed in the articles are those of the interviewed

individuals and do not necessarily reflect the position of HOUNÖ.


5

Mealtimes have always been a focal point

where people meet and socialise. We talk,

laugh, share knowledge and opinions around

the table. The shared meal, and the taste

sensations that come with it, creates a frame

of reference that brings us together. That’s

why at HOUNÖ we say Lets bring people to

the table. Because it’s around the dining

table that we expand each other’s horizons.

HOUNÖ has been making combi ovens in

Denmark since 1977. We supply ovens to

professional kitchens around the world. Over

the years we have acquired knowledge and

experience with and about cooking. Because

if you say oven, you say cooking.

Right now you are sitting with a magazine in

your hands, through which we would like to

pass on some of our knowledge to you. We

want to inspire with authentic stories from

visionary people, all of whom talk about

their work with passion. You will gain inter-

esting perspectives on everything to do with

ovens. From the preparation and the taste

of food to the social aspects of the meal

and the setting – here for you to consume.

Everything that goes towards making a

meal something special.

We hope you will be inspired.

Happy reading!



7

The meal We all have a relationship with the meal and behind any meal there are considerations. What to eat, what should be in the shopping trolley, how should the food be prepared, arranged and served. It is a choice we make that largely has to do with the requirements we have at the time, such as economy, setting, time and to whom the food is to be served.

Here you can read about two kitchens and two widely differing conditions and hence different ways to organise a meal. Star Chef Ronny Emborg talks about the definition of a good meal and the requirements it has in his exclu-sive restaurant Atera on Manhattan in New York. Meanwhile Bente Sloth, Head of Food Services at Aarhus University Hospital (AUH), talks about a slightly different approach to the meal and the requirements she has for it.

The Meal – Ronny Emborg & Bente Sloth Let’s bring people to the table …

10 11

The taste of New York

In fact, to put it quite simply: It should taste

good. These are Ronny Emborg’s words on

the question of what a good meal is for him.

In a slightly more extended version he elabo-

rates: “It should be something harmonising. It

doesn’t have to be just a show. It should have

a good temperature. It should have a good

mouth feel. It should smell divine. It should

be appetising.” All in all, the things that make

food taste good.

QUALITY COMES FIRSTRonny Emborg lives with his family in New

York for their second year and presently has

no plans to return to Denmark. Things are

going well. The family has settled in and on

top of that, he has more family time. The

occupancy rate at Atera has increased from

30% to 90% after Emborg took over. What’s

not to like? Not very much, according to

Emborg: “The only limitations are those you

make yourself.”

He thinks that Danish doughnuts with crab

salad taste nice, or a combination of truffle

and cheese could be a good bet for tastiness.

This is also the type of food served at the

two-star Michelin restaurant Atera, where

Emborg runs the kitchen. “It may sound

very simple, but it’s not, which is why I taste

new ingredients every day and put together

something new. There has to be harmony in

the dish itself and good presentation, but

there must also be harmony in the whole

menu,” he explains. A menu that contains no

less than 18 dishes and is served twice a day.

For Emborg good taste is linked to his

working philosophy, which results in quality:

“There has to be good ingredients, not just

exclusive ones. Quality comes first – even

before local produce, although I would like

to support it, if the local produce isn’t good,

then I won’t use it.”

STARS AND GUESTSAtera is a Basque word for ‘to go out’ – which

is just what New Yorkers like to do. In New

York you often eat out in the city rather than

at home. At Atera, the guests sit as if they are

in a bar and eat looking towards the chefs,

who cook on the other side of the counter.

The Meal – Ronny Emborg Let’s bring people to the table …

12 13

You can find Ronny Emborg out on the floor,

aware that people want to have a glimpse

of the man behind the execution. 5,000

wines are on the list you can choose from if

you don’t want to stick to the wine menu. A

big hit is a selection of teas, where the tea

is steeped in front of the guests, just like an

espresso coffee essence is extracted and

brewed at the counter. “We want to create

a unique dining experience. It’s a counter

restaurant, which we don’t have many of in

Denmark. There’s nothing you keep secret

or don’t show the guests. Guests can see

everything that’s going from start to finish,”

says Emborg.

There are 36 guests every day. Half at 6.00

p.m. and the other half at 9.30 p.m. Ronny

Emborg measures his success by the guests

and not on the Michelin stars, although he

says he dreams of a third.

“If you only have a third of your restaurant

filled every day, but you have three stars in

the Michelin Guide, then it’s not a success.

It’s only if your guests keep coming back and

we have some who return five to ten times a

year. But of course, if you can get three stars

and have a healthy business, then you’ve

really come far,” explains the 33-year-old

Emborg, who at a young age may be said to

be well on the way to the stars already.

And he does his part to create a healthy

business. He spends time with the guests: “I

talk with most of the guests and there’s time

to offer a cup of coffee and a glass of cham-

pagne when people arrive.” The setting is an

essential part of the experience and one of

the advantages of not offering more sittings

every day is that he has time to play a daily

role himself, for the guests, but also for the

staff. “On Saturday everyone has to come up

with a dish with butternut squash, and I invite

out whoever comes up with the best dish. It’s

not because it should be a competition, but

it’s the reason why they’re cooking food, and

it’s also for the day they have their own res-

taurant, so they cook something that tastes

good and they can be successful. It was

something I really missed when I was a young

chef – being allowed to be creative,” he says.

The staff are mainly younger employees, with

a few exceptions. Amongst others, there is

the 50+ year-old doorman who greets the

guests every evening. “I think that when you

arrive and are greeted at the door by an older

person, it shows that we’re serious about

what we’re doing,” he says. He has several

people on the floor who are slightly up in

years, and as he says, they bring knowledge

and experience to the place.

EXOTIC EMBORGAmericans may not be as crazy about liquo-

rice as Danes, in any case, Emborg tones

down the extreme use of the distinctive

liquorice flavour in the dishes. On the other

hand, they are open to new flavours and this

fact has had a knock-on effect on Emborg:

“I’ve probably become more exotic since I

moved over here. The dishes I make aren’t

something I’ve made before. Over here there

are other favours and the products are a little

bit different.” And although on a personal

level Emborg likes the light Nordic cuisine,

which is popular around the world, it is not

the cuisine he unfolds behind the counter

at Atera. “Yes, I have Scandinavian roots,

but it’s my cuisine, and mine alone,” he says

about his style, which defies categorisation.

The Meal – Ronny Emborg

14

He meets another culture with his own and

does away with anything not to his taste,

such as the somewhat fattier food he sees

served in many places in the city. The same is

true of the kitchen he took over:

“I ate at the restaurant before I took it over.

I didn’t think the food tasted very good.

Visually it was amazing and they made some

incredibly exciting things, but I didn’t think

it was a good meal per se,” he says with the

reasoning that he saw it being more about

being experimental and looking good rather

than tasting good, which is what he repeat-

edly stresses is what’s important to him.

A GARDEN IN THE CELLAR”In about a month or so I’ll have New York’s

largest indoor garden. Right next to the

production kitchen down in the cellar. I’ve met

someone who makes things like that, they

know about artificial light to grow herbs, salads

and small vegetables. They rent some of my

space and make a garden and supply us with

herbs and salads. It means we can have fresh

herbs every day and don’t have to have them

sent by FedEx from Ohio,” he says. And the

garden might balance out the fact that the

first time around he couldn’t really imagine

living in New York because of its size, and

because the city doesn’t offer the same green

natural environment as his home in Denmark.

Now he gets it from down the cellar stairs,

albeit in a slightly different version.

Ronny Emborg has found New York and New

York seems to have found him. As Executive

Chef, on the whole he is on the floor with the

guests, in the kitchen, all over the place: “I

clean the windows if it’s needed, I wash the

dishes if it’s needed. It’s me who makes all the

new dishes. It’s me who tastes everything. I’m

in the service kitchen every day. At 4:30 p.m.

I taste all the sauces, all the purées and ice

cream. There’s nothing I don’t do,” he says.

And it seems to be paying off:

Renzell has just given Atera a new rating in

New York as the restaurant with the best level

of service and the highest level of food.

“ I clean the windows if it’s needed, I wash the dishes if it’s needed. It’s me who makes all the new dishes. It’s me who tastes everything. I’m in the service kitchen every day. At 4:30 p.m. I taste all the sauces, all the purées and ice cream. There’s nothing I don’t do.”


16 17


1918

A meal with goals

Recognisability is a key ingredient in a

meal at Aarhus University Hospital. “When

the patient puts the food in their mouth,

it should taste like something they know,

maybe from childhood,” says Bente Sloth,

Head of Food Services at AUH. She admits

that it can be a pragmatic approach that

the food must be recognisable, but she finds

that it is the good old-fashioned food that

patients want to eat. She also says that

the food must be healthy: “Not healthy in

the traditional sense, but it must be full of

protein and energy and fat, because you

get well faster that way. We don’t serve fine,

elegant and fancy dishes that you’ve never

encountered before.” But other slightly more

pragmatic considerations also effect the

meal served to patients at AUH.

THE LAST 30 CENTIMETRESA good meal with Bente at the helm is based

on more than just tastiness. Some things

are a little more important than others in

the system. “We have to deliver 9 mega-

joules, in other words, 9,000 kilojoules per

patient per day and we have an economic

framework for that. It’s actually the number

one success criteria we have. With us 9

megajoules in ingredients costs between

4-6 Euro per day. That’s not a lot of money

we have for six meals,” she explains about

one of the requirements she and her staff

have in making a good meal. However it

is still possible to have a mainly organic

kitchen with homemade products in the

hospital’s own bakery and butchery, which

Bente Sloth is a pioneer of.

The Meal – Bente Sloth Let’s bring people to the table …

20 21

”That being said, we’re working with the last

30 centimetres,” she explains about the

distance from the plate to the mouth. The

last 30 centimetres exists as a theoretical

concept that Bente Sloth works with and

puts into practice for the catering kitch-

ens and staff on the wards. “It’s the last

30 centimetres that are crucial to whether

the food becomes nutrition — what will it

take to get the patient to eat the food on

the plate?” she asks. She knows just what it

takes. Taste, smell and quality, enticement

and nutritional care, arrangement and

serving are parameters that are part of the

centimetre measurement. “Taste, smell and

quality are what we’re all about with the food

here. The mainstay of our entire method

of production is that we have to have the

right ingredients and we don’t use additives.

It should taste healthy and natural, so it

smells right. It should taste like real food.”

Enticement and nutritional care she explains,

such as the grandmother-like approach of

getting the food in the patient with a certain

amount of care and pampering. Serving and

presentation: “When the patient sees the

food on their plate, it should be arranged

nicely. At least neat and orderly, as we have

some challenges, because we don’t have the

dietary professionals to arrange the food in

the departments. It’s also about airing out

the ward and making sure it’s nice and clean,”

says Bente Sloth about the requirements the

meal has in her kitchen.

NUTRITIONAL CARE At AUH you are not a guest, but a patient,

and the food may be very tasty, but your

appetite may be very small. You come here

to be healed, not for the food and as part

of this, the meal has an important function:

“If patients do not get energy or protein,

then they can’t heal after a major trauma or

surgery. And you have to keep in mind that

a lot of patients are affected by their illness

with nausea, sadness, depression or chewing

and swallowing problems,” says Bente Sloth.

It is in these situations the Grandma method

is often put into practice, and in fact, studies

have shown that nutritional care can make

a difference: “A cancer department has

participated in a scientific project, which

shows that when you give patients nutritional

care, they actually eat 20% more kilojoules,”

explains the Head of Food Services, who is in

charge of the large-scale production at AUH,

where they purchase approximately 700

tonnes of food a year.

The menu is planned by production leaders

three weeks in advance and offers seasonal

ingredients: “It’s also possible to order

vegetarian meals or other dietary food, if

you order separately, because we have a

fixed-menu plan. But we’re pretty firm about

patients having to follow the menu we make,”

says Bente Sloth, because large-scale pro-

duction requires that kind of management.

“You could say that we have to make a few

dishes here that satisfy a lot of people, and

that is in fact the greatest challenge with

such a wide target group. By limiting the

menus, we deprive the patient of a little bit of

freedom of choice,” she says.

