Questions For Creatives
Foragers, Producers, Farmers, Growers, Artists, Designers, Barmen, Cheese Mongers, Fish Mongers, Butchers, Hospitality Professionals, Potters and More!
All of these incredible people in these incredible professions support the experience that we as hospitality works try to create, they each have a voice that needs to be recognised and respected. We hope that the creation of this project will somehow insight or inspire someone on their journey.
If you are a creative and would like to be featured please contact me on Iain@nobadfoodlab.org
"I would like to thank every one who helped make this project happen by replying to my random message and to everyone who ignored it - I love you all" - Iain Nicholson.
Paul "Food" Cunningham - Essex, England
http://paulfood.com/
http://www.hennekirkebykro.dk/
Instagram - paulfood
Favourite Ingredient - Large organic lemons from southern Italy
Best Meal - Koffmann's by Pierre Koffmann at the Berkeley Hotel London - Stuffed Piggs Trotter and Tarte Au Citron
Biggest Career Influences -Mark Boradbent, Clive Dixon, Marco Pierre White and Pierre Koffmann
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1 - Work Hard
2 - Be Respectful, Loyal and Humble
3 - Be Interested, Be Nice
Jonathan Berntsen - Michelin Starred Chef/Owner of Clou
http://restaurant-clou.dk
Instagram - jkb_clou
Favourite Ingredient - All fresh seafood, especially the Norwegian hand picked scallops
Best Meal - Le Louis XV, Monaco, 2007
Biggest Career Influences- Christophe Dufau, Alain Ducasse and my mother
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1. Be humble and respectful
2. Be ready to dedicate most of your time and life to the industry
3. Make sure being a chef is what makes you happy or else its simply not worth it
Iain Nicholson - Edinburgh, Scotland
NoBadFoodLab.org
The RAV
Mingary Castle
Albert Roux
Mark Greenaway
Favourite Ingredient - Fresh Elder-Flower / Wild Garlic / Scallops / Sea Urchins / Lamb / Duck / Spring Cabbage / Black Currants / Gooseberries
Best Meal - Noma 2015 Autumn menu
Biggest Career Influence - Nordic Food Movement / Noma / El Bulli /
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1 - Focus and Learn Everything You Can! - Ask every question that comes to your mind.
2 - Be Efficient - Walk Faster! - Clean More!
3 - Be Humble - Accept responsibility for your failures we are all on the same journey.
Eric Vildgaard - Michelin Starred Chef at Jordnær
https://restaurantjordnaer.dk/
Instagram - chef_minivild
Favourite Ingredient- Fresh hand dived Scallops
Best Meal - L'Aperge, Summer 2018
Biggest Career Influences - My brother, he is my inspiration
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1. Humble
2. Ambitious
3. Hard Working
Tom Cenci - London, England,
www.tomcenci.com
Instagram - @tomcenci
Favourite Ingredient - Coriander or Marmite, love cooking with them (not together obviously)
Best Meal - Paul Bocuse's 3 star in Lyon, flawless cooking and also got to meet the legend himself
Biggest Career Influence - Most of the chefs I have worked with, you never stop learning, it doesn’t matter what level they are at they can always teach you something,
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1 - Enthusiasm
2 - Humility
3 - Passion
Kathe Kaczmarzyk - Fermentation pioneer
My website is : www.kathekacz.com
Instagram: @kathekacz
I was born in Queens in New York City
Favorite Ingredient - butter
Best Meal - That’s a bit tough but I’m just going to go with two recent meals that really did it for me lately (sorry I can’t choose!). I just went on my first vacation in what feels like ages where it was mostly just traveling and eating…. The first meal that was really something was at La Merenda in Nice; tête de veau with sauce gribiche, unbelievable tripe, and what is one of my favorite desserts, a banger of a tourte de blettes. The second restaurant was Scannabue in Torino. The entire meal I had there was completely off the charts but the Agnolotti del Plin was pretty unforgettable.
Biggest Career Influence - I guess people would expect me to say Sandor Katz which is definitely true. Sandor’s approach to fermentation, how he discusses it, and his relationship with it is so humbling and honest, he’s been a huge influence since I’ve gotten to know him and he continues to be a great support.
