Latest / New Worlder / Episode #84: Niklas Ekstedt

Transcript

Episode #84: Niklas Ekstedt · New Worlder

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is the New Worlder podcast and I am one of your hosts, Nicholas Gill.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Co-host Juliana Duque will be joining shortly.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Today we are speaking with Nicholas Eksted.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: He is the owner of the Michelin-starred restaurant Eksted in Stockholm, Sweden.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's a restaurant that was designed around live fire cooking, but it started doing this when it opened in late 2011, well before this was a trend.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: He had spent years working in modern kitchens, everything from Charlie Trotter's in Chicago to El Bulli in Spain, and he opened a very successful restaurant focused on molecular food when he was just 21.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: When New Nordic Cuisine started to take off and you began to think about how he could be a part of it in a way that made sense to him,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: He started to think about Nordic techniques, the older ones.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: He started to research 18th century cookbooks to understand the way Swedes used to eat.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was closer to the way he grew up in the northern part of Sweden, where foraging was a way of life and his parents would buy meat from Sami herders.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: I was at Eksted more than a decade ago in what I assumed would be something of a gimmick, a modern restaurant with just a wood stove, fire pit, and wood-fired oven that was without gas or electricity in the kitchen.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: was anything but.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: The food was smart and honest, the pure expression of the ingredients.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: It was one of the highlights of a trip that included meals at Relais and Favikin.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Eksted has been open for 13 years now, so any novelty of this restaurant has worn off.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Many others have followed in its path.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Nicholas has even opened another version of the restaurant in London as well.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think there is something important in thinking about the way we used to eat, wherever we are in the world.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: The last couple of centuries have truly disconnected us from where our food comes from and how we eat it, and we are paying the price.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Our food is less nutritious, it often lacks flavor, and it's pumped full of all kinds of chemicals that are tearing apart our bodies and environment.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: We all need to peel back those layers and see what was going on a couple of centuries ago.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't mean to limit that to the restaurant setting, but in our homes as well.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: We also talk a bit about how the restaurant industry is changing.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Pre-pandemic, chefs used to take themselves so very seriously.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Kitchens were more like war zones than places of work.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Not to say that all is fine now,
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I think there is a sense that things are moving in a more positive direction.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that's good.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you haven't subscribed to my newsletter, just go to newworlder.com or search for New Worlder on Substack.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's free to subscribe, though paid subscribers get access to all of the content, including guides, ecosystem reports, essays, recipes, and archives.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Also, we now have a New Worlder YouTube channel where we are posting video clips of this podcast.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Very soon we will be posting full shows there, so stay tuned and enjoy the show.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, Nicholas.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: How's it going?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, Ari.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Really well.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Super good.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Cool.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if you remember this, but we hung out like 10 years ago for like three days.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember this?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: So it's been a while, you know, so it was like...
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: 2012 I think or something it was the only time I've been in Stockholm and I think we connected on Twitter or something like that or I messaged you and I was coming to Sweden for like some random assignments and yeah and I came to the restaurant and I came into Eksted and it was early December I think there's tons of snow and I was staying on this like old boat and like it was kind of weird that must have been very cold
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was, it was all right.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was, it was definitely snowy and windy and, you know, not a lot of sun and, but it was fine.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: I felt like I got to experience Sweden in a, you know, a good time at least.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: It felt like something.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: And, um, and I was taking the train to Fabrican and you gave me a copy of full magazine, which like just came out and like, you had boxes of it because like no one knew what it was.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: And, uh,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, it's like I read the whole issue on there and then I became friends with like the Jorgensen's and, you know, start writing for full.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, it was just this few days in Sweden.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: But like, I feel like I accomplished so much and it just works.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Everything like worked out well.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: So my memory of Sweden is.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Is that it's just like I was very everyone is very hospitable and hospitable.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: I ate very well.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: I definitely spent a lot of money.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: I probably spent more money than I made on my assignments.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: But it was totally worth it.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: I have this very warm, despite the cold weather, feeling of Sweden since then.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't been back for whatever reason.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: We need to change that.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: We need to change that.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man, I know.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was such a cool moment.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I need to go when there's sun out and things.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and talking about money, our currency has gone down quite dramatically, or the dollar has strong against our currency.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not at all as expensive in Sweden compared to the US 10 years ago.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's good to know.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's actually kind of interesting at the moment because Sweden is the cheapest or the least expensive country in Scandinavia at the moment because Denmark is because of Nova Nordic and the whole, you know, the medication that they're sending out in Denmark at the moment.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's stronger.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're doing extremely well in Denmark financially and Norway with their oil.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sweden has become this kind of
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: less expensive country in Scandinavia at the moment okay well that's good to know because I remember definitely like I was struggling a little bit like with the conversion like I definitely like went home with less money you know even after working
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's still not the cheapest country to visit in Europe.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not like the East Europe or something, but it's not as expensive as it used to be.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's good to know.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: As far as I remember, you were...