However, if you are dying, then it is another

matter: “Then we make whatever they

request and we make anything from fried

liver to soufflés or chocolate mousse for

breakfast, lunch and dinner, if that’s what

they want,” says Bente Sloth, and that can

be done partly because the hospital has its

own bakery and butchery, and moreover,

there are not a lot of items that aren’t in

stock. Bente also says that food requested

from dying patients is actually almost always

old-fashioned food.

TAKE-AWAY FROM AUHIn the catering kitchens at AUH qualified

staff make food for 3,000 people a day.

The contrast from serving at a restaurant

could hardly be greater. However there is

an overlap. Taste is the focus, as well as

fresh ingredients, and the food is made from

scratch and the diners are in the spotlight.

“The starting point is in the same food we

make. We also make homemade mayon-

naises, crispy fried onions and soup stock

etc. We make a lot of things ourselves. The

big difference is that we can’t pamper a plate

the same way that you can at a restaurant.

So there are some parameters in the last 30

cm that we have a bit of a hard time living up

to. We don’t go out and pick flowers to put on

the plate, but my dream is that we can do a

lot with the arrangement.”

Another dream that Bente Sloth has that

is actually taking shape is the pilot project

‘Food basket - come home safely from the

hospital,’ a collaboration with the City of Aar-

hus. The target group is the infirm, elderly,

single, malnourished and severely ill. “They

often come home to an empty fridge and so

the risk of being readmitted to the hospital

for this group is high. These patients are giv-

en a food basket for four days, which is made

based of the specific requirements of lots of

energy, protein and fat. There are also some

protein rich drinks, a small placemat and a

small flower. The idea is that it is also impor-

tant to create a little comfort in the dining

situation, as it helps you have the desire to

eat,” she says and concludes: “What we’re

hoping for with this small pilot project is that

we can actually document that food makes a

bigger difference than we realise.”

”Taste, smell and quality are what we’re all about with the food here. The mainstay of our entire method of production is that we have to have the right ingredients and we don’t use additives.”

The Meal – Bente Sloth Let’s bring people to the table …

22 23

To change the world through food

It’s his commercial successes that are depicted in the media. In 2016, particularly in Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, his Nordic food Mecca Great Northern Food Hall and Agern restaurant have taken New Yorkers by storm. But for Claus Meyer, the many projects and companies he has started since the end of the 1980s, have been subject to a greater common goal - to change the world a little for the better.

“I have a fundamental sense of when the

food isn’t right, then something is else wrong.

If the food is okay, there’s a chance that the

love is also okay.” And the love Claus Meyer is

talking about is the one that fills the atmos-

phere in an environment, whether it’s behind

the four walls of the home, in an urban area

or in a subculture. Something which should

bring meaning and context to the individual

person. For Claus Meyer, this dogma has

steered him towards environments where the

food could use improvement. It’s here that

he sets to work with food schools, training

programmes and restaurants for the benefit

of people who are at the edge of existence.

THE MELTING POTThe doctrine derives from the raw material

Claus Meyer is made of, which is stored at the

root of the tree that he has climbed up higher

and higher through his life. In line with this,

the outlook has opened up even more and at

the same time stretched the horizon further

out into the world. And even though most

of his initiatives in the commercial world are

saturated with social responsibility, it was in

2010 that he went all-in with his first signifi-

cant philanthropic initiative.

“It was in 2010 that my business actually

began to make money. I had this image of

myself that I was flying in a hot air balloon

with an increasing dead weight – I thought

that I would fly easier if I threw something

overboard,” says Meyer, and continues: “For

a long time I had the desire to explicitly help

people that I had no relation to. Now I also

had the opportunity. The trick was to find a

way where it would seriously mean some-

thing, even though the resources I could find

were limited,” he explains about what led up

to him establishing The Melting Pot Founda-

tion in 2010. A foundation whose purpose is

to help vulnerable and marginalised people

through projects that have food and culinary

craftsmanship and entrepreneurship as re-

The Meal – Claus Meyer Let’s bring people to the table …

24 25

curring elements. The first project Claus Mey-

er dived into was in 2011, where offenders in

Vridsløselille State Prison were reintegrated

in a food school. The gourmet restaurant

GUSTU in Bolivia saw the light of day in 2013,

and 2017 will be the year when the Browns-

ville Community Culinary Center in Brooklyn,

New York opens its doors to local citizens.

“First of all, it was the desire to work philan-

thropically. I was inspired by Jamie Oliver’s

Fifteen (Ed. a training programme for

unemployed youngsters and a restaurant of

the same name) and I visited his head office.

I thought that if he can do it, then so could

I. Secondly, I was curious as to whether you

could use the power of the Nordic kitchen

for something other than creating a new

regional kitchen, whether there was a greater

meaning in what we had created. It started

with Jan Kragh Jacobsen, who is co-author of

The Nordic Kitchen Manifesto and a former

President of the Danish Gastronomical Aca-

demy, who called me one day and shared the

perspective that the word “Nordic” could be

removed from the manifesto. From this came

the idea of using the same approach, only

in one of the world’s poorest communities.

Because wouldn’t it be great if what we had

learned about creating a food movement,

which released the dormant potentials of a

food culture and promoted growth and job

creation, if you could do the same in a poor

country and then just give it away. That’s

why I set up the foundation,” says Meyer. The

reintegration project at Vridsløselille State

Prison was the first project he launched

under the auspices of The Melting Pot. Claus

Meyer had previously had a conversation

with the former prison director, Kim Tobberup

Andersen, about what a difficult job it is to

reintegrate the inmates, so that they return

to society and not back to prison: “During

this conversation I had the idea that perhaps

food could solve it. You could expose these

people to totally amazing food and at the

same time teach them not only the craft,

but also about hosting. Could we bring them

into a situation where they make wonderful

food themselves, together and for some

others, perhaps their families or officers, so

maybe they would be seen and they would

see themselves as giving, creative people.

Perhaps it would mean something.

”A major report from the University of South-

ern Denmark subsequently determined that

the project was a significant success: “That

very project is relatively well documented.

There were almost 233 inmates who began

the Vocational Education and Training (VET)

course (Ed. a 20-week vocational training

course) ’Food for People’ in the period 2012

to 2015 in prison. The average mark for the

inmates who took the course, was overall,

10.0. Far above the national average. So the

success specifically results in a skilled worker

certificate. And yes, we employed the first

five ourselves. And it was also calmer in the

hallways,” answers Meyer, to what extent the

success is measurable, where it’s not about

generating a financial profit.

FOOD WITH HERITAGE AND EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONSIn 2012, he went to La Paz in Bolivia, South

America’s poorest capital, to establish the

gourmet restaurant GUSTU and the affiliated

food school, which trains socially vulnerable

boys and girls. Claus Meyer takes his starting

point in the Bolivian ingredients: “In Bolivia

they didn’t eat food made with Bolivian

ingredients, instead they imported it from

VRIDSLØSELILLE STATE PRISONIn 2011, a reintegration programme for inmates was

introduced in a collaboration between The Melting Pot,

Meyers Madhus, the Danish Prison and Probation Service

and the state prison at Vridsløselille. The aim was to start

a debate on reintegration and to investigate to what ex-

tent food education could mobilise the resources of the

inmates. Through the food schools, which takes place in

collaboration with the technical colleges, it was possible

to implement the theoretical part (20-week Vocational

Education and Training (VET) course) of chefs training in

prison. The reintegration programme turned out to be a

success and it was transferred to other Danish prisons.

The offer still exists at Jyderup State Prison. Meyers Mad-

hus supports education and holds restaurant evenings.

MANQ’A FOOD SCHOOLSThe Melting Pot establishes food schools in the slums

of El Alto in La Paz in Bolivia. The schools will also act as

local cafeterias. Manq’a intends to train about 3,000

youngsters over the course of three years. The training

builds on experience from GUSTU.

GUSTU AND MANQ’A IN BOLIVIAIn 2013, Claus Meyers opened gourmet restaurant GUSTU

in La Paz in Bolivia, South America’s poorest capital, in

collaboration with IBIS and IFU. In addition to position-

ing itself as the culinary flagship, GUSTU has the aim of

educating youngsters, poor Bolivians, primarily of Indian

descent, to be food entrepreneurs.

BROWNSVILLE COMMUNITY CULINARY CENTER IN NEW YORK CITYIn the eastern part of New York City in Brownsville,

Brooklyn, The Melting Pot is in the process of setting up

a food school, bakery and a local dining and drop-in

centre for youngsters. Brownsville is an underserved

area, which lacks access to the basic nutritional elements

comprising healthy diets. The intention is to train about

40 youngsters a year at the food school and that the

youngsters acquire skills, so that they can subsequently

take jobs in the restaurant and food industry.

In 2010, Claus Meyer established The Melting Pot Foundation with the mission to create social change through food, tradi-tions and entrepreneurship. The Melting Pot Foundation has the non-profit and charitable purpose to increase the quality of life and improve the prospects of vulnerable people.

The Melting Pot

The Meal – Claus Meyer

26


27

“ So, basically, I’m not particularly good at utilising a tailwind, but I’m very, very good at fighting against a headstrong one. I don’t like to give up.”


28 29

BETWEEN BUSINESS AND PHILANTHROPYClaus Meyer is a businessman, entrepreneur

and benefactor. He is driven by setting up

companies that find themselves in the

interface between what is profitable and

what is good for others. He works towards

commercial companies enriching the com-

munities in which they exist, and the philan-

thropic initiatives should develop

into self-sustaining projects.

“It’s perhaps easy for me to say, but I would

rather work on projects in the commercial

world that create much greater value for

the employees, for our customers and for

the outside world than they create for the

company itself. And when I do philanthropy,

then I would rather achieve great results with

as little money as possible. The trick is also to

educate people in the projects that money

doesn’t just drop from the sky,” he explains

and as an example of how business and

philanthropy merge together”, he explains:

“In New York, we have introduced an initiative

that each and every employee has two days

a year where we pay them to do charitable

work and they choose the cause themselves.”

It’s clear to everyone that philanthropy is

dear to him. And it’s equally clear that Claus

Meyer works hard at what he does and you

might ask yourself whether the man ever

sleeps? Over time, he has established more

than 25 companies and has rarely left them

completely. However, he points out that the

objective is always to take himself out of the

equation, so on a daily basis the projects can

exist without his presence.

WHAT DRIVES YOU?“I’ve always experien ced that I get a lot back

from the world. I actually try to just be a fairly

decent human being, and if there’s a point

to my life, then I will try to find it, it’s not a

quick fix. And it’s also about finding a balance

between taking care of yourself and enjoying

the life you have for a short period of time,

and to be for the benefit and enjoyment of

other people as much as we can.”

other countries and an entire generation

had forgotten its food history. If you’re a

poor country, you can start by eating what

you grow yourself, or what grows wild.”

BUT WHAT CAN FOOD DO, WHEN IT’S ABOUT CREA TING CHANGE? “Everybody has to eat and most people do,

of course, like food. And as we’ve seen with

noma and GUSTU in Bolivia, the project can

have a huge narrative impact when the tim-

ing is right, and the real purpose is relevant

to everyone. The story can achieve an almost

incomprehensible momentum. Something no-

one can calculate in a spreadsheet,” he says.

In Brownsville, it’s the story of Africa and the

Caribbean, where many of the grandparents

of the youngsters in the program come from,

and the food they once ate, which is cur-

rently untold. “They are part of the heritage,

they have emotional connections to a past,

and we want to make projects that connect

people with their roots, not by us coming

and making all the recipes, but by us as an

enzyme, setting a process in motion that

makes the youngsters begin to renew the

kitchen themselves that they have inherited

from their parents,” says Claus Meyer, who

is the man behind both projects, but also

the one who consistently invests himself in

people and their stories.

TO PROMISE TOO LITTLE AND ACHIEVE TOO MUCHTo tell the story through food is Meyer’s

metier. With noma he explored the Nor-

dic kitchen’s ingredient basis and played a

prominent role in the development of a new

culinary language. The project and its ideas

spread to most of the world, also to the more

remote corners of the Nordic countries.