My real answer though would be my mom. My parents were both immigrants from Poland who had moved to NYC in the 80’s, so I grew up in a very traditional Polish household. My mom essentially was a housewife and she cooked every single meal from scratch. Being the girl in the family, I was raised in the mindset that I had to learn to cook, clean, and work to take care of a house and a family. As much as I didn’t agree with a lot of my upbringing, the one part I respect and cherish was learning to cook traditional passed down Polish recipes with my mother who didn’t have a single recipe written down. She cooked with intuition and followed her gut. Fermentation just happened the be a large part of that because fermentation has quite a strong stance in Polish cuisine. My mother passed away 5 years ago and the honest truth of why I started to focus on fermentation was because I was trying to find ways to remember her but build my own path. One of those things I enjoyed the most was ferments so I just started with what all the things that she had taught me and then I took it from there.
The three most important attributes -
Trust your gut! I believe one of the most important things is to just build a comfort with what you’ve learnt and what you believe in. That can hit so many different points of course. Nothing will ever be exactly the same so you’ve got to learn to ride and enjoy the wave with the different inconsistencies that fermentation well…. even that life throws at you.
Be aware of the history and tradition that came before you, learn to grow from that.
There’s a lot of great books out there.
Ben Reade - Edinburgh, Scotland
Edinburgh Food Studio
www.edinburghfoodstudio.com/
Instagram - benedictreade
Favourite Ingredient - Bitter and spicy salad leaves
Best Meal - First time I ate at Noma
Biggest Career Influence - Darina Allen, Carlo Petrini and Rene Redzepi.
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1 - Determination
2 - Humility
3 - Curiosity
Tarek Alameddine - Lebanon
Instagram - tarektga
Chef at noma
Favourite Ingredient - Za'atar
Best Meal - Sunday BBQ at home grilling fig birds
Biggest Career Influence - Being part of noma for the last 3 years and being part of noma Mexico was definitely one of the biggest
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1. Work Hard
2. Travel as much as possible and be open to other cultures
3. Be Nice to your colleagues
Darren Murray - Edinburgh, Scotland
boroughrestaurant.com
Favourite Ingredient - Good Free Range Eggs - Their Versatility Still Blows my Mind after 11 Years of Cooking
Best Meal - Degustation in Prague - 1* that opened my eyes to making a restaurant that buys organic and local but its in the heart of a huge city. all honey fruit and veg came from the roofs of the city buildings
Biggest Career Influences - My seniors who put up with me constantly asking questions and pestering them. Now my biggest career influence are the young chefs who constantly pester me.
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1 - Turn up on time with the correct uniform and equipment
2 - Show consistency and joy at the simplest of tasks
3 - A Big one for me in this modern age is - Books that were written for us are more important than social media
Darren Ross - Dornoch, Scotland
Nobadfoodlab.org
Mingary Castle
Favourite Ingredient - Lemon Verbena
Best Meal - L'enclume July 2016 menu
Biggest Career Influences - Christian Puglisi and Rene Redzepi
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1 - Drive
2 - Passion
3 - Creativity
Lee Pattie - Scotland
Albert Roux
Favourite ingredient - Vegetables, working with the best seasonal fresh ingredients and being able to share the seasons and knowledge with the members of my kitchen team.
Best Meal - L’Auberge de l’Ill France in the Alsace beautiful 3 star Michelin restaurant had surprise tasting menu and wonderful wine, just wish I had my wife with me to give the perfect company to a outstanding meal.
Biggest career influence - My mentor Albert Roux OBE he pushes me to keep on learning always also he keeps my feet on the ground, Thomas Keller, Grant Achatz to name a few.
Three most important attributes:
Respect, Respect, Respect!! You must respect everything to get the best form it, your ingredients, mise en place, equipment and most important your team, it’s like building a house this is your foundation without respecting all of this you will sink into the ground....
Mark Sargeant - http://www.marksargeant.net/
Favourite Ingredient - I think my favourite ingredient would have to be garlic. Well if I have to single any one in particular out anyway. I absolutely love it and when I cook at home I put it in pretty much everything. Mainly I slice it rather than crush as it’s less harsh and then I always toast it before I add anything else so it gives a lovely nutty flavour.
