Michael Booth

Sea Urchin safari

For some years, Rene at Noma has been telling me about a mad Scotsman called Roderick Sloan who lives up in the Arctic Circle in northern Norway and supplies his restaurant with, among other things, the most amazing sea urchins.

Now, sea urchins happen to be my most favourite thing to eat in all the world, ahead even of flødebolle so, when I finally got to meet Roderick at the Mad Foodcamp Symposium back in the summer and he invited me up to Nordskott where he lives and fishes, I said yes in a heartbeat.

It was staggeringly beautiful, despite being -15.

Roderick had also invited a bunch of chefs, not just from Noma, but also from elsewhere in Norway as well as the much acclaimed Faviken in Sweden. Here he is, telling us where we are.

Cognitive scientists tell us that we more easily agree to do something arduous if it is going to happen far in the future. I don't really do boats. When Roderick invited me to the Arctic to go fishing in February, it was August. I said yes all too readily, then spent the next seven months wondering what on earth I had gotten myself into.

But here I am with my quarry after a not-too-bad-at-all trip on a trawler (admittedly drugged up to my eyeballs on sea sickness tablets).

But Roderick didn't just have a little fishing trip in mind. He wanted me - and in particular the chefs he supplies - to really understand exactly what was involved in the harvesting of the seafood they served in their restaurants. So, he gave us some dry suits (though no gloves or hats), a snorkel and sent us into the -2 Arctic waters to get a feel for ourselves.

The dry suits kept us reasonably warm (I was fully clothed beneath this, which explains the 'tubbiness'), but by the time we came out of the water it literally felt as if our hands were on fire, an incredible sensation - so cold, it was hot.

Roderick also dives for mahogany clams (left) and soft shell clams (right), or as the latter are apparently nicknamed in the Noma kitchen, 'dick clams'. Can't think why.

The dick clams, which we ate raw after peeling the, erm, protrusion of its elephantine skin, were the sweetest seafood I have ever eaten, with a wonderful texture. Fantastic.

The mahogany clams were also sensationally good, here being prepared by Jonny of Faviken, and served on flaxseed crackers. A stunning combination of earthy and iodine flavours. New Nordic surf 'n' turf.

The money shot:

Why the starfish? Well, as Roderick explained, every time a restaurant asks him to send a sample box he includes a couple of them. He knows they are eaten in Japan, and they are related to sea urchins, but can't figure out how to prepare them and he is hoping some inventive chef will come up with a use for them (I think in Japan they dry and grind them as a seasoning, though I am not sure).

Sea urchins have had a tough time of it these last years. Off the coast of California they were considered a pest as they were believed to eat the kelp which local companies used for beauty products, so they covered them with caustic soda. Then they realised they could eat them or sell them to the Japanese to eat, so they over fished them. The only really sustainable way to harvest them is how Roderick does it - leaving fields alone on a five year rotation so that depleted stocks have a chance to regroup - and picking them by hand.

It's hard work, and I watched Roderick dive for about an hour, as he lost all feeling in his lips, and his hands turned to blocks of ice during the process, but I am glad someone's doing it. And I am sure the guys at Noma are. Here is their 'sea shore' dish which features Roderick's sea urchins as a powder strewn like sand across the pebbles.

Henne Kirkeby Kro - Noma's influence spreads...

Incorrigible old hack that I am, I am always on the look out for 'the new Noma', the restaurant which might come close to rivalling René Redzepi's place by the harbour in Copenhagen.

Of course, no restaurant can have the impact that Noma did, because Noma was the first of its kind and has become justly famous and heralded for dragging Scandinavians out of their pre-Glasnost, France-fawning approach to eating, but it is interesting to see the local, seasonal time/place philosophy filter down, and especially exciting to find a properly refined, complex New Nordic kitchen outside of Copenhagen. For all the talk in the media in recent years (to which I have contributed more than my fair share of hyperbole), the New Nordic 'revolution' has mostly been confined to the Scandinavian capitals so far.

So, welcome to the historic Jutland inn, Henne Kirkeby Kro, which these days is a luxury guest house (run by an ex-Fat Duck staffer) with a truly world class kitchen.

So eager was I to get to the table that I forgot to take a photo outside. So here is a model, yesterday.