According to Meyer, the rules of the game

in the social projects are fundamentally dif-

ferent: “It’s absolutely crucial that you read

the dynamics that are present, including

keeping your mouth shut and listening a long

way along the road, and, above all, we must

understand that it takes a lot more than you

think before you win the respect that is a

prerequisite for getting started in the first

place. At Vridsløselille, it took two-to-three

weeks full-time before anyone would take

us seriously, but fortunately we learned a lot

in a hurry. For example, something as simple

as one does not fail. To promise too little and

achieve too much,” he explains and em-

phasises: “People are naturally vulnerable,

through most of their life, after having been

subjected to various kinds of failure.”

“I hate to disappoint, in general. And who am

I if I launch a collaboration with vulnerable

people, which ignites a lot of hope to then

just give up when it gets difficult. Hell, no, I

would throw up over myself. I’m prepared to

go that bit further for the social projects than

for my companies, because here it’s about

people who don’t have very much to fight for.

It’s clear that this is something that can take

you far. We’re ready to fight more and find

some extra money, do irrational things, send

our best people, and use all of the resources

we have,” he explains and highlights how

the pitfalls sharpen focus: “So, basically, I’m

not particularly good at utilising a tailwind,

but I’m very, very good at fighting against a

headstrong one. I don’t like to give up.”

“ In New York, we have introduced an initiative that each and every employee has two days a year where we pay them to do chari-table work and they choose the cause themselves.”


30 31

Behind the green crowns of the trees that arch over the narrow road in the middle of the rural West Zealand terrain is Kiselgården. The farm, which is known for growing tasty vegetables, has existed as a biodynamic and organic farm since 1985. The customers are some of the country’s leading restaurants, a handful of wholesalers and private subscription customers. A generational change took place on the farm a few years ago, and today it is Ask Rasmussen, aged 31, and Amy Rasmussen, aged 27, who stand at the helm.

Kiselgården Version 2.0

At the white-painted dining table in the large

bright kitchen are Ask and Amy: parents of

Victor, aged 6, and Birk, aged 5, husband and

wife of three years, a couple for ten years

and 2nd generation owners at Kiselgården.

Somewhat modern, Kiselgården could cur-

rently be said to exist as a version 2.0. Where

biodynamics has a somewhat different ring

and where time after 2016 almost seems

endless. At least judging by the visions.

THE WORKING DAY AT KISELGÅRDEN Ask wakes up at 7 a.m. He is a morning per-

son, while the rest of the little family prefer

to snooze for as long as they can. However,

before long the level of activity is high in

Kiselgården’s main house. And the day starts

in its usual way. Otherwise, the only normal

thing in a day at Kiselgården is the structure

of the life of the children, while the rest of the

day’s content is unpredictable and unfolds

throughout the course of the day.

Amy: ”It starts with porridge and screaming

and yelling and ‘put your clothes on’ and

then it’s out the door. I handle the ‘tour de

kids’ and Ask drives out to the fields. When

I’m back, it’s into the office where we have a

staff meeting. Here we find out what’s going

to happen during the day and then we just

get on with whatever there is. Yesterday

we rinsed leeks, the day before yesterday it

was carrots, and today we’re going to pack

boxes for Årstiderne (ed. who are buyers of

Kiselgården’s vegetables).”

The vegetables take up most of the couple’s

working day. From early morning until late

evening. The staff start work at 9 a.m.

at Kiselgården. The team at Kiselgården

consists of three and a half members of staff

plus Ask and Amy. The half a staff member

is a bookkeeper who works once a week. He

has taken over for Amy, who is now in the

packing department and takes care of the

customers. Ask looks after the fields. And

a production manager plans the day’s jobs

in collaboration with Amy with the lorry in

mind, which drives to the farm every evening

and collects the produce:

Amy: ”It’s very busy late in the afternoon.

That’s the time we know exactly what orders

have to be on the lorry that evening and

whether we have it all available. Then it has to

be packed on pallets and delivery notes pre-

pared. But when there is something missing

or someone calls ... – such as the restaurant

Geranium, who called last week and needed

2,000 leeks of such and such a size. I replied,

“they’re five kilometres in that direction and

back again – you can have them, but they

won’t be washed because the lorry is already

here.” And then everybody jumped in to help.”

Ask: ”Yes, it’s something of a messy day. We

don’t know from day to day what we have to

The Ingredients – Kiselgården

32

manure. You can’t do that with biodynamics.

And this is the part that’s the most important

thing for us.”

Biodynamic agriculture is based on a

closed cycle. In all its simplicity, the animals

contribute to it being maintained: The cows

graze in the fields, fertilise the ground and

make it usable for growing organic vege-

tables. Kiselgården has 50 hectares and if

the farm is to remain biodynamic, in needs

to get about 60 cows. Kiselgården currently

has an exemption as biodynamic agriculture,

because the farm deviates from the require-

ment to keep animals.

Ask: ”I don’t know whether we will remain

biodynamic. We’d rather concentrate on

vegetables and making a good product.

Whether they’re biodynamic or not.”

Amy: ”But there’s no doubt that Kiselgården

will continue to cultivate in the same way,

where all conventional feed and manure

are excluded.”

THE TASTE OF KISELGÅRDEN And they have a great product. The custom-

ers speak for themselves, which includes a

number of leading restaurants in Denmark.

Kiselgården now grows no less than 120

different crops. Ask and Amy specialise in

growing vegetables to the size that chefs re-

quest. And Ask explains how his job is to time

the planting and sowing, so chefs can get,

among other things, baby leeks, small carrots

and beetroots for the whole season.

Ask: ”It’s something of a challenge and we’ll

probably never learn what’s the right way

to do it. But I think we’ve learned a lot from

the mistakes. And we’ve always grown many

things here on the farm that make it fun for

chefs to order.”

At Kiselgården they grow all kinds of cabbag-

es, all types of herbs, different varieties of

potatoes, carrots in various colours and sizes,

beetroot, onions and leeks, and more. Ask and

Amy often hear that Kiselgården’s vegetables

are particularly tasty. There is an explanation:

Amy: ”The clay soil contributes to the flavour.

There are studies that show clay soil retains

minerals and vitamins better than if you have

a sandy soil, where everything is just flushed

straight through when it rains and results in

small thin carrots. The vegetables have to

harvest, with the exception of a few orders. I

don’t think there are any days that are

the same.”

Amy: ”Ask and I meet for lunch every day,

just to see each other during the day. Ask

carries on working and I pick up the kids and

get dinner ready. When they’ve been tucked

in bed, one of us often goes out and carries

on working.”

Ask: ”There are also days when you’ve picked

the kids up and they come out and work.”

Amy: ”And then they make a mess. We’re

in the packing department and the folding

boxes, which we use to send the produce in,

are scattered all over the place and there are

games with water and the plug sockets are

fiddled with.”

Ask: ”I take them out on the tractor some-

times and they also fiddle with everything.

But I think they have fun.”

BIODYNAMICS IS NOT HOCUS POCUSIt is clear to see that a new generation has

come to Kiselgården. In addition to the

highchairs at the dining table and the cute

children’s drawings that decorate the white

wall, the generational change shines through

in a new and more youthful paradigm.

The method that Ask and Amy use to run

their farm is borne by a different mindset:

They call themselves ‘more realistic and

less fanatical’ than Ask’s parents and that

generation of biodynamic growers, who were

influenced by the holistic approach to the

way of operating biodynamic agriculture.

Ask: ”To be biodynamic is not hocus pocus.

Many believe that you have to drive around

at night and sow carrots, because the sun,

moon and stars are all in the right place. It’s

not a requirement, but an option if you’re

really into it.”

Amy: ”We don’t do it that way. We’re biody-

namic by not using anything conventional.

Because in organic farming you can use 20%

conventional feed and 20% conventional

fight a little harder to grow in clay soil.”

Ask: ”I can taste the type of soil vegetables

come from. Not necessarily whether it’s

an organic or non-organic carrot. Clay soil

retains water and nutrients. For example, we

don’t water as much here as other farms do -

even though I sometimes think we water a lot.

And we can make do with fertilising only once.

Where many other farms may need to fertilise

two or three times, because all the water just

trickles down into the ground. So it’s a good

soil. It’s strong. But it’s also a difficult one.”

Amy: ”But the heavy clay soil is not prefera-

ble for vegetables.”

Ask: ”No, not in relation to yield. It is of course

easier to harvest over in Western Jutland,

where everywhere is a sandpit and you can

just go out and pull a carrot out of the ground.

You can’t do that here. You have to have a

big spade to dig it up with. We also get many

crooked and twisted vegetables. Especially

carrots and potatoes. It’s very rare that we

have a completely straight carrot.”

Amy: ”If it’s rained a lot, it may take a week

before we can get out and work in the soil

again, because it’s such a slushy soil and we

can’t get out and drive the different machines.

The soil is not always lucky, but it’s alright.”

Ask: ”It’s also what means we can’t mass pro-

duce anything here. We can do a lot of crazy

stuff, have a fairly good economy with it - and

we’re satisfied with that.”

COLLABORATION WITH RESTAURANTSNine years ago there was a message on the

answering machine that Ask’s parents had

on the desk in the main house. A message

that turned out to start the development at

Kiselgården.

Amy: ”noma called and left a message

asking if we could come by with some sam-

ples. At that time we delivered subscription

bags, where we took what we had, popped

it in a bag and delivered it to an address.

Friends and family came by and picked up

a bag, and if we were lucky there maybe an

envelope with some money in the postbox.

It was very disorganised, but it was really

cosy. And we just thought, well yeah, that

restaurant noma ... And your mum, she

called them something else.


35


34


36

Ask drove over there with one of the vege-

table bags. It was big leeks and unwashed

potatoes and carrots. But then they called

back and placed an order.”

Ask: ”We began to develop a collabora-

tion so you could order, for example, small

parsnips. The development was done in close

collaboration with many of the chefs around.

And we’ve since started many new things in

the collaboration.”

The bag with the unwashed vegetables and

all the authenticity that came with it, was in a

way, the whole essence of the honest Nordic

kitchen that is so popular in Denmark and

abroad. It was the beginning of collaboration

with the restaurant, which for the first time in

2010 was voted as the best in the world. And

since then many of the leading restaurants

such as, among others, Geranium, Bæst and

Relæ, now buy Kiselgården’s vegetables.

When Ask and Amy tell their story, there is

no trace of boasting, in either words or body

language about fine Michelin restaurants

choosing vegetables from Kiselgården. On

the contrary. On the other hand, what makes

the couple happy is the inherent recognition

there is of the work they do every day in an

effort to produce tasty vegetables:

Amy: ”When we send produce off and we have

a good gut feeling, and I can say, “Damn! We

did that bloody well ... that’s what people will

be happy about.” I get happy every evening

when we load the lorry and think that there

are people who have ordered from us because

they have a belief that it’s good produce.

They’re showing confidence in us, whether it’s

private customers, restaurants, wholesalers

or caterers, when they order again and again.

So you just know you’ve done well.”

Amy has married into life in the country and

she has had to learn everything from the

beginning. The young couple has run Kisel-

gården alone since the generational change.

Ask’s parents have rented the greenhouses,

where they potter about and look after the

herbs. They also live just behind the green-

houses in a small self-built house. And it can

be very convenient – both ways. Like when

Amy is frying meatballs and Ask’s father

sneaks in for one – even though Ask’s

parents usually keep a vegetarian diet.

Well after all, it is mostly about vegetables

at Kiselgården. And plenty are eaten at the

white dining table, even though the young-

est of the two sons would rather just eat

potatoes with ketchup. The eldest son, on the

other hand, has an appetite for most vege-

tables. At one point Ask said he thought they

all weren’t eating enough vegetables. And so

Amy responded with vegetables in all guises.

Amy is very fond of Brussels sprouts, prefera-

bly with melted butter and Parmesan cheese,

while Ask’s favourite vegetable is peas.

Ask and Amy are modern farmers. They also

look the part. Amy has long brown hair in

a straight ponytail and a large grey scarf

wrapped around her neck. Ask has a flat cap

with fair brushed back hair underneath. They

do what other young people of their age do.

Go out and paint the town red. There is room

for a variety of life. Also in daily life, where

organic eating is clearly preferable, but

where something else is also acceptable:

Ask: ”We only have a small local supermarket

and if we can’t get any organic meat, then we

choose free range meat instead. Alternatively,

we can to drive to Roskilde (40 km away, Ed.),

but perhaps that’s not so environmentally

friendly. But we also go out and eat at McDon-

ald’s and yes, we smoke and drink.”

