In early October I joined other Roux Scholars for one of our regular overseas study visits together, every other year, this year to Sweden and Denmark.
Although based mainly in Stockholm, Malmo and Copenhagen, the visit also took in some remote farms, wildernesses and the archipelago. It was not all about smart dining, though there was plenty of that too.
I was lucky enough to experience cooking ranging from Michelin* restaurants, Franzén 3*, The Alchemist in Copenhagen 2* and Ekstedt 1*, to informal cooking in the great outdoors by famous former chefs such as Magnus Nilsson, former chef-patron of Michelin 2* Faviken, hundreds of miles to the remote North in Sweden.
It was a trip that has left enduring memories and created strong impressions on me and the ones most important to me personally have coalesced in my mind into a number of themes.
Welcome and hospitality
This was everywhere we went. We were welcomed into homes, farms, orchards, around campfires in the woodlands, into workshops reviving old crafts, not just into the great, showpiece restaurants. It was a supremely personal experience.
This is the very heart of cooking – sharing, welcoming – and has been through all the ages, country and town, village and high diplomacy. I shall not forget being welcomed into a family home for simple and wonderful food, a lovely local roast chicken and local herbs.
It is what drives us all here at The Dysart Petersham. For me and for the team it’s what it is all about.
We saw simplicity, knowledge, tradition, adaptation and experimentation sitting comfortably side by side, underpinned by an intimate connection with the land, which has never truly been lost there, along with stubborn and inspired endurance and pride.
Of course, there is all the absolute refinement in the Michelin Star face of food and wine in Sweden and Denmark, for which they have become famous, but underlying the visits that stick in my mind are the love of the ingredients, the commitment to the produce of Sweden, grown in a responsible and caring manner, respect for nature around, commitment to relearning some of the old crafts pursued by only a few over the last 100 years – to a quiet sustainability that seems built into the psyche.
We, at The Dysart Petersham, had already discovered, and use on our tasting menu, the wonders of Iscider, made from Swedish apples grown in an orchard in the cold climate of North Sweden, not far from the Arctic Circle.
But we were able to see at first hand a beautiful apple and pear orchard in Axelstorp, Skäne, overlooking Laholm Bay and surrounded by a natural reserve, now in the guardianship Magnus Nilsson.
He initially had plans to open a restaurant on the site, successor to World -famous Faviken. However, he soon became aware that the maintenance of the orchard was an integral part of living on the site, a full time job in itself.
This was a wonderful journey up to this picturesque location surrounded by woodland.
Magnus welcomed us like family and had a log burning fire outside his home for us when we arrived.
He spoke a lot about what inspired him to come to this location. He grew up on a farm and thus once he decided to step away from cookery wanted to return to his roots with his new family.
Magnus certainly left an impression on the group as his fabulous orchard really puts in practice the true meaning of sustainability.
I was amazed how each area within the orchard we visited with Magnus seemed to have its own unique ecological working systems in harmony with the orchards – it reminded me at times of an undisturbed primary forest, sheltering all the apple and pear trees from the winds coming in off the sea.
He worked tirelessly on protecting this special quality, by using only 5 workers and a very small, old Massey Ferguson tractor as the only modern machinery to aid with carrying the apples and pears towards the house. The tractor had to travel only on a path and never near the trees as it would damage the ancient soil around the trees, which was abundant with mycelium, shrubs, ferns, wildflowers, lichen, mosses, and mushrooms. We even came across a beautiful tiny cep growing amongst the trees.
ll the apples were picked in a very specific way by hand to enable the trees to continue to fruit in a natural manner.
His knowledge and understanding of each of the varieties of trees was breathtaking, researching each of them to find the best ways to harvest the fruits for flavour and protection of the ecosystem around them as a whole and not just thinking about ease of transportation and blemish free fruits, which has often led to concentrating on single varieties.
Magnus has hundreds of different varieties growing simultaneously in this rich, diverse environment, a far cry from the mono agricultural systems we’ve brought on ourselves over the past decades.
He’s at one with his trees and surroundings, as much as he is with himself.
