Chaine des Rotisseurs dinner, Danish embassy in riyadh

Ok, how long does it take to do a blog post? Hmmmm. Too long really, my apologies, but with general life and my darling wife not having the best pregnancy she could have, but finally delivering a little perfect boy on the 25th (proud dad), I would finally like to blame the chaine for only just supplying me with the evenings pictures. Ok that's unfair, I had pics on my phone I could use, only myself to blame. Sorry again.

Anyway with further ado, as most of you will know I was invited to cook a Danish banquet in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in May, if not then it's your first visit, so welcome, if you do, then welcome back.

Before I discuss the work and the meal itself, I have to mention, that after the travellers horror stories I read on google prior to visiting, making myself and my wife quite uncomfortable, I found the Saudi people probably the most welcoming people's I have ever encountered. Indeed it has a huge amount of armed security on show and there are customs which are to be obeyed, once you've been there a couple of days, you suddenly realise that with a little thought the hotel x-ray machines and metal detectors just fade into the background, allowing you to enjoy the experience. In a nutshell if you get the opportunity to visit, take it.




Anyway after being taken from the airport to the hotel in some style, I arrived to the Sheraton hotel and towers and checked into my room. The executive chef, Akter called a few minutes later to arrange dinner for us in the restaurant, I unpacked and went for a packed Lebanese buffet and to be introduced to the chef and other members of the team. The food was beautifully presented and for a chef with eyes bigger than his (already sizeable) belly was far too much, I should learn not to eat so much, especially if I still have work to do that day. After dinner I was taken into the kitchen and introduced to the sous chef Kazi, who would be helping me this week, we went through the menu and had fun deciphering each other trying to make sure that the food that was in, or coming in was what was ordered. This was my first encounter on how easy words and descriptions can be lost in translation. More on this a little later

The next day, after breakfast with the GM, Stuart Birkwood I set to work in the piazza restaurant kitchen, this didn't open until the afternoon allowing us to crack on with the donkey jobs which needed pickling or could be frozen until the day, we also went out to the local market, which I might add puts UK supermarkets to shame with the vast range of produce available. However trying to shop for root vegetables available in Nordic climes easily, when you are in a country that has a current average temperature of 45C a few alterations had to be made. Anyway we still had 5 days to go till the event itself so the days jobs were pickled veg for the robbed from Noma dish, stocks, soup bases, sauces went on, Kazi cracking on like a trooper by 5pm we had done what we could that day, next day was time with the pastry and start items for the reverse spherification, a technique seemingly unheard of in the kingdom so the whole brigade showed a great amount of interest. The powders for which I had shipped a couple of weeks before not wanting to carry white powder through customs in a country that announces everywhere that trafficking drugs, meant the death penalty, didn't want to try and explain away xanthan gum, sodium alginate, calcium lactate, agar agar.

Second day was more donkey work, along with finishing off 3 portions of everything as we had a full tasting the next day, this brought a few fun items which didn't quite translate from order and prep lists sent through when asking for apple juice I was given a carbonated one (not great for spherification, but doable by removing the bubbles with a little sugar) I had asked for fresh horseradish, and with next to no time to spare (cos I checked too late) was given jars of creamed horseradish. A reasonable amount of oooooh shit thinking was required as I didn't want the bubbles creamy as I wanted a hit of fresh apple with the heat of horseradish. A bit of thinking done and sorted. I won't let you know how, we'll just leave it at that.

The biggest hurdle came to the dessert, it was a twist on a Koldskal a Danish buttermilk and biscuit mess and strawberries, I though I would twist these ingredients into a Eton mess of sorts. Which required the buttermilk element to be within the ice cream. Anyway unbeknown to me, buttermilk is not available in Saudi Arabia, at all!!!! Sure you can get American style buttermilk pancake mix but that was it. Ok quick recipe rethink with yogurt, then the hammer came down when the pastry chef asked me how I wanted it frozen, because it was company policy for the chefs not to make ice cream.

Now a quick soap-box moment. Starwood hotels, nay all large hotel chains. Why the hell do you pay for talent in your kitchens, with training programs a plenty and all the skill you require at department head level in each section of your kitchens, do you these talented professionals from making such a simple item as ice cream, I understand the concerns you have from your air conditioned offices where you make these decisions, but some decent training will yield you much better product and profit than using bloody Ben & Jerrys. Ok

Anyway, thankfully the hotel has ample staff so with an ice cream base made and large gastro container in the freezer. The pastry chef was under instruction to whisk the mix every 15 minutes, with a ba-mix blitz every hour. Ice crystals were much larger than I would have liked, but the flavour was as I wanted and an acceptable product for the conditions. Also pasteurised and perfectly safe (policy crunchers take note!!!)




On the Sunday was the tasting, not just a case of chucking dishes out to a few organisers, 10 people were expected and a full table set up was placed in the kitchen. 3 full portions of everything from canapé to petit fours. This was the only real nerve wracking hours of my visit, one dislike at the tasting could screw up the rest of the visit entirely.