ASK AND AMYAmy: ”The other day something really

crappy happened ... the potato harvester

broke down.”

Ask: ”But it was also old.”

Amy (with a smile): ”It was from 1985, just

like you.”

Ask was born into the business in 1985, the

same year as the potato harvester made its

debut at Kiselgården. The time has come to

acquire a new one and such a machine is not

going to come cheap, which the couple agree

on. In the last few years after the generational

change, the couple has had to do some eco-

nomic restructuring. This means that today

the number of staff has been reduced to a

minimum. Last year there was a weeding team

of between 12 and 15 people. This year they

are 5. In spite of the small staffing, the fields

have never been more beautiful than they are

now, thinks Amy. And she thanks Ask for that.

Ask and Amy. Two names that resonate as

one. As one sound. Ask and Amy stated in

that order, because phonetically it sounds

most harmonious. The two met 10 years ago

at a nightclub, where Ask played as a DJ,

not long after Amy arrived in Denmark from

Finland, where she was born. They became

a couple and soon after she made her en-

trance at Kiselgården.

Ask: ”It started with you breaking your arm.”

Amy: ”Yes, in a car accident and suddenly I

lived here. One evening Ask came home and

said that he’d bought half of the farm. We

didn’t think about the fact that in a few years

we would take over the whole thing. So it

just happened ... and then some children just

came along.”

I can taste the type of soil vegetables come from. Not necessarily whether it’s an organic or non- organic carrot.”

DREAMSDreams are set free in the yellow main house

in the late hours. Often with a gin and tonic in

hand. And there are many dreams. Right now

Kiselgården is at a crossroad and it may mean

that some dreams will soon be realised, while

others have to wait or remain dreams.

Ask: ”We’re too big to just have a nice time

and have a farm shop, where we can just

potter around. But we’re also too small to go

out and compete.”

Amy: ”We would of course like to grow. Maybe

double in size. The dream is that when Ask’s

parents no longer have the desire to have the

greenhouses, one will be made into a room

for events. With vines all the way up the glass

and long tables in the room. Like a private

restaurant. An industrial kitchen would have

to be built, because we would like to make

herb oils and herb salt.

Amy: ”Of course I still dream of a farm with

animals. Not something we would do our-

selves though. A production manager would

of course be hired, that would be nice.”

Ask: ”Horses, pigs, cows and sheep?”

Amy: ”No, not horses. I would also like us

to have corn again. We haven’t grown it for

many years, as we had some difficulty getting

rid of it. We could make our own flour again.”

Ask: ”And then we must have our own flour

grinder and we must have fruit.”

Amy: ”But it’s probably last on the wish list.”

Ask: ”Well, we could just plant a couple of

hectares of fruit.”

Amy: ”We’re young, so we have many years

to do it all.”

Ask: ”Yes, the next couple of years will

be exciting.”

Whether Ask and Amy turn to the right or

left at the crossroad, and whether there will

be herb oils, flour and fruit from Kiselgården

that the outside world can look forward

to must remain uncertain for a little while

longer. But something will happen in the

next few years. It is nearly lunchtime here

at Kiselgården and now it has been quite a

few hours since the day started for Ask and

Amy and their two young boys. It is that time

of day, where the two prioritise each other’s

company, where there is time to discuss

work, children, customers, each other .... and

the dreams, they keep those for the evening

- if there is no work to be done that is.

The Ingredients – Kiselgården Let’s bring people to the table …

38 39

To be biodynamic is not hocus pocus. Many believe that you have to drive around at night and sow carrots, because the sun, moon and stars are all in the right place. It’s not a requirement, but an option if you’re really into it.”

Ask Rasmussen,

2. generation on Kiselgården

The Ingredients – Kiselgården Let’s bring people to the table …

40 41

TASTE on the brainWhat is taste actually? Where is it? And can we really talk about a good taste versus a bad taste? Per Mandrup is the director at Smagens Univers (Taste’s Universe) and an Approved Judge on the World Chef Organisation Culinary Competition Committee. And he has tasted most things. Read here, as he tries to put taste into words.

WE TALK ABOUT TASTETaste in food and especially in a gastronomic

understanding. “Taste is many things. The

general understanding is that it is something

that you put into your mouth and then it

tastes good or not as good – like two polar

opposites,” he explains and continues: “Basi-

cally all taste starts with the five basic tastes:

sweet, sour, salt, bitter and umami taste,

which has been added as a new flavour.

The next possible addition can be fat, as it

also helps to nuance the picture of taste,”

explains Per Mandrup.

“But when we in the gastronomic world

talk about taste, it’s much more than that.

It’s the whole of the sensory sphere where

you experience taste. We gastronomes are

trying to push taste by, among other things,

working with molecular gastronomy, where

we’re trying to form some other pictures of

taste. For example, we make peas through

microbiology, so they taste like fir or straw-

berries in an attempt to surprise. We are also

working with neurogastronomy that deals

with the subconscious. If you’re served a very

red dessert, you will find that it’s very sweet,”

says Per Mandrup and explains that red

equals sweet, and therefore, the colour red

is used to tone down the amount of sugar,

thereby tricking the brain.

TASTE REMEMBERS“We can taste the five basic tastes by using

our taste buds that sit on our tongue. A great

deal of taste also sits in your memory. And a

lot is found in smell. The aromatic nuances

of taste are in your smell memory,” he says,

and explains how our taste references draw

on the memories we have with food: “We all

have a memory record of what we’ve experi-

enced in terms of taste,” he says. Such as the


43

When there is harmony, when it just plays and the dish has it all ... sour, sweet and so on.

It’s soft and it’s crisp in the right places. Many people will experience that as a good taste.”

taste of Christmas, the smell of Grandma’s

kitchen, or tomato soup which made us sick.

Taste sensations that are stored as good or

bad experiences, and remind us the next time

we smell a roast in the oven or are served

tomato soup.

According to Per Mandrup, the senses of

smell and taste work in an interaction, which

means that we can taste what we put in our

mouth. Taste aromas from the oral cavity go

along an inner channel to the brain, where

the smell centre is - close to the reptilian

brain. The reptilian brain is the primitive part

of the brain that fundamentally protects

our survival. This is where, according to Per

Mandrup, we store smell and taste expe-

riences. In terms of evolution, our senses

have evolved as part of survival. And in

this respect, taste and smell are important

senses that steer us to the food that gives us

the ability to survive and also what not to put

in our mouth.

THE PERSONAL TASTE“Our taste prints are as unique as our

fingerprints,” says Per Mandrup. In addition

to what each person has in the way of taste

references, he describes that what we each

associate with a good and bad taste, what

we like and do not like, is subjective.

But what determines whether we like or

dislike a certain food? When we talk about

taste, it is often about what we can see, smell

and taste. We create expectations for food

and whether they are met is determined

by the freshness of the ingredients and the

preparation. In jargon, this assessment is

also called mouthfeel. Based on this we de-

termine whether food tastes good or bad.

Nonetheless, we can talk about what

generally defines a good taste: “When there

is harmony, when it just plays and the dish

has it all ... sour, sweet and so on. It’s soft

and it’s crisp in the right places. Many people

will experience that as a good taste,” says

Per Mandrup.

WHAT TASTE BAGGAGE IS FULL OF“Taste is also the result of where you come

from and what you have in your taste bag-

gage,” says Per Mandrup. “We can only taste

as well as we have been brought up to. The

less we have tasted, then the narrower our

taste directory is,” he explains, adding that

even in the small country of Denmark there

are differences on which taste we prefer

depending on which region we come from.

In large towns and cities, there is more will-

ingness towards new tastes, while traditional

cooking is preferred out in the country. When

Per Mandrup travels around the world as a

taster, he encounters food cultures that are

far from the Nordic kitchen. Last year he

visited Mexico where children eat insects as

a snack. The gastronomic kitchen in Denmark

is trying to integrate this exotic food culture:

“Right now mealworms, grasshoppers, bee

larvae and cockroaches are pouring in. We

should eat them dead, alive and dried. But

it’s difficult for us, in our culture, to get used

to the idea of eating insects,” he says, and

explains how the Danes’ mindset is a barrier

that must be worked on.

WORDS ARE POOREven though Per Mandrup has many words

with a clear passion as the source, he still

lacks many more when he must describe

taste: “We can’t articulate taste. It’s a pro-

blem. There is no language to talk about

taste. A taste language. If, for example, we

bought ten different varieties of carrots at

the supermarket, we would have no way to

describe and differentiate how they taste,

apart from this sort here tastes great,” he

says, referring to how we use adjectives and

similar words, indiscriminately, to explain how

food tastes. Because other options do not

exist. And so not another word about taste.

ACRID AND SPICY FOOD IS NOT

A TASTE. Acrid and spicy food

triggers a pain reaction. Pain nerves

are activated when we eat that kind

of food. Receptors on the tongue

and in the throat transmit signals

and spicy and acrid are registered

in the brain as pain.

MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT

TASTERS. The ability to taste can

be measured and significantly more

women than men are so called

supertasters. Their taste buds are

more sensitive. It requires a large

taste memory to be able to use your

supertaster abilities.

Source: Per Mandrup

Taste – Per Mandrup Let’s bring people to the table …

44 45

Let’s

brin

g pe

ople

to

the

tabl

e …


51

Celebrating the magic of a shared meal

52

Celebrating the magic of a shared meal Let’s bring people to the table …

56 57

Three chefs around one oven

It’s a long way from the pier in Aarhus, where an exclusive restaurant unfolds on the water’s edge, and for that matter, from a Michelin star restaurant on the edge of a wood in the same city, and even farther from Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen in Tokyo, to the industrial district in Randers, where HOUNÖ is based. It is indeed, but it is in Randers where three chefs, each with their exotic background in Aarhus and Tokyo, work with what preoccupies them at a level where we would do best to listen well to what they have to say about the oven.

Preparation – HOUNÖ Let’s bring people to the table …

5958

Martin Vestergaard Sørensen, Edwin Adkins

and Rasmus Vingaard Larsen form the Danish

contingency of the team of chefs at HOUNÖ.

They are totally dedicated right down to their

fingertips, that part is not to be mistaken. The

part, on the other hand, which is about being

in a building with a reception, rows of desks

and a grey factory floor, far from the smoky

kitchen and the hectic atmosphere, that does

not quite compute with being a chef.

AN OVEN IS NOT JUST AN OVENIt is because of the oven. The consistent

baking, user-friendliness, the design and

the ClimaOptima feature explains some of it.

Martin says: “I’ve come across many different

ovens and before I came here, an oven was a

just an oven. But once you’ve used this oven,

it’s just so incredibly user-friendly. When you

use an oven, you tend to just do the same

as you’ve always done. You will quickly find

out with this oven that there are different

functions and what they can be used for.”

If there is something everyone mentions, it’s

the consistent result that comes out of the

oven – every time. Roast pork with crispy

crackling – every time. And just look at the

croissants Martin takes out of the oven on

the occasion of the interview. A whole plate

full that illustrates the uniform baking. They

are all in a straight row and the same golden

colour. Quite simply because it is possible to

enter the recipe into a program on the oven

that works via an Android system just like a

mobile phone. “The user interface is based

on smartphone technology. The intuitive part

is extremely high. We make a great deal out of

the fact that it must be just like using your mo-

bile. All young people coming into the industry

are familiar with the technology and all the

older ones can easily learn it,” says Rasmus.

However, the consistent results have more

to offer. ClimaOptima. Martin and Edwin both

highlight it as their favourite feature on the

oven. “ClimaOptima is percentage driven.

The oven measures and regulates how much

steam is in the oven. If you slide a tray of

chicken in, which gives off 10% steam, and

the oven is set at 30% steam, then the oven

adds the last 20% itself. If I then slide ten

trays of chickens in, there is 100% steam

inside the oven, then an exhaust opens and

lets 70% out, and it comes down to the 30%,”

explains Martin about the feature, so it is

understandable that Martin’s own favourite

dish is roast chicken. “One tray or ten trays

will be prepared with the same humidity in

the oven, and it’s this feature I’m trying to

get most people to use. You really get

something out of this oven,” he says.

FROM CHEF TO OVEN NERDThey are chefs. They love to cook, but the

title of chef at HOUNÖ has a slightly different

angle. Or perhaps more accurately an ad-

dition, as in ‘chef with more’. The three still

cook at full throttle at HOUNÖ, both in con-

nection with trade fairs, when they develop

the oven and the programs for it, and when

customers have to be trained to use it.