The chef here is Allan Poulsen. He trained under a French chef (Michel Michaud - well known in Denmark) up in Skagen - so he has a classical background, which shows in the impeccable technique and presentation of the small servings of the tasting menu I tried.

This was one of the amuse bouches, pickled asparagus sandwiched with toasted rye bread. Rather awkward to eat, and I couldn't help feel that pickling asparagus was a shame. Best just to cherish it in season, I think.

A dish called Vadehave (Wadden Sea). Miraculously sand-free carpet clams (I have spent hours snorkelling for these, and tried every trick in the book to clean them, but to no avail: Allan told me he cooks and strains the liquid, removes the blighters from their shells and rinses them in clean water), with samphire. Transcendently delicious.

Hay-smoked potatoes from the restaurant's fabulous kitchen garden (which supplies much of the herbs, vegetables and fruit used at Henne Kirkeby Kro, and which I also neglected to photograph despite being shown around), and wild garlic cream - doesn't get much more New Nordic than that.

An odd 'fried bread' course. Odd in a nice way.

A tiny slither of kolrabi enveloping something (raw shrimp?) with crown of cress. Pity the waiters and washers up with all these slate plates...

I think this was a tatare of local beef with a clever wrapping made from gellified bone marrow.

One of the great dishes of the evening: Oscietre caviar with woodruff sorbet and pickled celeriac. Impeccable, fabulous flavours, the woodruff sorbet (green in tin, on the right) actually the star.

More kolrabi envelopes, this time with smoked cheese. Rather too frou-frou presentation for my liking. One had the sense that lots of fingers have been fiddling with the plate.

Another staggeringly good dish - cured mackerel with dill and a cucumber sorbet. Always great to see really fresh mackerel on a posh menu.

Green strawberries, smoked eel, dried tomato sorbet.

Another controversial dish, for me, this one: cod cheeks (very nice) blanketed with a melted cheese sauce (hmmm), and onions. I ate it all, but fish and strong cheese? I'm just saying...

Dodgy photo, sorry - this is cured local salt marsh lamb (a great undiscovered speciality of the region - undiscovered by me, that is) with celeriac and berries.

 More of that sensational lamb, with a purée of Gotland truffle.

A very Momofuku-esque course next: wild mushrooms with a 'No 14 cheese' and parsley. The most addictively delicious dish of the evening.

Elderberries with honey. Scrummy segue into dessert, and extremely pretty.

If I said dessert featured pickled onion and toasted bread, you might take a step backwards, and rightly so. These were paired - not entirely unsuccessfully, I have to admit - with lemon thyme and caramel. I'm all for breaking down that savoury-sweet barrier, something our old friend Alberto Adria is so adept at.

Most Noma-esque moment of the evening: white chocolate, dill and celeriac. Thoroughly refreshing. Simply, one of the greatest desserts I have ever tasted.

Another inspired dessert combination: raspberries and fennel. I have both these things growing in my garden, yet the thought of combining them wouldn't have occurred to me if you had put me in a room with 10,000 chimpanzees and 10,000 typewriters, each of them typing the words 'raspberries and fennel' and wearing raspberry-fennel motif t-shirts. While eating raspberries and fennel. As dessert.

Henne Kirkeby Kro is one of Denmark's most famous historic inns. A couple of years ago it was bought by a family who had made billions (of kroner, but still) from selling fibreglass to wind turbine companies.

They also bought an island. Well, you would, wouldn't you? Together with Allan, they clearly have a dogged, money-no-object approach to making this place one of the greatest restaurants in the region, and I would say they are well on the right path. That incredible kitchen garden, and the fact that they are in perhaps the richest part of Denmark in terms of great produce (lamb, beef, seafood, woodlands, heathland, organic dairies - south Jutland has them all), are going to count for a great deal, I suspect.

MAD Foodcamp Symposium - How it went

Just spent a rather life-altering, world-changing three days with some of the world's greatest chefs and plant scientists in Copenhagen.