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: the one of the only people at the time to kind of start working with, you know, live fire cooking into a modern restaurant setting when I was there in, you know, that was 2012.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: You opened in what, 2011, something like that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's correct.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: And, but it wasn't really a trend at the time.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, right.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there wasn't this kind of concept everywhere.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was, you know, it's a historical concept and you can still find it in,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: You could always find it in rural places.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: It never disappeared.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: But into a modern restaurant, no one was really doing this as far as I remember.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: No, I had to explain it all the time what I did.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was very like people didn't get it.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were smart intellectual people like yourself who understood what I was doing, but there was a lot of time.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say all the time that I had to very much like vividly try to explain what I did and what my concept was.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of the day, oh, so it's a barbecue place, is it?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not barbecue.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it's been fascinating to see how it kind of like almost exploded the last couple of five, six years.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's all over the place.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: I would say, like, of course, you have, like, Xibari, who was very early on with his grill and the way that he cooked the Basque food the way he did.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he was, of course, a big inspiration for me.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: But otherwise, I was very much pioneering that back then.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean, I remember kind of the other media coverage I read, like, in the following years since I was there or around when I was there.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it made it seem like it was kind of a novelty, like what you were doing.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was kind of like a gimmick or something.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, it definitely was not.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: I ate there, and it was wonderful food.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Really, it was just another technique, and it was working well.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was working amazing, and I didn't really see it as a novelty.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: I just thought it was a smart move.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, before that, you worked in –
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like restaurants like Y'all Boogie and in places like that.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it was very technical, very avant-garde.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: And this was kind of the complete opposite direction.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Why was this kind of important to kind of make this move?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there was, I think that what happened during like 2008 to 2010, 11 was one, my friends were skyrocketing, like Rene Rizzetti and Magnus from Favik and all of them restaurants.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a little frustrating, actually, to be honest.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: I must say that I was sitting on the side seeing that they were really pioneering.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because when I first started working in restaurants in the late 90s, there weren't any Nordic or famous Scandinavian chefs or restaurants at all.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: We had to travel outside Scandinavia to eat well or to do an estache.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And everything culinary...
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was impossible to do what I wanted to work with in Sweden or in Scandinavia.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: But then, of course, Rene and Magnus and a couple of others proved me wrong and showcased that actually Scandinavian food and our part of the world has this very interesting history and products and producers and all that.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: So what happened during these years, Noma became number one restaurant in the world, 50 best restaurants,
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: was visited by foreigners from all over the world.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I was at home with my son on paternity leave, you know, apparently.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a little bit like, so when I was going to open my restaurant, I knew that I needed to do something different.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I needed to do something that stuck out and something that was true to myself, but I didn't want to do another fine dining restaurant because I knew that was just, it would probably hit, you know, a couple of years, but then it would fade out.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew that I needed to do something that really was different.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time, we spent the summer down in the Basque Country and we went to a lot of grill restaurants.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I went to Austin, Texas to eat some barbecue.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And what kind of fascinated me was that
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know, open fire cooking and grilling and smoking was actually a very Nordic Eastern European thing.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: But when electricity was introduced and we and our countries went out of poverty,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: We kind of adopted into this modern way of living and into electric things.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that in a sense, Swedes are very similar to Japanese.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: We love traditions and our culture, but we also really love the modern gadgets and the modern world.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're very into like extremely high.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's why Ericsson, Spotify, Skype.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the list is long, right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Swedish companies that are very modern.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think when when so when when electricity was introduced, we kind of threw out all these old way of cooking and a big tradition, a big culture was disappeared.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then so but when I traveled to other countries that had kept
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: these old techniques their food was more delicious because there are certain things that you cannot cook on an electric stove it's just impossible it doesn't taste as good this is it doesn't like period you know and then so I thought there must be Scandinavian there must be Swedish techniques the Swedish food that we used to cook that was delicious that we no longer cook
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: That was kind of, and then, so I thought of my cooking and the restaurant concept and the way that I work out of more technical aspect.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So if Noma and Favikin was all talking about the Nordic product and not sourcing ingredients from Southern Europe that we used to do, that it was, that we had all these fresh waters and fresh game and all these beautiful vegetables and fermented things that we had locally.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't we serve them in our restaurants, not only eat them in our house?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: I thought,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'd use, of course, these products, but let's also focus on the technical aspect that we used to do.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so that, yeah, so that was the original kind of idea to not...
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think traditions is something that you keep doing.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: A tradition like Christmas food in Scandinavia, that's traditional cooking.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't want to do traditional cooking.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to bring things that were forgotten and that you could bring back to life.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the original idea.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't like, it wasn't the fire itself.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: That was something that other people like you guys, like writers and journalists and podcasts and stuff.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they labeled me on.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Originally, my idea was just to cook old shit, you know?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: What's in the back?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: What's in that book that used to be something that people just did?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because there was nothing else.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: There was no electric stove, so we cooked it this way.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then when the electricity was introduced, we just did it the electric way.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's amazing to think about how much changes when something like
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: electricity is introduced you know like how much changes in the way we eat happen when just you know it seems like it's such an amazing thing that you know obviously we get lights and you know power and things and we can all these modern gadgets can be uh used and built and designed but then it's like with our food i don't know it just it's
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: i think you definitely do lose something i know like just everything becomes faster and i don't know julie what do you think about that like you're an anthropologist yeah i yeah i was about to ask you because about two two very interesting conversations i think you're having and i'll say one is historical
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: because of what you're saying, and the other one, which is geographical, because of your head chef, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, in a way, you are...