“I’ve gone from being a chef to being an

oven nerd on an extreme level,” says Ras-

mus. “I didn’t know about HOUNÖ. I’d never

worked with a HOUNÖ oven before. After

I’d been here for three months, I thought to

myself, ‘wow, it’s simply the best oven I’ve

ever worked with’,” says Rasmus who, in

his job as a Product Manager at HOUNÖ, is

helping put his mark on the oven, so it lives

up to the demands of the market. Demands

he encounters when meeting with buyers of

the oven. Edwin supports the view: “Time is

limited in a kitchen and even though we’re

also very busy here, we don’t need to be

ready for service twice a day. We can think

about innovation and how we can bring it

to the kitchen in order to help chefs. That’s

what we’re doing and something I’m actually

very proud of.”

Edwin also talks about how the oven has

given him a different perspective on cooking:

“I now look at it with a chemical approach.

For example, I take an old classic recipe like a

consommé, think about the chemical process

in the cooking and adapt it to the oven, so

we can make a program.” And here Rasmus

adds: “The chefs must learn how to break

down their cooking into processes. They think

of processes when they’re in the kitchen, but

they must put them into a program on the

oven.” Because that part, he explains, is both

time-saving and promises good results every

time. “Then there are many people who ask

whether we lose our professional skills as

chefs if we just need to select a program? I

think there is a professional skill in finding

out how to perfect a program, so the food is

consistent every time, because that’s what

we are all striving for,” says Rasmus.

And when you are an oven nerd, you can talk

for a long time, sincerely and right down to

the smallest details about voltage, gas, steam,

fan settings and so on for an eternity, where

all sorts of technicalities are flying around

that can explain the oven’s design, and then

there is all the work surrounding the oven:

Edwin says: “I really like to work with the guys

at the factory. I call them nerds. They’ve

gone to university to learn what they can

do. It’s engineering work and new to me, but

I’m a little bit of a technology nerd anyway.

I really like computers and I therefore like

to look at the Android system. For me it’s

learning something completely new, and I

love it. I love that I’m no longer just cooking,”

Edwin expresses his obvious enthusiasm

over the turn his career has taken, and it was

also his encounter with the HOUNÖ oven

that prompted Martin to head for Randers: “I

already knew about the oven and thought it

was really great to work with,” he says, about

why HOUNÖ was his choice when he decided

to seek new pastures. Common to the three

was that the balance between their private

life and professional life was decisive for the

chefs’ change of career. Family was para-

mount to all of them.

Both Edwin and Martin are wearing the white

chef’s uniform. It confirms that they are chefs

through and through, and also that the same

morning they prepared food for the trade fair

that Martin is on his way to in Prague. There

are quite a few travel days involved in the job Whe

n I s

tart

ed h

ere,

Ras

mus

had

an

idea

that

we

shou

ld m

ake

a bé

arna

ise

sauc

e in

the

oven

.

At t

he ti

me

I stil

l tho

ught

like

a c

lass

ic c

hef –

‘You

can

’t, fo

rget

it,’

but R

asm

us w

as a

dam

ant,

he s

aid,

‘Com

e on

, let

’s d

o it.

’” –

Edw

in A

dkin

s


60 61

as a demonstration chef, spread all over the

map of the world. Each with their area, and

there are advantages to the travel days, says

Edwin: “Over the years I’ve gained many chef

friends who have now gone out into the world

to work, and sometimes I’m lucky to go to a

city where I can meet up with an old friend.

Then we go out and have a drink, and I try to

sell them an oven.”

BÉARNAISE IN THE OVEN“When I started here, Rasmus had an idea

that we should make a béarnaise sauce

in the oven. At the time I still thought like

a classic chef – ‘You can’t, forget it,’ but

Rasmus was adamant, he said, ‘Come on,

let’s do it.’ I’m a classically trained chef and I

had it drummed into me a long ago that you

make béarnaise sauce by stirring, stirring,

stirring and stirring. But we played with it for

a few days and we reached the point where

I was just ... WOW. It was my first lesson that

you can make, if not everything, a lot in the

oven,” says Edwin.

Béarnaise in the oven was one of the first

things Martin was introduced to when he

arrived at HOUNÖ: “I thought it was great fun.

We put all the ingredients into a vacuum bag

and steamed it at 65 ˚C. Then into a saucepan

and whisked it,” he explains about the HOUNÖ

way to cook a fabulous béarnaise and about

how it could resemble a test of manhood that

had to be passed in order to

be on the team.

IF YOUR OVEN WAS A CAR ...... then a HOUNÖ oven would be one you

would want to drive yourself. Edwin compares

the ovens to cars, in an attempt to illustrate

the difference in quality: “There are many

different levels of cars and it’s the same with

ovens. We’re in the top category, no doubt

about it. We’re one of the smallest compa-

nies, but we have high quality. For example,

the stainless steel we use is thicker than some

of our competitors and it’s the same with the

insulation around the oven.”

Rasmus adds: “We have the most beautiful

oven in the industry. We get blamed for hav-

ing a feminine oven because it has curves.”

Rasmus has nothing against that accusation.

Rasmus explains that the oven’s special

design has its advantages: “The air moves

well inside the oven, and the setting options

on the fan mean that very light products such

as a macaroon or meringue are perfect. At

full blast it can bake frozen Danish pastries or

roast a joint of meat with a heat that is evenly

distributed.” And just like the heat in the oven

is distributed just right, there is a sense that

the job the chefs do at HOUNÖ is also just

right. The three have preserved their identity

as a chef - albeit the chefs’ hat is not quite

as tight, and it makes it possible to navigate

between cooking and being an oven nerd.


62 63

“I’ve gone from being a chef to being an oven nerd on an extreme level. I didn’t know about HOUNÖ. I’d never worked with a HOUNÖ oven before. After I’d been here for three months, I thought to myself, ‘wow, it’s simply the best oven I’ve ever worked with.’”

– Rasmus Vingaard Larsen, Product Manager at HOUNÖ


64 65


66 67

Edwin Adkins

Is from Birmingham and since the late

summer of 2013 he has worked as a

demonstration chef at HOUNÖ.

Geographical area of responsibility:

UK, Baltic States, India, Middle East, Asia

and Australia.

Background: Edwin debuted in a local kitch-

en, even before he finished primary school.

Since then he has worked his way through

kitchens in London, Australia, New York as

part of the team that opened the legendary

Soho House, Members Club Hotel, in the

Meatpacking District, to a sous-chef position

in Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen in Tokyo. A few

years before Edwin went to Japan, he met

a Danish girl who went with him. As Edwin

says it was a make or break situation. They

made it and the journey subsequently went

to Copenhagen, which is the city that Edwin

likes best in the world to live in. Nevertheless,

today he lives in Aalborg, close to his wife’s

family, which he is very happy about.

Favourite dish from the oven: Fish.

Confession: “From time to time I miss going

out and having fun with the staff after work in

the kitchen.”

Quote: “Being a chef is a young man’s job.”

Martin Vestergaard Sørensen

Is the latest chef to arrive at HOUNÖ and

he has been employed as a demonstration

chef since July 2015.

Geographical area of responsibility:

Scandinavia, Europe, South Africa, United

States and South America.

Background: When Martin was younger,

he went on many trips with his family and

on these trips, he was introduced to a wide

variety of food. It was here that his interest in

taste and food was established. Martin was

trained at Hindsgavl Slot. He then went to

‘Ti Trin Ned’ and on to a position as sous-

chef of the Michelin restaurant Frederikshøj.

Martin has been part of the National Culinary

Team of Denmark for the last six years. He

travels to Randers from Odense, where he

lives with his family.

Favourite dish from the oven: Roast chicken.

Confession: “If I have to stand in front of my

fellow chefs and play smart, then it’s cooler

to stand and whisk a litre of béarnaise sauce

by hand, but when they’re gone, I put it in the

heat mixer.”

Quote: “It’s no use if you want to make in-

credible food and then you buy the cheapest

crap ... it just doesn’t add up.”

Rasmus Vingaard Larsen

Is Product Manager at HOUNÖ and cele-

brates his 10-year anniversary at HOUNÖ

on 1 January 2017.

Geographical area of responsibility: United

States, Netherlands, Germany and Finland.

Background: Rasmus started in the industry

as a dishwasher at the age of 14. Then he be-

gan an apprenticeship at Sønder Hostrup Kro

in Aabenraa. Halfway through the appren-

ticeship, Jens Peter Kolbeck joined as head

chef and he accelerated Rasmus’ expecta-

tions for himself. Rasmus was a hard-working

competitive chef during his apprenticeship,

both as a student and as an assistant to the

chefs. After completing the apprenticeship,

he had, among others, been at Molskroen,

a dessert chef in Norway at restaurant Oro

and part of the start-up of the Brødrene

Koch restaurants in Aarhus. Rasmus joined

HOUNÖ in 2007 and he lives in Aarhus with

his family.

Favourite dish from the oven: Tarte Tatin

Confession: “Sometimes I still miss working

flat out at full speed.”

Quote: “When an order pops in for 100

ovens, it’s like having a full restaurant.”


68 69

A liver pâté sandwich is not just a liver pâté sandwich*, at least not at Herlev Hospital in Denmark. A liver pâté sandwich here is served with pickled sago cooked in beetroot juice, so they make a garnish like small red pearls on top. At Herlev Hospital, patients eat gour-met cuisine with touches from the Nordic kitchen.

Gourmet food in the hospital bed

*What is a liver pâté sandwich? A liver pâté sandwich is a traditional Danish open sandwich, which consists of liver

pâté on rye bread. Liver pâté is a Danish lunch classic. Danes eat approximately 14,000 tonnes of liver pâté every

year, and this spreadable topping is eaten by all Danes, regardless of income or education.


71

“Why shouldn’t they have the best food?”

asks the chef at the hospital, Michael Allerup

Nielsen, as it is no more expensive to make

that sort of food than it is to buy finished

and semi-finished products. And at the end

of the day, when Michael A. Nielsen does

the accounts, it is a profit in job satisfaction,

quality and satisfied patients that he enters

in the books.

FROM FROZEN TO FRESH INGREDIENTS“The tool our staff used to use most was

a hobby knife or a pair of scissors to open

the bags of frozen vegetables,” he says. An

observation that says something about the

common quality of the food, and which was

instrumental in the Nordic food concept

being realised in 2012 in the large hospital

kitchen in Herlev. “I thought that we’re so

well known around the world for Danish

gastronomy and talented chefs that why

shouldn’t we also serve a good meal, made

from quality ingredients, when we’re dealing

with public food,” he says. With the help of his

colleague Christian Bitz, Research Director of

Nutrition at Herlev Hospital, thoughts were

transformed into action. The intent was to

raise the quality of the food, give it more fla-

vour and use fresher ingredients, which led to

contacting a Michelin-starred chef at noma.

OFF WITH THE CHEFS’ HAT AND ON WITH THE HAIR NETOn the quayside in Havnegade in Copen-

hagen, the 65-metre long oval Art Deco

building in mint green steals the street

scene. Studio is on the first floor and the

owner is gourmet chef Torsten Vildgaard.

He was the one who responded to the

request from Herlev Hospital nearly five

years ago. He had just taken the plunge from

noma and was in the process of setting up a

consulting company - in collaboration with

his colleague Søren Westh. “I thought the

idea was incredibly interesting. It made so

much sense, even though it was very much in

contrast to a Michelin service and the world’s

best restaurant (i.e. noma), to suddenly

stand there with a hair net on and make

hospital food for 1,000 covers a day,” he

says. But both he and his partner jumped at

the offer to help create a revolution in the

hospital kitchen. They came from the Mecca

of the Nordic kitchen with the mindset that

comes with it, which was to be rolled out to

patients. To begin with they observed the

existing kitchen. They figured out that with

few things they could raise the quality: “They

had a salmon sandwich on the menu all the

year round, and then there was asparagus

on top all year round. But of course, there

isn’t fresh asparagus all year and it was also

seriously expensive to make. We said, ‘Well,

we’ll have smoked salmon on once in a while,’

and the garnish could, for example, be apple

or horseradish, rather than tinned asparagus.”