I was compering/hosting (not sure of the term, actually, I've never been to a symposium before), the MAD FoodCamp Symposium and introducing guests including Harold McGee, Adoni Aduriz, and Gaston Acurio on stage. Then there were the likes of Michel Bras, Magnus Nilsson of Faviken and David Chang and science authorities such as Stefano Mancuso (a 'neuro-biologist' who explained exactly how plants were sentient). Amazing.

Not sure where to start, so I'll begin with Friday where all the speakers and some of the Noma team were all taken by boat from our hotel, the Admiral on Copenhagen harbour, across the water to the festival and symposium site, where Noma's René Redzepi - whose idea the whole shebang was - showed us around (back of heads: Yoshihiro Narisawa and David Chang).

Mr McGee checked out the state-of-the-art induction wok in the circus tent where the symposium was to be held. He approved.

In the afternoon we gathered beneath blazing sunshine on the outskirts of Christiania to cook a meal. We were divided into groups, each one led by one of the star chefs.

René asked, 'Who wants to prepare vegetables with Michel Bras?' Bras is a legend, famed for his use and appreciation of vegetables - one of the great heroes of contemporary French cuisine, and with three Michelin stars.

'Me!' I said. 

He was a hard task master. Had me slicing fennel on a mandolin all afternoon, and told me off for chopping vegetables without enough care. Fair enough. Then Adoni Aduriz joined us, and took over - I looked up from my mangled veg to see five Michelin stars around me. A memorable moment. And it was especially worth it when, after about four hours of prep, he suddenly whipped all the various ingredients together into the most beautiful dishes (at the bottom, grilled baby leeks with pickled rose leafs and radish).

Needless to say, Chang was in charge of the pork.

 

Magnus Nilsson of Faviken grilled a couple of oysters with Alex Atala of Sao Paulo's restaurant DOM (he's widely considered the best chef in the whole of South America and forages in the Amazon).

And this was the gorgeous crayfish dish prepared by Tokyo terroir master, Yoshihiro Narisawa.

And a jolly good time was had by all, I think.

So, then came the weekend during which time I was too preoccupied jumping up and down to the stage introducing folk to take many pictures.

I took this one just before the audience arrived, as a distraction technique from my butterfly-infested stomach. Note the complete and utter absence of any major corporate sponsorship - intentional.

And this one of the produce Monsieur Bras used in his demo:

And this was taken by my more quick witted wife of all the speakers at the end of the weekend:

I'll try and recap some of the highlights of the talks - and there were so very many - soon.

 

A day with René Redzepi of Noma, Copenhagen

I've been lucky enough to chat with and interview René Redzepi a few times since he opened Noma in an 18th century whale blubber warehouse on Copenhagen docks in 2004, but a magazine recently asked me to spend a day with him in and around Copenhagen, having a bit of a forage, and hanging out in some of his favourite food-related places in the city - to tie in with the publication of the forthcoming Noma cook book.

I jumped at the chance: he's a really nice guy, and, like all the best chefs I've been fortunate enough to meet (Adrià, Blumenthal, Gagnaire, Ishida, to vulgarly drop a few names), he is utterly humble about what he does and the ingredients he uses, as well as being curious about the world beyond his kitchen.

Also, the piece would give me the excuse to eat at Noma again, and - please don't hate me, you'd do abuse the position in exactly the same way were you in it instead of me - a route to avoid the, these days, considerable challenge of reserving a table there. (If you fancy trying, the latest advice is that you have to ring on the morning of the first day of the month, to book three months in advance, and most tables are booked by the end of the day).

We met for coffee in Sweet Treats, a great little place close to the restaurant on Christianshavn (although the photo above was taken elsewhere) then I drove us out into the wilds of Amager, the island neighbouring Copenhagen, where the airport is. 

René doesn't drive, and got a bit car sick, but that was his fault because, as he doesn't drive, he never pays attention to where people are taking him, and he got us lost for a while. 

Anyhoo, eventually we came to the protected nature area where Noma sources quite a few of its herbs and other plants, like this lovely, salty, goosefoot (think that's what this is...).

Within a few minutes' walk, René was able to spot about a dozen edible leaves and roots. It was an inspirational amble. Here's some wild horseradish. 

It may be impending middle age, but these days this is the kind of thing that gets me really excited...