Best Meal - I’ve ever had was at a service station in France. We had been to Michel Bras which was amazing and on the way home there was a big crash on the motorway so we had to pull over into a service station. The restaurant there was full of truckers all smoking and there were carafes of red wine on all the tables. We started with cold meats and picked them had babette steak and chips with a green salad followed by a great chocolate pot and then a plate of cheese that was passed from table to table. It even had someone’s cigarette ash on it but it was fabulous. We ordered carafe after carafe of wine, spirits and all finished on cigars. They called us crazy anglais but we had an awesome time!!!!
The biggest career influences - would have to be Gordon Ramsey of course but Steven Terry, David Pitchford and Keith Podmore were all a massive part of my life and career too.
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1. hard work and determination.
2. Speed
3. Good hearing!!!! You have to listen in a kitchen or you will never learn!!
Rachael Kohler Dallas, TX
Gaylord Texan Hotel & Convention Center
Favourite Ingredient - Chocolate
Best Meal - The Gage Hotel, West Texas
Favorite Winemaker? Peter Michael "Les Pavots"
Biggest Career Influences - Finding Mentors: Mirek von Springer & Anthony Martinez
Three most important attributes for a young sommelier:
1 - Taste everything, each vintage, taste with/without food, and then revisit again
2 - Be excited about what you're doing. No matter what the product is or costs, learn the beauty of this beverage
3 - Be a GREAT storyteller. The lore and romance of this bottle sells it over and over
Tony Borthwick - Michelin Starred Chef
Favourite Ingredient - I have many I'm afraid! Game, be it fur or feathered, I love it all. The very embodiment of seasonality and robust flavours, which I'm a fan of, it also supports our countryside industries which is very close to my heart. I love all seafood and fish so that all goes onto the list. British farms produce some of the best meats and vegetables to be had anywhere. We are so much better as a food producing island than we were twenty years ago. We now produce some of the best vegetables and fruit available anywhere. We've always reared fantastic quality beef & lamb, now it's poultry too. Quality eggs improve the quality of everything we produce in the kitchen.
Best Meal - Was for many years, at Harveys on Wandsworth Common. Marco Pierre White of course. A meal at the Raby Hunt in the north of England earlier this year, on a more up to date note, is up there too.
Biggest career influence - In terms of people and mentors is concerned is a couple of guys from years ago called Charles Somerville and Nico Ladenis. Both consummately professional and proper cooks with the mantra of "taste is everything"
1. A determination to succeed coupled with a progressive thought out career path (one which I did not follow!)
2. A good palate; if you grew up eating takeaways it's unlikely that you'll be able to taste real ingredients for what they are, for the true flavours within them
3. To enjoy and love your work. People forget that without love and passion for something, for your ingredients, to cook and season them to get the very best out of them, one cannot produce truly individual and inspired food.
Mike Mathieson - Scotland
www.mjmchefprive.co.uk
Instagram - mikemathieson32
Favourite Ingredient - Scottish Greengage Plum
Best Meal - Restaurant Paul Bocusse. It was such a homage to the late legend
Biggest Career Influence - Albert Roux, His ethos of perfection is still stamped on me.
Three most important attributes for a young chef:
1 - Willingness to Learn
2 - Hard Work
3 - Loyal
Paul Kitching - Edinburgh, Scotland
www.21212restaurant.co.uk/
Favourite Ingredient -
Oh, all mustards. I’ve always been fascinated by vinegars of any type. Fresh saffron and curry powder are my stand-by classics.
Best meal you have ever had -
De Karmeliet in Bruges. Detail beyond detail beyond detail!
Biggest Career Influence -
My head chef Katie Johnson, we’ve worked together for 23 years at our two Michelin starred restaurants, 21212 and before that Juniper which we opened in 1995. Wow!!!
Three most important attributes for a young chef
1 - No skinny jeans
2 - No iPhones
3 - Listen, listen, listen – learn and react
Listening = learning = growing knowledge. Sounds easy doesn’t it, but not with kids these days!