Instead, the two chefs wanted to work with

the seasons: “We would follow the four sea-

sons and buy fresh ingredients. For example,

buy a large batch of apples when they were

in season. Ingredients are at their best and

cheapest when in season,” Torsten Vildgaard

explains about the changes that have paid

off in terms of both taste and budget.

BUTTER, CREAM AND RECOGNISABILITYEven though the two gourmet chefs had

free rein and good conditions to do the

job, there would still be liver pâté as well

as egg sandwiches on a daily basis: “So

we invented 14 types of egg sandwiches,

7 for even weeks and 7 for odd weeks. The

sandwiches repeated every 3 months, and

then we changed the whole menu,” says

Torsten Vildgaard, adding: “There are of

course many elderly patients admitted to

Nutrition – Herlev Hospital Let’s bring people to the table …

72 73

the hospital, so we wanted to give them

something recognisable and at the same

time something to look forward to.”

Back at Herlev Hospital in a small office hid-

den away behind the big echoing kitchens,

where the kitchen staff are full of vim and

vigour in white coats with blue and green

hairnets, Senior Dietitian Tina Munk takes a

seat next to Michael A. Nielsen. The two are

working closely on the overall plan for the

food served each morning for approximate-

ly 1,300 patients. Today there is a butcher,

a produce section and a bakery at the

hospital. The food is made from scratch and

80% is organic and without food colouring.

The wildest thing, according to Michael A.

Nielsen, is the nitrites that have to go into

the rolled seasoned meat (i.e. a traditional

Danish lunch meat), because patients sim-

ply won’t eat it the slightly greyer version

without them. It should be pink, just like they

know it and recognisability is an important

criterion, even though the kitchen is set up

for a broad selection in taste and appear-

ance: “We’re not talking about gastronomy,

because patients want something recognis-

able when they’re sick. It’s good everyday

food,” says Michael A. Nielsen, and it is food

with both butter and cream.

“The typical patient isn’t well and doesn’t

eat much during their hospitalisation, so it

doesn’t matter about the extra calories you

get, and it may well be that you’re over-

weight, but we don’t recommend people

losing weight when they’re sick. That can

be done at home, when you’re healthy, so

it makes perfect sense to have some tasty

food when you’re here,” says Tina Munk

from a nutritional perspective. And if the

patient has a vitamin deficiency, a vita-

min pill is given with a meal. Conversely, as

part of her PhD in clinical nutrition, she has

helped develop another concept, Herlev’s

Splendours (Herlevs Herligheder), which are

small protein-enriched dishes for patients

without much appetite, a concept that

runs in parallel with the Nordic kitchen. The

homemade food also has the advantage that

chefs can make special considerations for

certain patient groups. Tina Munk says that

when taking heart and kidney patients into

account, as little salt as possible is added

to the food, contrary to what the industry is

doing in the food they make.

HOMEMADE YIELDS PROFESSIONAL PRIDEHerlev Hospital has taken on the task and

in this context it becomes clear how organic

homemade food in hospitals can be financially

worthwhile: “We’re not trying to make money,

we don’t pay rent, electricity, water and heat-

ing in the same way here, so we’ve been able

to make this radical change. When we bought

the pre-chopped vegetables, we paid for rent,

wages and machines out in the industry. Some

of that money we’ve been able to convert

to employing more staff in the kitchen,” says

Michael A. Nielsen. Because opting out of

pre-made mayonnaise in a bucket and

smoked ham pumped full of brine requires

more hands. “When we make smoked ham

here, we get the joint without the rind, cure it

ourselves and smoke it ourselves. The product

is much better and a slice of smoked ham

looks like a loin when we make it, so that way

we greatly improve the meat products,” he

says. And in the same breath he talks about

how he finds that the level of professionalism

amongst the staff has gone up. Tina Munk

confirms this viewpoint: “The fact that you

don’t have to cut a bag open, but are allowed

to use your craft, the craft that you’ve been

Herlev Hospital has recently merged with

Gen tofte Hospital. In everyday usage it is

called Herlev-Gentofte Hospital. The two

kitchens are run under Michael A. Nielsen’s

leadership. Tina Munk is the senior dietitian for

the dietitians at both places. Nordic cuisine

has also reached Gentofte Hospital.


74 75

trained in, helps you feel good about going to

work, and I believe this is a hugely important

part of this concept.”

When Torsten Vildgaard took over the kitch-

en, that was precisely what he had in focus,

including a realisation of his own position

towards new players on the field: He rolled up

here as a Michelin chef and had to learn from

a hospital kitchen, and even though he felt

a little resistance in the very beginning, it did

not take long before the levels of enthusiasm

increased among the staff. He particularly

remembers a female member of staff who

ran through the large kitchen with a spoon

in one hand and shouted ”Torsten, come and

taste this.“ She had succeeded in making

a big bowl of mayonnaise. “One way or

another, it’s magical to find out you can do it

yourself. Then it becomes second nature and

you become more proficient and begin to

optimise,” he says.

Professionalism is broadly represented in the

kitchen today. Butchers, bakers, chefs and

assistants are employed to make the food,

and the development chef, who took over

from Torsten Vildgaard and Søren Westh, has

room to experiment: “We’re trying to work

vegetables into our desserts and today our

development chef presented a buttermilk

mousse to me with sugar-pickled carrots

with a sea buckthorn jelly. And I said “Ooh!

Do we dare?” – do we dare put carrots in a

dessert, do we dare to introduce patients

to what could be a slight transgression,

because it’s not what patients normally eat?”

says Michael A. Nielsen, and the response

from the chef was “Yes, we dare.”

FOOD IS QUALITY OF LIFENot only does homemade food make good

sense, it also brings professional pride with

room to develop. Not for the sake of de-

veloping, but for the sake of taste. For the

sake of looks. All of these for those who

ultimately have to eat the food. “You should

bear in mind that food is one of the only ways

you can relate to a patient at a hospital.

A great many things are going on that we

don’t have control over. For many people

meals are also something that divides up the

day up when they’re hospitalised. It’s one of

the things patients can look forward to in a

hospital, where there aren’t a lot of pleasures

other than the food,” says Tina Munk.

And precisely where it’s about creating a

little bit of joy for the patients, is what’s

close to home for Torsten Vildgaard. His own

parents were part of a study group that were

attached to the project with the protein-en-

riched food at Herlev Hospital. They both had

cancer. “My parents were very weak. They

lived in Tingbjerg, so it wasn’t very far from

Herlev. Once a week, I had a weekly menu

driven out to them in a taxi and the food was

stored in the fridge. That way they got some-

thing decent to eat, because they didn’t have

the strength to cook themselves. I could see

it lifted their spirits and was a huge help for

them, and they could focus on taking care

of themselves. Every day they had a starter,

a main dish and a dessert, and they ate and

were excited about it,” says Torsten Vild-

gaard. They both died last year, after having

been sick for many years. “It was hard for me

as the eldest child, as I also had my own life

with two children. I couldn’t come and cook

for them every day. In a way, I could help

them a bit this way by making it easier for

them, and there are many others who also

deserve it,” he says. The food gave Torsten’s

parents quality of life, and the intent is the

same for patients at Herlev Hospital.

YOU GET WHAT YOU WISH FORThe future at Herlev Hospital has start-

ed. Both in terms of wishful thinking and

development in practice. A sensory garden

for patients is just around the corner in the

truest sense of the word, in connection with a

new hospital construction. Michael A. Nielsen

wanted to build a herb garden on the roof,

which came to be solar cells instead. “We

want to be self-sufficient, so we can tell our

story to the patient with food,” he says, and

admits that it sounds a bit idyllic. It is the

idea of being close to both the food and the

patient that appeals to him, and Tina Munk

adds: “One thing is that down here in the

kitchen we have devised a great concept

with amazing ingredients, but if it’s served

without thoughtfulness, then all the food can

look boring and you may lose your appetite,

so the kitchen has introduced meal hosts in

some departments.” The goal is to get many

more hosts out with a sense of serving an

aesthetic plate. Today a printed picture of

the finished portioned food goes around with

the buffets for the staff who have to serve

the patients. And there is a goal of making

the menu electronic, to achieve a gold medal

in organics, which requires 10-12% more or-

ganic use and also more beautiful surround-

ings to eat your food in.

In the slightly more luxurious interiors in

Torsten Vildgaard’s Michelin star restaurant,

it sounds as if the gourmet chef is not quite

finished with cooking food that makes sense

– in a slightly grander sense. He thinks about

the public food in Denmark, amongst other

things, out in nursing homes, it is not nice

words that go along with the food. “I wish I

could do more, but I’m tied up at a restaurant

and I also have a family,” he says about how

he spends his time. But he also says it can

annoy him that he has to completely let go

of the kitchen in Herlev. The project was very

close to him in many ways: “I would love to

do a collaboration again. A collaboration

that didn’t necessarily cost money, but

because I have a desire to do it. Now I have

a restaurant and maybe some of the staff

at Herlev might want to come in and get

some tools and work with me for a few hours,

a day or two or a week.” Nobody knows the

future. Right now there is a new climate

at Herlev Hospital, which also recently

merged with Gentofte Hospital. New hospital

buildings shoot up from the ground next

to the existing ones, a sensory garden will

waft scents around the outdoor areas and

organics has seriously taken root in the

kitchen. Whether or not the wind will blow

towards yet another trend-setting collabo-

ration between the gourmet chef and Herlev

Hospital, time will tell.

“The tool our staff used to use most was a hobby knife or a pair of scissors to open the bags of frozen vegetables.”


76 77

“We would follow the four seasons and buy fresh ingredients. For example, buy a large batch of apples

when they were in season. Ingredients are at their best and cheapest when in season.” – Torsten Vildgaard


78 79

Not one degree more or less. 1257 °C is precisely where the magic happens. Behind the iron door of the kiln, where the clay takes on its character and becomes the sought-after crockery that restaurants crave. There is a great demand. So great in fact that Aage and Kasper Würtz are having to say no to new customers at the moment. The two are father and son and the men behind KH. Würtz, which they run in the small town of Hatting outside Horsens, Denmark.

1257 °C

Aesthetics – KH. Würtz Let’s bring people to the table …

80 81

Aage was practically born above the kiln, he

says. Aage’s father owned Hatting Bakery,

famous in the little town. Perhaps this is

the reason the kiln is the heart of the work-

shop for Aage:

“It’s the same as I imagine chefs have the

oven as the core of the business. It demands

reverence and respect.” At KH. Würtz there

are two kilns: “the electric kiln that just

stands there and goes click ... click ... There’s

no drama in it.” On the other hand, in the next

wing stands the big gas kiln made of yellow

brick. It has a thick, grey iron frame on the

outside and all of its safety precautions con-

nected. This is where the drama takes place.

BACKGROUNDFor Kasper, aged 34, it was a long road from

studying literature in the early 2000s, to

ceramics, which was the path he chose to take

together with his father. Kasper quite simply

found it easier to express himself in clay

rather than words. It was a more limited field,

he puts it, unlike literature studies. It was just

better suited for who he is. For Aage, aged 62,

the story began somewhat earlier. He got his

hands on clay in 1971. In his words, it was the

time when Jimi Hendrix played music and ce-

ramics was the sort thing you were supposed

to do. Aage opened his workshop in the early

80s, after completing his training as a potter,

and at the same time also studying at the

Royal Academy of Fine Arts.

PASSIONThe clay takes its shape on the potter’s

wheels in the workshop. An employee is in

the process of glazing and then places it on

a shelf. Once glazed the clay is still a whitish

colour, the glaze becomes visible after the

second firing, in what Aage describes as the

“proper” kiln. Everywhere the workshop has

the same whitish tinge. The white clay forms

a pale layer on all the surfaces that blur the

natural colour of things. It reveals imprints

and traces that have been left around the

room. Even the toes of Age’s shoes are

cracked with white splotches of clay.

Both the younger and slightly elder Würtz

are driven by a love of what they do every

day. In addition to these two, there is a small

team of seven employees engaged in the

daily work. Aage is the expert on the potters’

wheel and Kasper on the glaze, both of them

are involved in the design process.

“You can definitely get emotionally involved

in a dish,” says Kasper. “The passion mani-

fests itself when I take something good out

of the kiln, and there can be a long time

between, because we make a lot of things.