That said, the walk wasn't nearly as inspirational as the lunch Lissen and I enjoyed at Noma. Simply, it was the greatest food I have ever eaten anywhere and at any time in my life. I didn't take proper photos because I really wanted to concentrate on what I was eating, but I did snap some shots with my phone (hence the dodgy quality - sorry).

This was waiting for us when we arrived at our table: the end of a bullrush root, with a yoghurt and nut dip. It tasted of sweet, fresh cucumber. (I've since tried eating bullrush roots I have found near where I live. Hmm, seems like you need to have a dependable bullrush supplier, sure there's a few in the Yellow Pages...)

This was sea buckthorn leather and the pickled rosehip petals, found throughout the Danish coast. 

 

Live shrimp, from a fjord in Jutland, with a gorgeous mayonnaise-y dipping sauce. In truth, the flavours came from the sauce: the shrimps, though nice enough, were more one of those shock gimmicks which René likes to throw into the mix to keep jaded, fat-arsed Michelin-tourists on their mettle.

   

Perhaps the most purely, crowd-pleasingly delicious of all the courses were these sandwiches made up of crispy chicken skin, rugbrød (rye bread) and a yoghurty-herb filling. God they were good. 'Specially the chicken skin. Every sandwich should have some crispy fried chicken skin somewhere in the mix, preferably stuck between two bits of crispy chicken skin.

 
These hay-smoked quails eggs were indescribably great. They burst with a soft, smoky-eggy 'plop' in themouth.

 

The now famous radish in 'soil', actually toasted malt.
   

This was perhaps the crunchiest thing I have ever eaten, crunchier even that Square Crisps: it's a wild herb and grain sandwich, with smoked cod's roe, vinegar powder and topped with - and don't shout at me if this is wrong, it might be - I think that's duck skin.
 

To follow was a glorious, epic dish - a kind of retort to Heston Blumenthal's Sounds of the Sea - featuring herbs and flowers gathered from the sea shore, raw prawns, sorrel and sea urchin powder, with pebbles frozen to the plate. Impressionist Cuisine.
   

This dish, René told me, was one of the trickiest to perfect: it's dried, sliced scallops, watercress, various grains and squid ink - inspired by René's recent stage at the remarkable Kyoto restaurant, Kikunoi (which I have posted about previously - I'd link to the posts, but can't figure out how to. Same goes for posts about Ferran Adria and the other chefs unforgivably name-dropped earlier. Typepad. Tschheez.).
   

Another classic next, and a dish I fondly remember from my very first visit to Noma many years ago: musk ox tartar with sorrel, tarragon and toasted dried juniper. Fresh, vivid, frisky flavours, but with a meatily satisfying bite.
 

Perhaps the single most magnificent ingredient was this langoustine from, I believe, Lammefjord. The size of a mini-banana, and impossibly flavoursome. Those blobs are equally staggering, intensely briny oyster emulsion. Think there's possibly some raspberry vinegar powder dusted over it all too.
 
 I'm going to leave it there for now. For some reason Typepad is throwing a strop and refusing to upload more photos...

No flicking!

Noma Tops St Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants List

As was rumoured, Copenhagen's Noma finally made it to the top of the global culinary tree yesterday with the announcement yesterday that it has been voted the world's best restaurant, as compiled by a number of chefs and food writers for Restaurant Magazine.

The head chef and owner is Rene Redzepi. It couldn't have happened to a nicer and more deserving man.

 

I have met Rene a few times, interviewed him for newspapers and on BBC radio, and been lucky enough to eat at Noma a couple of times. I have unbounded respect for what he has achieved at his understated, Modern Nordic-rustic dining room by the harbour in Copenhagen (I've also let him have walnuts from my garden, so can proudly boast to be an - occasional - Noma supplier). Rene stuck to his guns in sourcing his produce exclusively from the Nordic region, and taking a defiant stand against the hitherto global dominance of French cuisine in the rarefied field of 'fine dining'. 

That wasn't easy in the early days when Danish food meant fried pork fat and herring and Copenhagen diners paying Noma-style prices expected sticky veal stock reductions, foie gras and all the fripperies of the Grande Tables of Paris, but he stuck at it and has slowly developed one of the most intellectually refined, principled and dazzling cuisines in the world. 