Before taking on the project of the orchards Magnus was the chef at the World-famous Fäviken restaurant, which was set 375 miles north of Stockholm, deep in the forested province of Jämtland.
It had a 32-course tasting menu which got two stars from Michelin, his commitment to regional and local sourcing was paramount to this. They would forage moss, herbs, grasses, mushrooms, flowers and seeds from the grounds every day, and about half the produce for the restaurant was also grown in their garden, it was a real task to get to the restaurant as it was in the middle of nowhere.
I had some very interesting conversations personally with Niklas Ekstedt about his up-bringing in Jämtland in northern Sweden.
This sounds remarkably like my Nan’s farm, I spoke of how would get the water each day from the well, used rain water to wash and didn’t always have electricity. How we would go about our daily life on the farms in Ireland very much resonated with Niklas and his childhood as being very similar to mine.
As I did, he worked in some of the finest restaurants, but never truly got the rural life out of his system and inner soul. This remains a driving force for me and the team here.
Like me, his vision over the past few years is to go back to basics, a reaction to the way gastronomy has become more and more affiliated with scientific techniques. He wants to revive the forests and images of his childhood and the older, simpler, ‘classical’ ways of doing things in his food. This too is a driving foirce here.
Just like us at The Dysart Petersham, he eschews water baths and multiple gadgets and relies on honest, old school cooking, by judgement, in a homely setting.
It was great to see experimentation when we visited one of the most recognised, up and coming wineries in Sweden, which certainly has potential moving forward. A lot of the wines we tasted were probably too young as they had only bottled them a few months before and it was really the first year they could say the wines were what they considered good enough.
It was fascinating to see a saffron farm in Sweden, the most expensive spice in the World and one of the rarest, usually from a warm zone, from Spain to Afghanistan. It reminded me of the yuzu fruits and other Japanese fruits and vegetables we source from Namayasai in Sussex, another experiment with Japanese fruits and vegetables, another place where the ecosystem as a whole guides planting, gathering and another magical place.
We also were invited to the studio on the final night of Director Lotta Jorgensen and Photographer Per-Anders Jörgensen, who are currently doing a magazine around art and the cultural significance of food which has a worldwide following. This resonated with me as we see food and the joy of gathering to eat it very much as a cultural experience, which is one of the reasons a core focus on the food and traditions of each individual country is so important, with inspirations drawn on with a light touch from around the World.
On a practical note, I was deeply impressed by the integration at Franzén of the kitchen and serving teams as one, where, just as is our constant aim here, both kitchen team and front of house work together and understand our food, our methods, our aims and our culture.
But for a final note, it wasn’t all restaurants and ingredients.
We spent many hours with Julia Kalthoff, who was crazy passionate about axe making and the ancient techniques of using them; it was incredible to see someone work so tirelessly to restore a lost art from our ancient pasts.
Julia Kalthoff – “The Axe Lady”- artisan craftsman who carves beautiful axes in Tomtebogatan, Stockholm.
We spent the whole day with Julia , starting just after midday in her workshop as she guided us through the processes of smelting and casting the iron, all the way to making and treating the wooden handles. Then we went into the forest so she could show us how to use the axes, showing us various ancient techniques. We tried our hands at making various things out of wooden pieces, for me some kitchen utensils.
As the day turned into midnight we made a fire, on which in turn we cooked food to make our own dinner that night which was rewarding and refreshing for us all.
Julia explained to us for thousands of years, the axe was the most important tool for our survival.
Today, we don’t rely on it like we used to. But with digitalisation, the interest in making things with our hands is growing and for that reason we still need our axes and why she’s so passionate about restoring its significance.
Julia also explained to us that she contributes by not accepting established ways of doing things, but by carrying out new research to either validate them or find a better way, looking to make axes that are an extension of ourselves, so we become absorbed in the craft and the object we make, it really was a fascinating day to reconnect with a lost art form along with spending the night by the primeval open fire to cook our own food after a glorious day together.