It’s when you find expression and get hold

of something that affects you,” says Kasper,

who explains that in the passion there exists a

quest to make something that must contin-

ually be better - the small details, the whole

impression and the sense of the object.

Aage adds, “It’s a form of operation, but of

course it’s absurd to spend as much time as

we do on something that’s aimed at per-

fection. We’re trying to make it better and

better and better. That’s our little world.

Fortunately, there are people who like what

we’re making, but it’s strange to go and be

so happy ... ‘wow ... look at the glaze – it’s

almost completely tranquil and perfect.’”

But there are emotions at play. The passion

is present with a decisive effect: When the

great people we collaborate with buy into

my experience of aesthetics that we are

aiming for. I actually get quite sad every time

they come, because they take everything

that I think was the best,” says Kasper. It’s

especially the bigger things that Kasper finds

it hard to part with, but he tries to console

himself in the thought that he can always go

and look at them, although he knows it’s not

going to happen.


82 83

“It’s sensuality. Everything from the contact surface of your feet with the ground, to

the chair, to the table, to the light, the lighting, to the sound. Everything plays together,

in the way everything is staged and it intensifies the experience.”


85

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY For people with a taste for ceramics, the

showroom is like a sweet shop. There are

ceramics lined up on the shelves along the

walls in shapes and colours that vary in

expression. The colour scale is balanced in a

subdued neutral universe with a few detours

to deep blue and pink. But still with that KH.

Würtz recognisability. There is something

raw, something simple, something stylish

that draws a line through cups, vases, dishes,

jugs and whatever else fills up the shelves of

the oblong room. As if an inspiration pursues

a specific expression.

“Many years ago I saw some Japanese pot-

tery at the Industrial Museum in Copenhagen.

Two crooked raku pots. They were almost a

little nervous in their expression - I thought

they were falling apart. With an asymmetrical

decoration - a symbol that was almost as

if it had been strewn up,” says Aage, and at

the same time he makes an arm gesture to

explain the upward direction. I haven’t seen

them since, but I’ve worked in their style. I

don’t dare to look at them again. I know how

I think they look. The sense of the pots. What

I saw was so different, it was simply beautiful.

Our ceramics are a hybrid of that and all our

ceramics come from that sense.”

Words such as nervousness and decon-

struction crop up in the design process and

as an inherent sense in every single thing

that KH. Würtz produces. It’s on that level.

The almost nerdy, sometimes abstract, but

sometimes there are absolutely no words for

the considerations behind it. Paradoxically,

they both have lots of words for what their

expression should be, as one that does not

have to be explained. They have a harder

time relating to everything that is outside

of the craftsmanship – where the object

has a utility value. Aage says that he cannot

comprehend that part.

“It’s an inspiration when you talk to a chef

who has a new thing and he talks about how

happy he is with it. To begin with, I also tried

to understand what you could do with that.

I’ve stopped that completely,” says Aage

and sticks to his own field: “Perhaps there

isn’t any explanation about our ceramics,

yet we talk a lot about it. We talk a lot about

having to make ceramics that shouldn’t be

explained,” says Aage.

“Some shapes talk intuitively to you, and

some shapes are perhaps not as meaningful.

It’s again a feeling and the uncertainty and

nervousness that can lie in a shape,” explains

Kasper and he elaborates on how they work

to bring out the expression, which actually

cannot be explained: “If I’m experiencing

some systems or I can recognise or see some

repetitions, then I try to break the patterns

and systematics I’ve seen used. Or when we

have made something that is stable and neat,

then we deconstruct the neatness. The very

core of our philosophy is to push things from

recognition and a pattern to the disrupted.

The things we make must stand on their own

and be themselves,” explains Kasper.

AESTHETIC TECHNIQUE The pair are aware that aesthetics play a

role in the experience that people are buying

into when they eat at finer restaurants. They

are also aware that their product contributes

to this experience. But when they are stand-

ing in the workshop in Hatting, those types

of thoughts are very distant. It is entirely

about the craftsmanship, about the material

and the glaze.

“Our aesthetic is based on technique and

material. To see what we can get the material

to yield. So how do we work with aesthetics

as a concept ... well, if it’s not ‘nice’, then we

won’t make it,” says Kasper.

Kasper is holding a black-white dish on which

patterns form what resemble puffy clouds,

divided by sharp straight lines in a herring-

bone pattern. “And Kasper’s fingers did this

in 20 seconds,” says Aage and draws his fin-

gers down over the dish, as if it was through

the glaze. “This is very primitive, what Kasper

does,” he adds. This is perhaps how it can

be expressed when real human hands are

deeply involved in the process of creating

and experimenting. At KH. Würtz, everything

is made by hand.

“I’m very influenced by the chefs’ engage-

ment in our crockery. Some take ownership

in things. It’s so important that it’s made

properly,” says Aage.

THE FOOD EXPERIENCEOne thing is contemplation of your own aes-

thetic approach; another is to experience it as

part of a meal. And they both experienced it.

“I was revitalised when I saw how noma used

our crockery, how beautiful it was. I was in

rapture over their handling of the food. The

aesthetics they have,” says Aage.

Kasper adds: “It’s sensuality. Everything

from the contact surface of your feet with

the ground, to the chair, to the table, to the

light, the lighting, to the sound. Everything

plays together, in the way everything is

staged and it intensifies the experience. A

coffee can taste much better if you have

the experience that the cup you are drinking

from is also exquisite. And I’m also sure that

the food tastes better without a pneumatic

drill outside. When everything plays together

from materials and ingredients, it is a better

experience overall, where everything feels

right and genuine.”

Kasper and Aage are aware that their crock-

ery is part of the experience. The staging that

people are subconsciously buying into when

they go out and eat in restaurants that ‘tell’ a

story. They have felt in their own bodies that

it works. Just with the exception of when the

food is served on a plate from KH. Würtz.


86 87

“I look at a plate and then I sit and think

how it could be better. At noma, I sat there

many times thinking... ‘ahhh, that bowl there,

we’re much better at making it now. It’s really

frustra ting it’s not that one,’” says Kasper.

“Yes, it’s extremely annoying, at least if

you’re out with your girlfriend, and she’s

sitting and enjoying it, and then I’m sitting

there saying, ‘it could be better.’ She asks

isn’t it fantastic to eat food from ‘my’ plate.

So I’m honoured that there is someone who

likes it. But it’s my daily life, so I don’t think

about it like that. However, to see some parts

that work, that’s of course why we’re working

all the time,” says Aage.

KH. WÜRTZIn 2006, René Redzepi from noma called. He

had received a plate as a gift with a Würtz

signature. He would like to use the plate

in the restaurant and wondered if it was

something they could do. And before long

the crockery was part of noma’s aesthetics.

Afterwards the restaurant Geranium and

Thomas Herman came along and a single

retail customer. Even though the names

had the right ring to them, there were not

enough customers to support the two. This

meant they chose to slow down:

“In 2009, we shut down a little and ran on

a part-time basis in recognition of the fact

that there were no shops who wanted our

things. They didn’t like it. They thought it

was messy and non-uniform,” says Kasper.

The same year, Kasper had taken over the

company from his father and the signature

on the clay changed to KH. Würtz, which

stands for Kasper Heie Würtz. KH in Danish is

also an abbreviation of Kærlig Hilsen, which

means With love.

However, in 2010 something happened

that changed the part-time business and

staffing. Restaurants and chefs discovered

the crockery. From there it really took off.

Restaurants from Japan, Russia and the

United States, amongst other places, were

added to the customer portfolio.

“Yes, it’s a fantastic contrast. We had been

to trade show after trade show. Kasper

had been driving around the country and

realm for many years. And people ... ‘ahhh

it’s too big, too small, too green, too blue ...

and suddenly people thought that we were

brilliant ... And I can’t remember having had

two days off since,” says Aage.

“It’s a form of operation, but of course it’s absurd to spend as much time as we do on something that’s aimed at perfection.”


88 89

“You can definitely get emotionally involved in a dish. The passion manifests itself when I take something

good out of the kiln, and there can be a long time between, because we make a lot of things. It’s when you

find expression and get hold of something that affects you.”


91

Aesthetics – KH. Würtz

92


94 95

Authenticity, DNA and sexy Scandinavians

The setting around a meal says something about the vision. That’s how Anders Busk Faarborg sees it. He is the Creative Director and partner in design agency Novel Interior Consultants and over the years he has used interior design to create a wide variety of environments in a great many restaurants and bars. Here he describes the processes and ideas that underpin his own and his team’s work when they are tasked with creating the right setting in a restaurant.

Surroundings – Anders Busk Faarborg

96


97

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU DO WHEN YOU GET A JOB OF THIS NATURE?“I ask a lot of questions and, naturally, I really

like to see a menu. The type of cuisine is

incredibly important; whether, for example,

it’s Italian or something else. There shouldn’t

be too much focus on the decor; everything

must point to what is for sale and in a restau-

rant it should point to the food. When I study

the cuisine, it’s to find out what’s different

about it. With that done, I can start to create

a story. Of course we don’t change what the

chef puts on the plate, but everything must

support the product.”

HOW CAN A MENU INSPIRE YOU?“I’m no foodie, I’m a designer and that’s my

focus. That said, it can help to see how the

food is served, to know whether the dishes

are small or large. But I also look at it from a

customer’s perspective; what is my experi-

ence, what’s great and what’s not so great –

‘Okay, you can have that as a starter? Okay,

so that’s a main course. And what about

dessert?’. And then I put my designer glasses

on. In that way, I think you get a sense of

where people want to go with it. And that’s

okay, we help them to progress. Of course,

that’s one of the reasons they call us, but we

can’t move people forward before we know

where they are now and what their vision is.”

DO YOU SUPPORT A RESTAURANT’S CULINARY PROFILE?“Yes, we do. When I have to explain what we

do, I usually say that what makes us unique is

that we’re working with the DNA of the place.

There are many people who work with design.

We don’t say design first, we say DNA first.

We’re not trying to force a style on someone.

We try to adapt it to suit the client – we call

it chameleon design, which means that it’s by

no means certain that people can see that

we’ve created it. There are many agencies –

including big-name foreign designers – who

like to leave an impression, with everything

in their familiar style. I’m proud if you can’t

see it’s ours. Because then, it belongs to the

client. And that, I think, is really the most

important thing – to discover the heart of

their story and to tell it.

When we designed the Danish restaurant

Bæst, an establishment with a strong focus

on organic meat and produce, we could

well have opted to make the place much

less polished. However, when I found out

what the kitchen offered, I wanted to create

something calm, so that the product could

stand out. Because if we had taken the Bæst

account and allowed ourselves to run amok

(red. “Bæst” means beast in Danish), then

I actually think that the focus would have

been taken away from the amazing food. I

don’t think you should be able to decode the

food 100% from the decor alone. But obvi-

ously if there are some recurring references,

then that’s really cool.

WHAT ELEMENTS ARE IMPORTANT IN THE INTERIOR DESIGN OF A RESTAURANT? “I think that attitudes towards lighting can

sometimes be uncompromising. It’s an

architect thing. Some of the fanciest places

in Copenhagen have what I would consider to

be terrible lighting design, but people don’t

notice it. I do and think ‘yikes!’ But people

don’t notice it, because the mood, design

and everything else is good. I would love to

be able to create the perfect lighting every

time but, for me, it’s all about spending the

money where it will be seen, and on what’s

most important to the client.”

WHICH IS WHAT, FOR EXAMPLE?“If the client is dreaming of exactly the right

wood and lots of it, then we know that’s

going to be very expensive to deliver. But if

that’s what you want, then that’s where you

should put your money. Instead of doing a

little here and a little there. Use your money

where you want it to have an effect. That’s

something I say that to all our clients. For me

it’s about the floor, ceiling, walls and lighting

as standard elements. Many restaurants

take a chance on the floor, because it will be

posted on Instagram – that’s the latest thing.

An example from a restaurant for which

we designed an amazing floor, is that most

Instagram posts were actually of people’s

feet. That was really funny. If the chef’s

focus is only on the table, then that’s where

we must spend a great deal of money but

if the restaurant wants people to enjoy the

experience of the room as a whole, perhaps

we also need something else. For example, at

cocktail bars, people want to see each other.