He is a deserved successor to Ferran Adria (whose soon-to-close El Bulli drops a place to No2) and it's going to be fascinating to see how this modest and committed man adopts that mantle and exploits it (or not) to move his career and earnings forward in the next year or so.

In other words, is he going to sell out and launch a range of ready meals and product endorsements in the manner of Heston with Little Chef and Haagen Daz ice cream?

Somehow I doubt it, but I wouldn't blame him if he did. He has a beautiful young family and lives a far from lavish lifestyle. A man at the very top of a punishingly competitive and demanding profession, he deserves all the rewards that this new found glory can bring.

Now the 'but'. You could sense it coming, couldn't you? 

I have no 'buts' about Noma's food being the world's best (assuming we agree that something as subjective as food can be judged like that), but if I had to come up with a criticism it would be that Noma is just not a match for the greatest restaurants in Tokyo, New York, Paris or London in terms of atmosphere, decor or its sense of drama. I am sure Rene would argue that the subdued, understated nature of his dining room focusses attention on the food, and that the food deserves your attention is beyond doubt. And who am I to argue with him? So I won't.

The next but is my perennial bleating about the list's perplexing blind spot regarding Japanese restaurants. In the last list they claimed that London's Nobu was the best Japanese restaurant in the world, which is like saying Cafe Rouge is the best French restaurant in the world. This time round, Nobu is nowhere to be seen, and at least the top Japanese restaurant is actually in Japan - Les Creations de Narisawa, in Aoyama. 

Narisawa is a tremendous cook (I tried his soil soup once, and was stunned - in a good way) but his is a Japanese-French fusion restaurant which, again, is a little odd. Surely there is a place in the top ten for one of the great kaiseki restaurants of Kyoto or Tokyo. Or perhaps many of the San Pelligrino judges don't really 'get' the beauty, seasonality, flavours and techniques of Japanese haute cuisine. In which case, what business do they have judging an international restaurant ranking?

Anyhoo, I'm going to be eating at the No48 on the new list at the weekend - it's Ryugin and, I am pleased to say, serves wholly Japanese cuisine.

I'll let you know how it was next week.

COP15

Doing my bit to further the important work in Copenhagen this week. MONOCLE

Copenhagen's Kødbyen

I meant to mention, for all those Michael Booth completists out there, that I had a piece in the Guardian the other day about Kødbyen, Copenhagen's meat packing district.

It's a really interesting, 'upcoming' culture and nightlife zone, with a unique character. It's still very much an important area for catering supplies for Denmark, with butchers, wholesalers and fishmongers, but in recent years its stark '30s buildings have been opened up to art galleries, bars, restaurants and clubs in a New York sytlee.

Here's the piece.

Chocolate sushi

Just a quick postscript to my post in the Guardian's Word of Mouth blog which was about what might replace sushi in light of declining fish stocks.

Could this be the answer perhaps?

It's chocolate sushi, complete with dipping sauce. I found it in Copenhagen when I was last there. It's made by Summerbird Chokolade, one of the best industrial chocolate producers in the country.

It's a pretty neat gimmick, don't you think? They come in Green Pepper, Ginger, Mandarin and 'Zen' flavours (the latter has a not especially oriental balsamic dipping sauce, contained in the test tube, and really quite horrid actually), and as with everything in Denmark cost around a gadzillion pounds each.

Incidentally, it was really interesting to be on the end of the comments in a national newspaper for the second time in a month. Despite the fairly innocuous nature of the post there was quite a tsunami of them. I wasn't in my office yesterday to respond to some of the more retarded comments, so it was good to see that they were pretty much taken care of by the smarter readers anyway. Kind of like Lord of the Flies, but not.

Zen and the art of selling bread

I was in Copenhagen yesterday researching a non-food article for the Independent newspaper and took the chance to check out a radical new food shop a Danish friend had told me about.

A few years ago I interviewed the rising stars of the Copenhagen restaurant scene for Condé Nast Traveller. Among them was Bo Bech, a great, bearded bear of a man from Restaurant Paustian. Since then Bech has won a Michelin star and become a Danish TV star.

But is this his Icarus moment? 

Bech has opened a shop in one of the city’s most expensive retail rental areas in one of the most expensive - if not the most expensive - cities in the world selling a loaf of bread. 