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: interpreting something from the past that you have to modify because, you know, we no longer live in that past.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious about that interpretation.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: What do you have to modify?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: How do you adapt to that contemporary mindset?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other one,
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other one is because your head chef is from Argentina, right?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like Florencia Abella.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And she understands, she gets what you wanted to do, but she was doing that and sensing that in a different place, different context.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And now you are having this geographical conversation.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious about those two things.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: modifications you are doing day-to-day with this yeah no absolutely i mean that's one of the that was one of the the most important things when i first started the um
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: the restaurant was that it was not supposed to be a museum or like it has to be contemporary cooking in a contemporary context and a restaurant that can compete with other high end restaurants.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that was something that was kind of very new when I did the concept
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: back then but now there are a lot of restaurants that follow this path that do like something that's very unique to themselves or very deeply rooted into their tradition and that can be both culturally geographic or technical aspect but then they put that into a restaurant concept that then then you visit right and i think about but but you know
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: 15, 10, I mean, 15, 20 years ago, it was mostly like you went out, you went to Italian restaurant or French restaurant or fine dining restaurants.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And now that whole thing is changing.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really, really good because it makes chefs think more, makes us be more sustainable, makes us make the restaurants just so different from where you are.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the moment, I think when you travel,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of things are just the same.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: You go to the airport, you go to the hotel, you go, you're in, you're, it's just like, there's not, there's not much things that are like the, if you would just stay in your room and don't open the curtain, you wouldn't know where you were, which, which part of the world you would be like would be impossible.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: But when you go out in Paris or Barcelona or Stockholm or Austin or wherever you are,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: there's still a unique restaurant.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's a unique experience.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: The street is unique.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: The restaurant is unique.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that kind of like makes, that's what makes the restaurant so important for us.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And when it, so I think,
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: That would answer your question.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: I really want my restaurant to be contemporary out of where you are, that you're in Stockholm and you're enjoying the food here.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the techniques to be
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: you know, very well rooted and, or in the food as well to be rooted in our tradition.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: And when it comes to Florencia, you know, I've had five different head chefs through, through this 10 years.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been through a lot of different people.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but, but Florence is the one that's been here the longest and she's been the one that I, you know, had, I've had a great time with, and we really appreciate each other and her way, uh, her, her,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: background as a non-swedish person you know she can back the swedish product and the swedish technique stronger than i can you know she's being more core swedish than i am she's very she you know she doesn't use
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: She never used olive oil.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: She never used lime.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're even trying to get rid of the chocolate here now.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we're probably the last week of making chocolate.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Next week will be 100% Swedish products.
• 20:45
  100%.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Or Scandinavian.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: We have some seafood from Norway.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: The salt is from Denmark.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: So there's never, ever an Argentinian, you know, she never uses any spice.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's almost like I have to push for that.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: I try to make it.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's like sometimes when you go to France, like especially Lyon, you know, they have these Japanese chefs that execute French food better than the French.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think in a way she's cooking my, you know, the Swedish food better than the Swedes.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, okay.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Before you opened Exted, you started going back reading 18th century cookbooks.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Which I'm curious how accessible those are.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if there's a lot of them.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Very.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: OK.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: What did you start seeing?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, was there anything that kind of some themes that kind of stuck out?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, one thing that's really interesting, that is that Sweden has a long history, of course, and goes back thousands of years.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: But one thing that really struck me is that it's been, you know, good times and bad times and how much that...