I’d rather work with large elements instead of

saying that the lighting is critical – Yes, the

lighting is important, but when we look at a

budget and the client doesn’t have the mon-

ey for a major technical lighting solution, we

compromise and solve it in some other way.”

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE AESTHETIC SETTING, OR LACK THEREOF, WHERE YOU HAVE A MEAL?“You can go to places in Italy where the food

is so amazing and the decor is so complete-

ly authentic, however; the decor isn’t very

pretty. This authenticity is, of course, just

another aesthetic. This is probably the most

important word when you’re talking design

today. Things must be authentic. There are a

great many restaurants whose ambition is to

look as if they’ve always been there. So the

aesthetic setting does means something.”

DO YOU BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE CAN FIND THE FOOD LOVELY, EVEN WHEN THE SURROUNDINGS AREN’T? “Yes, when it’s authentic. In Italy, it’s easy

to wrap the surroundings into a traditional

kitchen. Paris has any number of places to

eat where people say ‘go there, it’s simply

class,’ and then you get there and think, ‘is

this it?’, but then it is just amazing. I believe

in authenticity based on the presence of

history, on ‘who has sat here before?’, but it’s

hard to do from scratch.”

DO YOU HAVE A DESIGN PHILOSOPHY OR OTHER VALUES YOU CARRY OVER INTO YOUR INTERIOR DESIGN?“It’s important to have a constant sense of

who your client is; then we don’t need to use

that product from the latest edition of ELLE

Decoration. When the chef walks through

the door, he must say: ‘Wow! This suits my

product.’ Because if his reaction on walking

in is: ‘It’s beautiful, but it doesn’t look like a

Moroccan restaurant,’ then I’ve failed if that’s

what he wants.”

DANISH DESIGN AND NORDIC AESTHE-TICS CONTINUE TO GO FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH THE WORLD OVER, WHAT DOES THIS STYLE SAY TO PEOPLE?“There’s something attractive in the way

we live in Scandinavia, something unique in

the way we are. I believe that when people

discover New Nordic Cuisine, they associate

it with something pure and healthy. People

look at Scandinavia in relation to how our

system works. So looking in from the outside,

I think that people see us as an extremely

Surroundings – Anders Busk Faarborg Let’s bring people to the table …

98 99

“It’s important to have a constant sense of who your client is; then

we don’t need to use that product from the latest edition of ELLE

Decoration. When the chef walks through the door, he must say:

‘Wow! This suits my product.’“

well-functioning society – which engenders

enormous trust in our design and food. There

is peace of mind and a calmness to it that is

perhaps different. I just think that in someway

or another, there’s something sexy in the way

we live, because we’re the whole package.”

WHERE DO YOU SPOT THE TRENDS IN RESTAURANT DECOR?“I follow many vintage furniture dealers

around the world, as I’m very interested in

things from the past. They’re a fondness of

mine. I like the idea: ‘Where in the world are

we? In what era? A story... a writer; something

that creates entirely different images for a

mood board – rather than simply what’s mod-

ern. It seems to me that everyone is trying

to be unique but that, in the end, everyone

wants the same thing. I enjoy the adventure

of exploring completely different stories. And

then everything that comes afterwards, going

out and finding things that belong to that

universe. I often find inspiration in places that

have nothing to do with design. Ugly places.

I only get truly excited when I come across

the unexpected and that doesn’t happen in

mainstream media such as magazines.”

WHAT IS INTERIOR DESIGN’S ‘NEW BLACK’ IN THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS?“I think it’s this authenticity and informality

we’re seeing in restaurants now. Everyone

is looking for something less formal. Most

young chefs today prefer an extremely

informal setting. This is nothing new, it’s

something that’s been around for a while.

Things mustn’t be too elaborate. It’s literally

from farm to table. Many harvest their own

produce and I think that this idea will only

grow in popularity.”

WHAT ROLE DOES THE SETTING AROUND THE MEAL PLAY FOR YOU PERSONALLY IN YOUR HOME?“Having the kitchen close to the dining area

is really cool. I have two kids, so being able to

cook and remain close to where everything is

going on... well, the kitchen really becomes a

place for conversation. It’s a practical thing.

Aesthetically, I’ve chosen to build a kitchen

that blends into the room. The table top is

black granite and the doors are an abstrac-

tion of a slat. It’s interesting to integrate a

kitchen so that it doesn’t take over the home

on a purely visual level. I don’t like kitchens

that are just status symbols. You see many

people who have big, beautiful white kitchens

that stand there shining, demanding to be

cleaned as soon as you’ve peeled a carrot.

When building a kitchen at home, many

chefs tend to go with functionality over

trendiness, which I think is cool. I don’t like

that whole thing of building the world around

your kitchen – it just isn’t authentic. I like it

when people think about how they’re going

to use it. There’s nothing worse than things

that never get used. Things should be used.”


100 101

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102 103

“The meal can create community, it can

reinforce an existing community, it can

differentiate a community. It can remind us

of how important a sense of community is.”

These are the words of Ole Mouritsen. He is

the President of the Danish Gastronomical

Academy, Professor of Biophysics and head

of Smag for Livet (Taste for Life). Ole Mou-

ritsen knows something about most things

when it comes to food and what it relates

to. Here he talks about what the meal has

meant to mankind throughout time, from

the earliest age to the present day.

COOKING MAKES US HUMANWe have to go back a few years in time. A

few million in fact. That is how long ago man

first lit a fire and used it to cook food. We

gathered around it and the meal as we know

it today came into being.

“The community around the meal is partly

due to, and perhaps particularly because,

man began cooking food using heat from

the fire. Anthropologists believe that as a

species, we began to cook food using heat

1.9 million years ago,” says Ole Mouritsen.

Ole Mouritsen is particularly inspired by Rich-

ard Wrangham, who is Professor of Biological

Anthropology at Harvard University. Wrang-

ham is ground-breaking in his research. He

believes that cooking over fire is the reason

for man’s evolutionary success. That cooking

made us human. At the same time, he throws

a spanner in the works of evolutionary theo-

ries that tell us our ancestors ate the same

food as apes: raw, unprocessed and diffi-

cult to digest food. That kind of food would

require a third of the day’s hours to chew and

digest. According to Wrangham, neither our

In the beginning there was ... the mealHave you seen the Danish film ‘Babette’s Feast’ and do you remember the feast itself, where Babette cooks for the frugal and abstinent congregation in an outlying community in West Jutland? At first local fishermen and farmers gather around the table with tense expressions on their faces. But during the course of the lavish meal, old hostilities dissipate and the community unites.

Community – Ole Mouritsen Let’s bring people to the table …

104 105

“We’ve always put a white table-cloth on the table in my family when we’re going to eat and yes, it often has to be changed when you have children. The white tablecloth sets the stage for what is going to happen next.”

stomachs nor brains are designed for that

kind of food. Food cooked using heat makes

the food more easily digestible and therefore

softer. At the same time, it contributes nutri-

ents and therefore more energy, and that was

necessary for the development of humans’

large brain. According to Ole Mouritsen, our

brain uses about 30% of our energy, and

therefore cooked and nutrient-rich food has

always been important to us.

THE FORMATION OF A SENSE OF COMMUNITY“The men went out hunting and gathered

food, while the women looked after the fire.

And there you already have the suggestion

of communities you can call families,” says

Mouritsen about the small units that gathered

around the fireplace and ate in the evening.

He continues: “Food cooked using heat made

community possible, because cooking food

with heat freed up time. It meant that now our

ancestors didn’t have to spend eight hours a

day gathering food and eight hours chewing

it, there was time for something else. And it is

that time that anthropologists believe made

it possible to build social structures, cultures

and develop language, which in itself is not a

necessity for survival,” he explains and refers

to Wrangham’s theory that cooking with fire

gave rise to couples getting together and

marrying: “You became a sort of food couple,

because it was expedient for those who

looked after the fire and those who were out

hunting to be connected to each other.”

THE MEAL IS LOVE AND RESPECTWe found out how to divide the work, and

how to share the food and give it to each

other. We learned to orient ourselves in rela-

tion to each other and we got to know each

other. Cooking using fire civilised man and

the meal became a gathering point of every-

day life that has lasted throughout time.

“We offer each other food at a meal, even

if we haven’t made it ourselves, and I think

there is something very fundamental in

that. It shows love, kinship and community,”

explains Ole Mouritsen and tells how in some

cultures food is used as gifts and that food

has a symbolic meaning.

“There is a respect for each other in a meal,

but also a respect towards the gift of receiv-

ing food, which we’ve forgotten to an extent,

because today food in our society is readily

available and plentiful. We don’t appreciate it

in the same way as we have in the past, where

the daily bread was what it was all about. Be-

cause it was our livelihood,” says Mouritsen.

A WHITE TABLECLOTH SETS THE STAGEHowever, we can do something about the

decline in respect for food and the meal. Ole

Mouritsen also believes that the prelude to

a meal can be important for a sense of com-

munity: “By talking about what to eat and

helping do the shopping, by being included

in a meal you create an opening for the meal

to turn into a community.” In the same vein,

for example, the table setting can help define

the framework for the meal:

“We’ve always put a white tablecloth on the

table in my family when we’re going to eat

and yes, it often has to be changed when

you have children. The white tablecloth sets

the stage for what is going to happen next.

And I can see that my children, who now

have small children of their own, also put a

white tablecloth on the table. A framework

has been set and they can be different from


106 107

day to day, but the white tablecloth is a part

of us. Others perhaps use a silver spoon or

a particular candlestick,” says Ole Mourit-

sen and suggests that it might sound a bit

ostentatious, but the white tablecloth just

has the function of emphasising a fixed and

recognisable framework and at the same

time creating an atmosphere.

Mouritsen believes this kind of action creates

continuity and that generally it is a good

word to associate with the meal scenario: “In

addition to the meal having characterised us

as humans, the meal creates continuity for

the individual throughout life, but also for the

family and through the generations,” he ex-

plains, even though the meal as a gathering

point looks set to lose its position.

COMMUNITY WINS A record number of people live alone today.

The small unit, the family, which in the course

of time came together by the fireplace, have

each gone their own way. This means that

many eat alone.

“It’s pure brutal Darwinism, where the strong-

est wins. On a long-time scale, half a million

years ahead, if it makes any sense at all to

talk about so far in the future, you can easily

imagine that those who have chosen the

single life will not survive. This doesn’t mean

that they die from one generation to the next.

But, if the shared meal has an evolutionary

function, it will in the long-term eradicate

those who live alone,” says Ole Mouritsen.

However, he says that the research has a

more contemporary focus, which examines

what the meal does to us over several

generations. One example is that the way

we establish communities around the meal

can be related to lifestyle diseases:

“It has always been a mystery why people in

Mediterranean countries have traditionally

had fewer lifestyle diseases than others.

Some talk about the healthy Mediterranean

diet. But if you go through the various ele-

ments of this diet, they are not in themselves

any more or less healthy than what we eat, or

what others eat. However, in Mediterranean

countries the meal is what the day is all about,

it’s a tradition that you gather at the meal,

you cook it and everyone eats together,”

says Mouritsen. And it is apparently this

powerful food culture that is crucial for a

well-balanced diet, which ultimately gives

a healthier life.

In spite of the knowledge that food culture

creates healthier lives, the odds are stacked

against the meal. It seems that today, the

meal is something that you simply have to

get over and done and out of the way:

“The evening meal today isn’t an absolute

thing, it’s something you don’t take seriously.

Often people don’t eat at the same time, be-

cause it’s more important to get to football,

or whatever it may be, than to cherish the

community around the meal. And this not

only applies to the community where we eat

together, but also to cooking it together and

how we follow it up afterwards. For many, the

meal has become something that has to get

over and done with and out of the way. It’s

become a stop on the way from one thing to

another,” he says about the trend of food in

passing. “Food culture is rapidly changing and

we must be aware that if we forget communi-

ty during the meal, then we may also remove

ourselves from some of what characterises

us as human beings.” And with that Mouritsen

makes a major case for cherishing the meal

for the sake of culture, for health, for the

community ... for the sake of mankind.

“The men went out hunting and gathered food, while the women looked after the fire. And there you already have the suggestion of communities you can call families.”


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Let’s bring people to the table - HOUNO Renzell has just given Atera a new rating in New York as...

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Transcript of Let’s bring people to the table - HOUNO Renzell has just given Atera a new rating in New York as...