For us, every season has its own magic. Here at The Dysart Petersham, the subtle shifts in sunlight, shadow, and sky arrive quietly, only to mature suddenly. These changes bring …
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Over the rest of this year and over the Winter months we are planning a series of articles about the importance we attach to our values, summed up as ‘living …
Ken’s Roux scholarship trip to Sweden and Denmark
In early October I joined other Roux Scholars for one of our regular overseas study visits together, every other year, this year to Sweden and Denmark.
Although based mainly in Stockholm, Malmo and Copenhagen, the visit also took in some remote farms, wildernesses and the archipelago. It was not all about smart dining, though there was plenty of that too.
I was lucky enough to experience cooking ranging from Michelin* restaurants, Franzén 3*, The Alchemist in Copenhagen 2* and Ekstedt 1*, to informal cooking in the great outdoors by famous former chefs such as Magnus Nilsson, former chef-patron of Michelin 2* Faviken, hundreds of miles to the remote North in Sweden.
It was a trip that has left enduring memories and created strong impressions on me and the ones most important to me personally have coalesced in my mind into a number of themes.
Welcome and hospitality
This was everywhere we went. We were welcomed into homes, farms, orchards, around campfires in the woodlands, into workshops reviving old crafts, not just into the great, showpiece restaurants. It was a supremely personal experience.
This is the very heart of cooking – sharing, welcoming – and has been through all the ages, country and town, village and high diplomacy. I shall not forget being welcomed into a family home for simple and wonderful food, a lovely local roast chicken and local herbs.
It is what drives us all here at The Dysart Petersham. For me and for the team it’s what it is all about.
We saw simplicity, knowledge, tradition, adaptation and experimentation sitting comfortably side by side, underpinned by an intimate connection with the land, which has never truly been lost there, along with stubborn and inspired endurance and pride.
Of course, there is all the absolute refinement in the Michelin Star face of food and wine in Sweden and Denmark, for which they have become famous, but underlying the visits that stick in my mind are the love of the ingredients, the commitment to the produce of Sweden, grown in a responsible and caring manner, respect for nature around, commitment to relearning some of the old crafts pursued by only a few over the last 100 years – to a quiet sustainability that seems built into the psyche.
We, at The Dysart Petersham, had already discovered, and use on our tasting menu, the wonders of Iscider, made from Swedish apples grown in an orchard in the cold climate of North Sweden, not far from the Arctic Circle.
But we were able to see at first hand a beautiful apple and pear orchard in Axelstorp, Skäne, overlooking Laholm Bay and surrounded by a natural reserve, now in the guardianship Magnus Nilsson.
He initially had plans to open a restaurant on the site, successor to World -famous Faviken. However, he soon became aware that the maintenance of the orchard was an integral part of living on the site, a full time job in itself.
This was a wonderful journey up to this picturesque location surrounded by woodland.
Magnus welcomed us like family and had a log burning fire outside his home for us when we arrived.
He spoke a lot about what inspired him to come to this location. He grew up on a farm and thus once he decided to step away from cookery wanted to return to his roots with his new family.
Magnus certainly left an impression on the group as his fabulous orchard really puts in practice the true meaning of sustainability.
I was amazed how each area within the orchard we visited with Magnus seemed to have its own unique ecological working systems in harmony with the orchards – it reminded me at times of an undisturbed primary forest, sheltering all the apple and pear trees from the winds coming in off the sea.
He worked tirelessly on protecting this special quality, by using only 5 workers and a very small, old Massey Ferguson tractor as the only modern machinery to aid with carrying the apples and pears towards the house. The tractor had to travel only on a path and never near the trees as it would damage the ancient soil around the trees, which was abundant with mycelium, shrubs, ferns, wildflowers, lichen, mosses, and mushrooms. We even came across a beautiful tiny cep growing amongst the trees.
ll the apples were picked in a very specific way by hand to enable the trees to continue to fruit in a natural manner.
His knowledge and understanding of each of the varieties of trees was breathtaking, researching each of them to find the best ways to harvest the fruits for flavour and protection of the ecosystem around them as a whole and not just thinking about ease of transportation and blemish free fruits, which has often led to concentrating on single varieties.
Magnus has hundreds of different varieties growing simultaneously in this rich, diverse environment, a far cry from the mono agricultural systems we’ve brought on ourselves over the past decades.