After an hour and a half of deliberation and discussion, the tasting concluded with comments only on the soup (a little thick) and a course order change. Get in. For the next 2 days it was simple, just prep it all again for 90 covers, simples.

For the majority of the work the guys cracked on without complaint and perfectly. The only exception to this was the pickles, robbed blatantly from the Noma dish, the chefs were very much used to cracking out large volumes of food on a regular basis, but work that generally involved chopping and cooking vast pans of this and that, so when I set 5 chefs to rolling pickle rolls and fine picking a huge amount of herbs I threw them right out of their comfort zone. Ah well, push on boys.

Anyway the next couple of days went very well, and come the day of the event I had to rely heavily on the teams expertise, knocking the prep out in a huge (read gargantuan) kitchen was easy, but the event was not at the hotel, it was being held at the ambassadorial residence a good few miles away, am being sent from a good sized domestic kitchen, so some artful juggling was required, also a couple of corners I would rather not cut had to be, such as the pickle dish, we set this up in the afternoon in the hotel, then with a small square of cut damp muslin covering each one, jack stacked ready for transport. 2 massive hot cupboards on wheels carried the rest of the mis en place, and having sent the plates, cutlery, glasses etc earlier in the day, by 4.30 pm we were ready to roll.

It took the best part of an hour to travel us and the food, with a small slow-down at the security area entering the diplomatic quarter we arrived on site and began arranging ourselves to plate up each course.

The menu was designed to only have 2 hot courses, so we used the main dining room, and a huge corridor to set up courses so there was always at least one course gap between another in a different area so we had plenty of time to plate and arrange, and with 12 chefs on site, plenty of hands to take care of each one.




First up were the canapés, as every set had to pass the same security cordon, this hour was essential to ensure each guest had plenty of time to arrive to the venue, these were very simple and all bread based to (slightly) mimic a smorrebrod (open face sandwiches) they included smoked salmon, beef tartare, cured chicken roll, crisp plaice, liver pate (traditionally pork, but be substituted for calves liver) a small prawn cocktail and a couple others I now forget.




The next course up was a small amuse consisting of a traditional gravadlax on a homemade rye bread, and a spoon of White herring with mayonnaise and quails egg. Quite a favourite with the ambassador himself.




Then the first of the hot courses, a rodbedsuppe (beetroot soup), a light consommé, which to my opinion on the night was too light and thin at the request of the tasting and would have benefitted from a little more body, this had a touch of creme fraiche and a sphere of apple and horseradish.




Then we serve a jellied lobster, crisp vegetables and marinated potato. The jelly was an agar filtered fish stock, mirepoix of vegetables barely blanched with the lobster trim chopped into it, a medallion of lobster to top it, and the potatoes were pickled in a simple dill 3,2,1 pickle and dressed in a mild dill mustard prior to service.




Then came the pickles, blatantly stolen from Noma, a dish which was a big hit on the night, funnily enough thank you Rene, I take the praise for this as payment for standing at a bench for hours on end rolling them for you. Cheers chef!!
In Noma this dish is described as traditional Danish fayre, where they would normally eat roast pork with pickled vegetables, in Noma you have the pickled vegetables as the main element of the meal with some fried bone marrow and a pork glaze, obviously in a muslim country the pork glaze was a no-no, so using the same technique as they do at Noma made an intense chicken glaze, and with much less herbs at my disposal the dish was essentially the same.




Next the main course, this was inspired from an apple cheese recipe I found in a Hans Christian-Andersen book. The hotel had some great venison in from a promotion they were running and as using pork was not an option decided on a roasted loin of venison, braised haunch wrapped in cabbage, carrot puree, apple cheese, caramelised potato and a red grape jus (no alcohol again made my culinary was change, but the sauce was lovely), this dish was well received and I was very happy with the balance in the meal.




Next up dessert, I was given an idea from my Danish chef to do Koldskal she described this as strawberries, buttermilk, biscuit, meringue. A little more research showed it was more like a buttermilk soup, so the decision was made to make an Eton mess with Koldskal flavours. This had a mixed reception in terms of authenticity (did I mention I was a welsh lad?) but all plates returned completely clean so job done.




Coffee was served with a few petit fours, again Danish inspired an almond biscuit of kransekagge, a raspberry layer cake, and a chocolate shell filled with ollenbrod, a traditional porridge of beer and rye bread, a non alcoholic malt beer was used with the trim from our rye bread and quite surprisingly was very tasty and authentic.




Finally myself and the whole team were paraded in front of our guests, and the menu was discussed and scored, everyone seemed happy and the comments were positive (nerves settled I could then enjoy the evening), and just as the teams returned to their tasks, I had expected a few people to catch me and pass comment, what I wasn't ready for was a queue of people lining up to comment, discuss, pinch recipes and have photos taken. I have never been the subject of a queue before, I felt very humbled and more than a little scared, however all the people were very lovely and even the critique was positive, as I had not taken the view that I was trying to please all the guests with every dish on the menu, they accepted that the experience was great, even if they had not adored every dish, after all food is subjective and you will never feed 80 people 6 courses plus snacks of their favourite ever food, I was just glad that all guests seemed to be happier than when they arrived, job done.