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: is how much food represents the time that you live in and also kind of like how different the food was between the different classes in society as well.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was very fascinating.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so, but when it comes to the technical aspect that I was mostly looking for, I was like really looking for tools.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's internet is great because you can ask questions openly and I really look for all things.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like at the moment where
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: I was going to ask you, actually, on your on your Instagram, like recently you posted a picture to like Viking tools.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how old they are.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you were in like one was like a like a roast pan or something.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: And the other you only saw the handle, but it had this kind of curved, swirled handle to it.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: What's going on with those?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Those were two tools that they found in a Viking ship that they dug out in Norway.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: And why they're so unique are because we didn't know a lot about how the Vikings cooked their food.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I've always, when I've talked about, I usually like, I've done most of my research been like middle years and a little later, like 15 to 1700.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I've been very curious about,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: the Vikings but the only thing we really know about the Vikings is the butter that they invented butter and
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: But the cooking techniques, I've always been told by historians and about people that I worked with that they cooked their food, that they didn't fry their food.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that was something that I could not really believe because frying food is way better than cooked food.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I would think, why would the Vikings only eat cooked food?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: They must have fried something.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And when they found this Viking ship, they found a couple of tools and they now replicated them.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: And they're actually frying pans.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And one of them is like a rotated frying pan.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the other one is more like a tool to sear probably fish.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, we won't know exactly how they did them.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: But at least I'm going to use them.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: If you try to work with them, I think the uses probably just reveal themselves a little bit.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: I don't understand.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: It was a rotating frying pan.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: What do you mean?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Why would that be?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was what people were discussing on my Instagram as well.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I've had a couple of direct messages about this rotating frying pan.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing is that some people think that it was not rotating, that it was only made like that because it took less metal to make it like that.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: But
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: When you work with fire every day, a rotating frying pan makes all the sense.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually, it makes, because the heat changes quickly over the fire.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you could also think of it being something that if you fry something fast, like you're searing it, you could, it's always like, it's time consuming.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: You need to be quick, quick taking off the bread, the flat bread or the,
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: if you cook like a fish on the skin side, sometimes you don't have time to put a new piece on and a new piece off.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have a rotating one, you can start searing it, move it down.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: It almost will always work like a rotating belt, you know?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's going to be fucking fantastic.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that sounds cool.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: But people keep telling me that the historians are historically incorrect with the description of the frying pan.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: But story will follow because I'm going to start using it in a week or so because I've had like five DMs from different people that
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: But the most interesting one was that I found the guy in Norway who made the replicas for the museum that are now on display in Oslo.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the frying pans that I'm going to get.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's incredible.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: The thing is, historians aren't cooks.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: They can tell you where the science points to, but they're not the ones actually using it or thinking with your brain of how it's going to be used.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it's super interesting what could come out of it.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and another thing is the fermented the Baltic Sea, you know, so a lot of findings about the way that they used to ferment fish, and then they found all these by by the water or on the water.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so now I've talked to a couple of divers and we've done a couple of experiments with fermenting fish and different vegetables underwater on certain temperatures and different types of clay and glass jars around the Baltic.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because what's interesting with that is that they had when you ferment things like the best ways, of course, to start in a room temperature.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: and then get the get it going.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you want to lacto ferment, then you want to cool it down on an even temperature.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's the most thing way.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the way that they did it was that they start because of
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Not having any refrigerators.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think what they did was that they started the fermenting fish or the rotten fish or the vegetables in the spring or the summer when you had like 20 Celsius something.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then they just put that into the water, in the cold water.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: quite like 510 meters under and then kept that that fermented rotten fish down there.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not that not underground, like they understand that they explain in Iceland, because I because the thing is that when when you have the Sue strumming today, or the famous fermented fish in Scandinavia, or the market, which have a Dutch word, which is fascinating, I learned that quite recently, it actually means spring or virgin in Dutch.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: OK.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: But that herring, that rotten fish, it would have been impossible for them to keep that during the summer.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: OK.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: OK.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: So it's something they could extend the shelf life kind of.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, underwater.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Fascinating.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: How deep are we talking about?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think very deep.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Just kind of like on the shore?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you could probably just walk out or just maybe with a boat, just sink it down like five meters or four meters or something.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: But it's... I mean, there are a lot of things that we knew or that we did back in the days that made so much more sense that we don't do anymore just because the lack of knowledge.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're not in much use, are we?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I went back to them, I couldn't teach them anything.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: to be honest with you right i mean it's just like i would learn way more from a viking than than you know than i would be able to teach him yeah you could you could teach him how to send an email or something but yeah but with what i'm just saying like if they appeared like in a encino man or something you know like they appeared in modern times like they'd have to yeah maybe yeah
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: They were apparently bad swimmers, so maybe I could teach you how to swim.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but, you know, talking about teaching, I mean, well, first, I want to say I think this is a beautiful example of applied history, what you were just saying, you know, researching archival work and kind of archaeological work and then actually applying that in, you know, it's a great example of that.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I was curious about...
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: so this mindset you have as a almost like as an archaeologist and you know cook and all these at the same time and if there is a change in the way you live experience internally your work with tv shows
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's a different message and how is the process in, you know, your own daily life and the message you want to transmit and teaching, is there a change, Agab, or it's all part of the same process for you?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, it's quite a different... Yeah, absolutely.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's so different.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, eventually, I think...
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, as a TV chef or as a celebrity chef, like when that first came, like 15, 20 years ago, when Jamie Oliver broke through and you had all these celebrity chefs on TV, that...
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: time has passed and it's not at all like that anymore.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: today i mean it's all social media, 100% social media.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: i can do six hours of tv and it wouldn't change the restaurant dramatically.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: i have one youtuber who is here and sent 15 minutes tv and filled the restaurant for three months.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the media landscape is changing so quickly and so rapidly at the moment that it's almost hard to keep up with it.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why, for me at least, I don't know if I'm getting old or just lazy, but I feel...
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: I feel a little stressed with that, so I'd rather just focus on my restaurant and my kids and on the things that I do in the restaurant than spend that much time with media that I used to do.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get as much out of it.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it might be because I'm already established, but it's just that I don't chase that anymore.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you use it as...