He’s at one with his trees and surroundings, as much as he is with himself.
Before taking on the project of the orchards Magnus was the chef at the World-famous Fäviken restaurant, which was set 375 miles north of Stockholm, deep in the forested province of Jämtland.
It had a 32-course tasting menu which got two stars from Michelin, his commitment to regional and local sourcing was paramount to this. They would forage moss, herbs, grasses, mushrooms, flowers and seeds from the grounds every day, and about half the produce for the restaurant was also grown in their garden, it was a real task to get to the restaurant as it was in the middle of nowhere.
I had some very interesting conversations personally with Niklas Ekstedt about his up-bringing in Jämtland in northern Sweden.
This sounds remarkably like my Nan’s farm, I spoke of how would get the water each day from the well, used rain water to wash and didn’t always have electricity. How we would go about our daily life on the farms in Ireland very much resonated with Niklas and his childhood as being very similar to mine.
As I did, he worked in some of the finest restaurants, but never truly got the rural life out of his system and inner soul. This remains a driving force for me and the team here.
Like me, his vision over the past few years is to go back to basics, a reaction to the way gastronomy has become more and more affiliated with scientific techniques. He wants to revive the forests and images of his childhood and the older, simpler, ‘classical’ ways of doing things in his food. This too is a driving foirce here.
Just like us at The Dysart Petersham, he eschews water baths and multiple gadgets and relies on honest, old school cooking, by judgement, in a homely setting.
It was great to see experimentation when we visited one of the most recognised, up and coming wineries in Sweden, which certainly has potential moving forward. A lot of the wines we tasted were probably too young as they had only bottled them a few months before and it was really the first year they could say the wines were what they considered good enough.
It was fascinating to see a saffron farm in Sweden, the most expensive spice in the World and one of the rarest, usually from a warm zone, from Spain to Afghanistan. It reminded me of the yuzu fruits and other Japanese fruits and vegetables we source from Namayasai in Sussex, another experiment with Japanese fruits and vegetables, another place where the ecosystem as a whole guides planting, gathering and another magical place.
We also were invited to the studio on the final night of Director Lotta Jorgensen and Photographer Per-Anders Jörgensen, who are currently doing a magazine around art and the cultural significance of food which has a worldwide following. This resonated with me as we see food and the joy of gathering to eat it very much as a cultural experience, which is one of the reasons a core focus on the food and traditions of each individual country is so important, with inspirations drawn on with a light touch from around the World.
On a practical note, I was deeply impressed by the integration at Franzén of the kitchen and serving teams as one, where, just as is our constant aim here, both kitchen team and front of house work together and understand our food, our methods, our aims and our culture.
But for a final note, it wasn’t all restaurants and ingredients.
We spent many hours with Julia Kalthoff, who was crazy passionate about axe making and the ancient techniques of using them; it was incredible to see someone work so tirelessly to restore a lost art from our ancient pasts.
Julia Kalthoff – “The Axe Lady”- artisan craftsman who carves beautiful axes in Tomtebogatan, Stockholm.
We spent the whole day with Julia , starting just after midday in her workshop as she guided us through the processes of smelting and casting the iron, all the way to making and treating the wooden handles. Then we went into the forest so she could show us how to use the axes, showing us various ancient techniques. We tried our hands at making various things out of wooden pieces, for me some kitchen utensils.
As the day turned into midnight we made a fire, on which in turn we cooked food to make our own dinner that night which was rewarding and refreshing for us all.
Julia explained to us for thousands of years, the axe was the most important tool for our survival.
Today, we don’t rely on it like we used to. But with digitalisation, the interest in making things with our hands is growing and for that reason we still need our axes and why she’s so passionate about restoring its significance.
Julia also explained to us that she contributes by not accepting established ways of doing things, but by carrying out new research to either validate them or find a better way, looking to make axes that are an extension of ourselves, so we become absorbed in the craft and the object we make, it really was a fascinating day to reconnect with a lost art form along with spending the night by the primeval open fire to cook our own food after a glorious day together.
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