Just one type. 

No cakes, no milk, no Viennoiserie, not even Danish pastries (which the Danes call Wienerbrød). Just one type of classic, French-style sour dough bread. (Ironic, given that his food is so elaborate, although perhaps in keeping with his renowned pomposity).

This I had to try.

So I toddled down to Store Kongensgade, close to the royal palace, with my local foodie friend Sebastian, to try the bread for myself.

The shop is as minimalist as the concept, with just a wooden table piled hugger mugger with a couple of dozen loaves and a pretty girl girling the till. Through some glass doors you can see the impressive Italian bread ovens, which must have cost a fortune.

A quick calculation from Sebastian reckoned that the costs per year on the place were about £150,000. The loaves sell for around £3.40 each. That means he has to sell... fumbles for calculator... really loads of loaves a day.

So is the Bo Bech Bread worth it?

Yes and no. Great, thick, sharp crust. Slightly disappointing, heavy, doughy crumb, a bit like a cooked crumpet, with - for me - a too strong wholemeal flavour. Not really sour enough for me, either.

That was the verdict ripping off pieces sitting in the sunshine on a bench in Kongens Nytorv. Back home, slathered with some salty butter or, a day later, as the foundation for a perfectly poached egg, it worked rather better.

But, really, I wanted the heavens to open and shining light to illuminate my plate, perhaps with a few trumpets, and though great bread is extremely rare in Denmark and it is great that Bech is showing Danes how good bread could be if they'd just wean themselves off those great, solid bricks of rye bread, loaves like this are dime a dozen in Paris.

Noma Third Best Restaurant in the World

A couple of days ago I received an unexpected and lovely email from the head chef of the Copenhagen restaurant Noma, Rene Redzepi, congratulating me on my new blog: 

'The world needs more of your kind of blogs. Thank you for that!' he said. Made my day.

Well, today I am glad to return the compliment having just heard that Noma has shot up the rankings on the San Pellegrino 50 Best Restaurants in the World list, published in the UK's Restaurant magazine this week.

Noma is now number 3 - up from No.10, an incredible achievement - just behind the Fat Duck and El Bulli. The previous number 3, Pierre Gagnaire's 3-star flagship just off the Champs Elysées, which I used to walk past everyday taking my kids to school, is down in ninth place. Meanwhile, the UK papers have pounced upon the absence of any of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants from the list - including his eponymous 3-star place (clearly it is open season on Ramsay these days - which I think we can all enjoy).

This all rather makes a (deserved) mockery of the Michelin star system, which only gives two to Noma. Perhaps even more notable, Noma won the chef's prize, voted for by the rest of the chefs on the list.

Other notable risers include Alinea. I saw Grant Achatz speak in Tokyo recently and, though I was slightly perturbed that he spoke as much about the tableware as he did about his food, I do have his book and the food at least looks stunning. Good to see Le Bernadin up too - I have a huge admiration for its pastry chef, Michael Laiskonis' blog, which is linked to on the left. Meanwhile, Paris' funky bistro Le Chateaubriand (there's a link to a piece I wrote about it a while back, also on the left), is a new entry - pop-pickers - at 40, but the French Laundry appears to have taken a bit of a tumble, as has Alain Ducasse. Ducasse's place at the Plaza Athenée isn't even on the list, which seems a bit harsh. 

Good to see my old alma mater, Joel Robuchon's Paris L'Atelier at No.20 - even though it was hell working there, I can't deny the food and setting are fantastic. 

Noma and Rene deserve their success, having stuck to their guns and served only Nordic-sourced ingredients even though, from the start, there were many who ridiculed them. It's also admirably unpretentious, innovative, intensely seasonal and highly principled. (He also has a great walnut supplier: me!)

That said, the fact that there is only one Japanese restaurant on the list, and a French-inspired one at that (Les Creations de Narisawa - which I mentioned in my first post last month), does kind of undermine its credibility. There are three German restaurants, for God's sake! 

Frankly, I have eaten in about ten restaurants in Japan that could easily populate the higher echelons of the top 20. Why no Kicho? Why no Ryugin? Why no Kikunoi? To name just three of the better known.