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just another way of expressing your findings and what is interesting as part of the restaurant and the message, right?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's true, yeah.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I'm sure it's useful when you want to learn about a Viking tool like you just did.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: Then it comes in a lot of use.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, internet is just an amazing tool when you want to do things like that and want a quick response from all over the world, especially when you need something.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: You can get a lot of, you get 95% idiots and dumb questions and dumb answers, but then suddenly you get one that's just like, holy Moses, this is amazing.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is great.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's, yeah, I mean, especially I get it with handcraft, you know, because all these people that are very into handcrafted things are usually online and usually, or someone knows them and you get recommended to them.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: So changing topic a little bit.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't grow up in Stockholm, right?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: You grew up kind of north, kind of like where Fabricum is, right?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: My mother used to live... Yeah, my mother used to live... I could walk from Färviken to her house.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I grew up in Järpen, the post address of Färviken.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, all right.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Me and Magnus went to the same school.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: So growing up, what was your relationship to food?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: What were you eating and how were you eating?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: It had to have been very different then.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it was very different.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Also, my parents had a vegetable stand, so they sold food.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And my mother was a teacher as well.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: And my dad did outdoor activities like canoeing and kayaking and stuff like that.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was a kid, there was only one small supermarket or not even supermarket, it was a store.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, you know, there was no McDonald's, no restaurants.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was just, yeah.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was very, very different.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, thinking back on it, it was amazing because my parents got a lot from the Sami, the indigenous where we lived and bought a lot of reindeer meat and elk and moose meat and fish from them.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And my dad used to pick all the vegetables and my mom used to pick mushrooms and blueberries and lingonberries.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it was like an extraordinary childhood when it comes to food.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: But as a kid, you just wanted to get out of that.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: When I went to visit my grandma in Stockholm, the first thing I did was to go to McDonald's.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: But now when I have children of my own and when I think of what type of childhood I had, it was of course extraordinary.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: So when did this idea to become a cook start?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so when I was like 14 or 15 years old, my parents moved down to southern Sweden because my dad got a job down in the south, close to the border to Denmark.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And my parents moved and I moved with them.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: But Sweden is very, very different north to south.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: South is different dialect, almost different language.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: No mountains, no snow.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Very much more like Denmark or Germany culturally.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just very, very different.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I grew up in the rural kind of with the samis and snowmobiles and pickups.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it was I was very I didn't feel comfortable at all and hated school, hated my friends.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so but.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: So my mom told me about a boarding school that was a culinary school that was in my hometown that I could apply for.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I just said it was always like food, of course, but it was nothing I thought of as a profession.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: But then, yeah, so then I started that.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: So you go back home, you go back to where you're from.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: Was it more to go back where you're from than cooking at the time?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: At the time I could snowboard and hang out with my friends.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, yeah, cooking.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: But then.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was a three-year cooking school.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: The first two years, I didn't pay attention at all to school.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I just smoked weed and snowboarded.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: I did nothing.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Then the last year in culinary school, we had a great teacher that came.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he was just extraordinary in so many ways.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he had been a head chef at a fine dining restaurant in Stockholm and was just tired and worked out and just needed to do something else.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: So he moved to...
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: northern sweden to relax and become a teacher have better hours but he saw me immediately and like third week or fourth week we were doing he just called my dad and my dad usually just got calls
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: telling that I was in trouble.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't show up in school.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then he told my dad that he said, oh, you need to take care of your son because he's really talented when it comes to cooking and he really has an attention for details and stuff like that.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it was like the first kind of like ever...
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: credit my parents got from me.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: So this teacher kind of opened your world to cooking a bit.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 100%.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: He also gave me a cookbook that was very generous of him.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was a Marco Pierre White, like a
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: british chef uh so yeah white heat okay okay well yeah that's that's converted a lot of people i think you know yeah yeah um well the school more focused on a european cooking or swedish too uh the teacher and the school yeah i mean back then it was mostly french
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: cooking, Italian cooking.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: That was what you were taught in culinary school in the 90s and 80s in Sweden.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you wanted a career in a restaurant, you needed French cooking or Italian cooking.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: Swedish cooking was something you did in your house or your grandma did.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was nothing that we ever thought of as a restaurant concept.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you would say that back then, like, oh, I'm going to open a Swedish restaurant, they would ask you, who would want to go there?
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why would you pay for that?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you cook at your mom's house.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's nothing you're ever going to... So from there, you get out of boarding school, and that's go abroad and...
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I went to America.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: I finished school on a Friday and on Sunday I was on a flight to Chicago and yeah, was friends of my dad's.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: I want to ask you about that because I read an interview where Yoko Ono
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: called Charlie Trotter to get you a job.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: How the fuck does that happen?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the weirdest thing ever.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also kind of like it wasn't an advantage at all when I got to the kitchen because all the other cooks were like, who's that fucking kid that's friends with Yoko Ono?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: right well yeah they probably hated you like yeah yeah i've never i have never met her i've never even like talked to her on the phone so if she listens to this podcast or if anyone knows her yeah she totally listens to this so yeah yeah yeah so i send my regards and tell her that i love her because she changed my life
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: but yeah it was my uncle and his friend they were like famous artists back in the 60s and 70s in Sweden and so they knew her and they were friends with John Lennon and Joko back in the days so I think that my
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: my father just called all his like anyone that's connected or celebrity that i know of that can help my son to get a job in in a fine dining restaurant and then and then she probably just said like oh yes of course i know uh charlie is uh usually so that which is another funny story like imagine yoko ono and charlie trotter like just that relationship yeah
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: where did that how did that go uh but uh yeah so i had yeah so i arrived in in america yeah in 97 yeah right so that was like peak chicago kind of well i don't want to say peak chicago but i mean just like there was a lot happening chicago was kind of like the episode i think of
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: American fine dining at the time.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was insane.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: We had so many celebrities.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we had all the celebrities you can ever think of at that time, like Bill Clinton, the Swedish King.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: We had Joel Robichon, Paul Bucuse, Snow Boo, Cindy Crawford, Michael Jackson.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was just nuts.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Every night was just insane.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I was a young kid and never been abroad.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Big chef jacket working 14 hours a day.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of fun.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: I stayed at this old lady's house in the Swedish church too.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: So she was this contributor to the church.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: She was probably in her 70s or 80s.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: And she took care of the Swedish church and her parents were Swedish and she died.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: So she wanted someone to practice her Swedish with and help someone.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I stayed in her house.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the first two weeks I paid rent.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the third week she said, you can stay here for free if you wash my hair.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: i had to go into yeah once a week this old lady sat in the bathtub and i shampooed her hair before going to work oh man the imagery there is is amazing free free rent yeah yeah like just imagine just imagine the bear like with uh yeah yeah like just taking a break from the kitchen and the
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: yeah that's it that was the thing yeah i can't even watch that show because of course i was a chef as well in chicago and you know went through all that and the insane hours and charlie was so it was so intense it was right like i mean that was yeah that was you know kitchens at their peak uh
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: like intensity right like just it was a big big place lots of energy lots of just crazy hours and yeah
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was incredible, incredible intense.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: And also we didn't have any like emails or iPhones or anything.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we had to write everything.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: I found a couple of written letters at my mom's house the other week that was from that time.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: I could just tell how fucking tired I was because everything was done.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: it's like everything is misspelled yeah but it's very short letters they're just like oh having a great time working very hard sleeping very little you know just like love you all send candy
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: but what would you say you were absorbing the most or learning the most i mean now in retrospective what will you you know i think i mean i mean that was that something that was absolutely extraordinary was like the the full items of things that we got into the restaurant because back then when when you worked at a high-end restaurant like that nothing was cleaned down
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: so like if we got rabbit we got whole rabbits you know if we were the sea urchins they were just straight out of the sea with a lot of like seaweed on them weren't broke everything you had to
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: You had to break everything down.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: When a deer came in, it was a full on deer.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there was mushrooms came in, not clean.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I learned so much at Charlie Trotter's cleaning down things.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: I can butcher anything still.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: I can clean any fish down.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: I learned, you know, every day was on the also because my dad and the American chefs, they weren't like they weren't great on filling fish.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: They were actually shit.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the older guys, even the guys in like in the old people, for me, when I was young, young, who were in the thirties, they couldn't clean a fish down properly.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: And because I've been with my dad so much in the lake and the fishing boat and outdoors, any fish I got, I just cleaned it down pretty quick.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's something we do from a very young age.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: My son can do it.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like 12, you know?
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: And, um,
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, of course, the first couple of days when I got there, I was on like on fish station and I just took and the fish came in and I just took it, of course, and just cleaned it down.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, oh, my God, you did that much quicker than we did.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: But like then I was on fish station just cleaning fish.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: So after like two weeks of just standing there cleaning fucking thousands of fish, I just thought, chef, can I do something else?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: But really, really rewarding.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it was fun.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was also great because then after that, I went to France and Spain.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, America was great because I spoke English.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it was nice, easy to get around.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so then you go to you go to France, you go to Spain.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: You go to El Buye.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: What was that experience?
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: How long were you there?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was funny because I didn't know anything about El Buye.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: I knew nothing about Spanish food.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: I had never been to Spain.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never heard of someone called Ferran Adria.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just Chef.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: Did Pablo Picasso call Ferran Adria for you?
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was Charlie that did.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so actually when I was on the train to, I went home and I was at my mom's house.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: My mom said like, I think I've read about the restaurant you're going to in Spain.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I said like, oh, oh, did you?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's in this.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: And she took, it was like a traveling magazine, a National Geographic or something.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it was all about Catalonia.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a little piece in that magazine about El Buye that was like that big.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: That was the only thing I ever read about El Buye before going there.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know...
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: Shit.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: So even like on the train, someone asked me, like, oh, where are you getting off?
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to go and look at the fucking National Geographic, find that place.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's Ross.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, Perpignan.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they get off here.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then I knew a new shit when I got there.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know that it was in Catalonia.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know any Catalan.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like, and they, yeah, they thought I was just a lost kid, but it was fun.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was great fun.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I got to know like Rene Redzepi, Christian Puglisi, Massimo Bottura, all these amazing people came out of there, of course.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I have my name on a stone there.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think they wrote down all the famous people famous or people that made it like that work there.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it was very, it was, it was very intense.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very intense.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: intense in a different way you'll say Chicago Charlie Trotters and the other restaurants I worked with was I learned way more things that I could apply today and that still still that I have the use of still today but I mean El Buya I think what Rene did when he left El Buya I think what also what Massimo learned there a lot was the kind of the organization and the extreme um
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: setup that they do in the way that they do their lists and the way that they set up the whole restaurant was just so different it was just like game changer I mean it was just like when you've been to any other restaurants or worked in any other way and then suddenly you're like
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Holy shit.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it was because there were so many stagiaires there.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we were like, I think, 48, 49 in the beginning.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was also a little bit like Survivor, you know, like the TV show.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: They started out with like 60 people.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: But then after a while, you realize, oh, we're going to end up being 40.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: So what happened was just one day, they just go and knock on someone's shoulder and they just had to leave.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like that.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like pack your knives.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: Precisely.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's exactly like Donald Trump's show.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: That was it.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: That was it.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then after a while, you're standing there.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: So after three days, you realize, oh, shit, I might actually not make it.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: I might be on the next train home.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you had to keep your pace up.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it was also like, so at El Buye, it was kind of like, it was one thing you did.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: You were given like a task and like, oh, you're on rice.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you're on rice, you actually make the rice.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: You made every single, so it was, yeah.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're not cooking the rice, you're making the grains.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it was that type of, and then everything was weighed too.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was 12 grams or eight grams.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then you put that in that little box into that little box that was in that little box that was in that little cooler that went that went into that one, that little thing.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was then made as a dish.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just so you had you could be on one source, you know, you could be on one one gelatin, you know, it's just very different.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: But the problem was you never saw the whole chain.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: You weren't like cooking the whole dish.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it was more like working in an airplane factory or something.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: So after that experience, is that when you go home?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like after El Bulli?
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, then I opened my own restaurant when I was 22.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that was called Nicholas, right?
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_02: Or is that a different one?
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was still open then.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: when I was there.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: Probably, yeah.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: 2012, okay.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's closed now.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so what was that restaurant like?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of like fine... I think the one that you were... I think the one that you were were the extension of that.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: The first one was just a small fine dining restaurant that closed in 2008.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, no, I didn't go to that one.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it was more like high-end restaurants...
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: me, young, confused, trying everything that I learned that El Buyo and Charlotte Trotter was trying to put it down on my own plate.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it was massive success, massive hit.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was a massive hit?
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: Immediately.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was so talked about and we were like ranked number two restaurant in Sweden.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was just, Rene worked there.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: okay uh he was my yeah it was the sous chef there yeah it was just like very uh yeah got a got my own tv show got book contract right right but like when you talk when you talk about it it it almost seems like you're not that pleased with it or something like like that you know why do i not
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: it was a time of my life that I was young, successful but I wish I could go back and talk to that guy a little bit because then I learned a lot but it was just a little I was it went a little too fast a little too quick and luckily I met my wife and got a kid and relaxed and sold the restaurant
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: So if you saw that guy, the 21 or 22-year-old guy, what would you tell him?
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: To relax a little bit.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: Time will come.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: Focus a little more on the cooking, less on other things.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because the problem was I was so young and because I didn't know any other restaurateurs and my family weren't restaurateurs, it was... I was...
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: So because I didn't think I was going to make it, I thought it was going to be so difficult, but it went so quick.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was offered so many things that I just said yes to everything.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd probably tell him to stay in the kitchen, relax, don't bother about that.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: more offers will come you don't you don't have to do that you don't have to do this you don't you don't have to you don't have to talk to them and another thing was that i was always told that it's so important that you go out and talk to the guests or my my guests are here you need to talk to them or you need to be with this guest or you need to be at that time you need to be at that event or you need to be there and the truth is that you don't
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's such a weird business.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_02: Anyone young and talented, it's so easy for your life to veer off course if you have great restaurant credentials and a good background.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_02: My experience in Latin America, anyone that's had any good position at a nice restaurant
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_02: fine dining or, you know, Michelin star restaurant and they come back, open a restaurant in their, in whatever city.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it's very easy for them to just kind of get sucked up into, I don't know, just the, it's, it's a very, it's,
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's very hard.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's very easy for your life to kind of veer off course and kind of to be very unhappy very quickly, even if you're... Yeah, 100%.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: The problem with it is that I think it might be the same thing in music and acting as well.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but I think the thing is that when you come, when I was young, I came from El Buye, Charlie Trotters, all the food writers, everyone was so curious about me because I hadn't been cooking in Sweden.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: I came from nowhere, like...
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: were dropped down and you know and then all writers and journalists they're looking for the next thing the next new thing the young thing the trendy thing what's going on and it's you never learn anywhere in school how to handle that or how to tackle that or how to behave
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: in those situations but then of course when you've done it for 10 years you got to know the writers you were pampered a little bit you're not that impressed by reading about yourself in a newspaper hearing your own voice or whatever it is then you get humbled and also you get just because you're successful and people write about it doesn't mean that you're economically set for life it could be the opposite and
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that things like that humbles you a lot.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the only thing that really saved me was that I took the break between 2008 and 2010, like a year or two there.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: So you have a couple of years off, more or less.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_02: Your father.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was actually thinking of quitting completely.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: OK.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: So you didn't like, you know, like how you felt at the time, but you have, you know, a couple of years, raise a child, totally step away, think about things from another kind of perspective.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then, so how did...
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_02: How did Exted enter your mind?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_02: How did this kind of buyer concept, no electricity, how did that?
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_01: Was it just because it was a more... It was a lot about me thinking about that I didn't want to fail.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: That I wanted something to be rooted in...
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: very rooted in my traditions and in who I am and in the have a long shelf life and also be something that I could explain and be proud of.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I succeeded.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: I succeeded with that.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: I can, I can easily retire now with this 30.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, now I'm probably going to go another 10 years, but even if you are close to, I thought of a lot during the pandemic, of course, because it was so close and you, your, your life was upside down and you had a lot of, uh, you questioned yourself and your, your, um, your business.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: And, uh,
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: For a short while, I thought of just closing the restaurant and just go on with my life because it was so tough.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought of it back then a lot.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, well, I still can be very proud of what I've done and what I did and what I had accomplished.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_02: So that's good.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're happy and things... Yeah, I am.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's such a part... And also... Mm-hmm.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: yeah also life is easier now when when kids are getting older and uh you know they're teenagers now so they're like they're they're they manage to manage themselves and and uh they actually sometimes even help me not not dramatically but they're at least they're at least not as big of a burden as they put it that way yeah yeah
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_00: So having access to this historical information and that consciousness,
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say the contemporary aspect of it or innovation and this more creative mind adds to that and adds for customers and people visiting you?
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: How my creativity, how I use that in the everyday restaurant work?
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's your question.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's the experience as a guest or experience from me?
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how does it show in the experience?
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how...
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: how do you think that about for from clients and you and how what do you think that adds like how that benefits people the contemporary um injection well because there has to be something of it that makes it different apart from
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: the narrative of it and what we know formally happens, which is, you know, creativity.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: But in the actual experience, what do you think, how does that look like?
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: At least for you, if it's impossible to read the minds of customers.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I think working with the way that we cook, I mean, creativity is so important, like extremely important.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I can really tell that when I get pastry chefs or trying to work with someone that they struggle big time working here in the restaurants when we don't have electricity.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're not used to the limitations like that.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they are the least...
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: creativity, their dishes and what they do looks very creative, but they're the ones that could rely on recipes and follow instructions to make something look creative in the most efficient way.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because the whole industry of sugar and chocolates and additives is pushing towards it, making things for them to apply on the everyday work in the restaurant.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: So when they arrive here and there's a wood oven, there's a bench, that's it.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, what the fuck do I do with this?
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it just makes them, and when they come into it, they think they can.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: They think they know that this, but after like two, three weeks, they realize I'm in the shit because all I learned and all I did before is useless here.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a little bit like Contiki, you know, the Norwegian harrier doll who tried to sail over the Pacific in the boat that was made out of hay.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so... Reeds, reeds.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it wasn't exactly hay.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: A little thicker.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: A little thicker than hay.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: But...
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, no, so I think in that way, we need to be very creative, of course.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, when it comes to
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: The experience itself, I think that's the one thing that people really appreciate here, or at least they say to me when I talk to them and the guests that they really enjoy that they're surprised about the creativity when it comes on the plate, thinking about how simple our cooking tools and kitchen is.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what motivates you right now?
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're at peace, you feel accomplished.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: What motivates you?
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_01: I've never been more motivated.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's because even if it's difficult times, we have inflation and we have a war very close to us and all that.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's never been more fun to be in the food industry than right now.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, because if you look back, you know, 20 years when I first started or 25 years when I first started,
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: we had to explain what we did, you know, we had to like, Oh, Oh, you're a chef.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so, uh, we, you know, today there's like food, food shows that bear that you were like talking about.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have, uh,
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_01: you know, podcasts, you know, people are very, they know a lot what our profession is and what we do and that there are, and there's such a huge interest and curiosity into, to find dining and find food.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_01: When I first started, we only had rich people or maybe some business people.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: Today we have people that save up for a month or two to come to Michelin start restaurant, to have a nice experience.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have,
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_01: people from all over the world visiting the restaurant every day.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_01: I have young people that, you know, come and do as you know, that wants to come and meet me and see what I do.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like, it's,
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a more fun community and profession to be in now than 20 years ago.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: And also, we've all relaxed and every kitchen is calm and it's quite quiet.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: No one shouted at each other.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: We have pretty steady working hours.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're not trying to kill each other anymore.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we've come the long way.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: So what motivates me is that the future looks bright for the industry.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the perfect place to end this.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you've got things to do.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_02: But thank you, Nicholas.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a pleasure.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_02: Good reconnecting with you again after all these years.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_01: You want to wait another decade or you want to show up in my life early?
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'll probably swing by sometime soon-ish.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: Please.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for calling me and have an amazing... What time are you on now?
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_02: Right now it's 11 a.m.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: For me and Julie's in LA, so it's... What is that, like 8 a.m.?
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy your day.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy your Monday.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: You as well.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, man.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_02: See you.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, everyone, for listening.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_02: Please subscribe to the newsletter.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_02: Just go to newworlder.com and check it out.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_02: And a big thank you to my friend Pat Buzzard for providing the music to the show.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_02: Find out more about Pat at patbuzzard.com.