We returned to the hotel, where I collapsed in a soggy, happy heap. Looking forward to flying home the next day back to the family.




The next morning, I was requested down to the kitchen, where a table had been set up beyond the passé, with a cake and a pile of presents for myself and my wife, incredibly thoughtful, and the whole brigade embarrassingly saw me off with a small party. Thank you guys.

Akter the exec chef, then took me shopping for the obligatory gifts, we travelled all over Riyadh and he was very patient choosing the kids toys, and a great haggler at the gold market choosing a lovely trinket to take home to Sally. We then had a lovely lunch at the recently refurbished Restaurant in the four seasons kingdom tower hotel, very lovely.

We had also organised a lunch at the gorgeous al faisaliah hotel, but sadly the restaurants opened too late for me to be able to make my flight, so took my dinner in the hotels most excellent Italian restaurant, la piazza, and very happy to do so. This restaurant is classed as one of the best in Riyadh, and I concur, all the pastas are hand made, the fillings and sauces are of a great quality clean fresh flavours, simply very good.

Whilst I missed the family greatly, I am so grateful of the experience. It was amazing from beginning to end, and once back in London, missed the ambiance and most certainly the heat. Thanks to all involved in making my whole experience absolutely wonderful.

Thanks for persevering with this inordinately long post, a couple of meals out will be plonked up next, not what I originally decided for this blog, but they were so lovely, really think I will share. What I will not do is blog the bad ones. I will simply mention on twitter, but if something is just lovely then gonna use this vehicle to share that.

Cheers, Alex.

Journey to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, part 1, the journey with BMI

Good old Grant Hawthorne
Looked after us during kaiwecare, he was the head chef, daddy, mentor we could all look up to. Didn't know he had a mate in the general manager of the Sheraton in Riyadh, who had put a call put a call out if anyone knew any Danish chefs who could help with an event they were having, Grant promptly threw my name into the hat, yep that's right they wanted a Danish chef, I'm a Welsh boy, who cooks in London, being invited to Saudi Arabia, to cook modern Danish food??? Go figure. Ok so the clubs the home to the Danish club of London, I've done a week at Noma, how hard can it be .............?

Part 1, why I went, and how I got there, and oooh! How indeed





For those who already follow me on twitter, you will already know some of the above, for those who don't, please check my profile right here. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be sharing my experience, originally this was going to be a 1 parter just about the event, but with so many things to share, will now be 3 healthy parts (that means you need coffees/teas and a comfy chair), the dinner itself will be left until last, not owed in any small part by the fact I am awaiting the pics from the night.

The flight I had arranged for me, was provided by BMI, which they do occasionally sponsor for travelling chefs into Riyadh for events such as this. I had never flown BMI before so was looking forward to trying a new airline as well as all the other 1st time experiences this trip would bring. I had also been asked by the Sheraton Riyadh's general manager if I would pen a small piece on the blog about the chefs that cater for the business class customers on each flight, which of course I said I would, after all to write about the business class service I would have to travel business, get in!!

So imagine my face if you will, when the booking is emailed to me, Economy. Boo sucks, after checking the price difference between the 2 tickets I thought, ok fair enough. It's not costing me anyway.

So after some fun getting my visa (the joy of 4 bank holidays in quick succession (all the best for the future Kate & William) the day came and off to the airport I went.

Checked in, changed money, did a little shopping. Went to board still in awe at what could possibly lay before me, and also with a little trepidation as most of my research into Saudi Arabia was proper scaremongering (absolute tosh, explained in a later post)





I got my seat, which was pre-allocated, corridor seat so at least I had reasonable leg room, however a minute or two later an attendant asks if I would mind stepping into the galley as there is a small issue with my seat, puzzled I step with her as she guides me through to the front of the plane and shows me my business seat. I settle myself down with a huge smile on my face, messing with all the switches and buttons in and around my seat, true kid in a sweetshop. Now this is the life, and having only ever had a chefs wage, not something I could or would afford myself. The cabin crew introduced themselves to us and Angela the inflight chef spoke with me regarding her role and when I would be able to talk to her (after service)

Now the chef in the air role, is not just a heat and serve, yes most of the food is prepared and cooked in production kitchens on the ground, however this is business class, tickets cost thousands of pounds, guests get what they want if available, sure you can't pop down the local tesco and pick up a few bits, and there is (seriously) only a finite amount of storage space, however chefs do have to think on their feet to offer alternatives if possible, and also offer different cuisson on the meats. Add to this that they are also expected to act as stewards when they are not cooking is definitely one of the more challenging roles I have seen for a chef in a long time.





The menu is quite a simple 3,3,3 affair, for my outbound flight I chose the white bean and thyme soup, monkfish with watercress, samphire, crushed new potatoes and sorrel cream, and to finish took the strawberry & chocolate Eton mess. The soup was nice and hot, flavours were deep and well pronounced and served as a nice simple opener to the meal, the monkfish to be fair, considering my locale was a great dish, the monkfish was perfectly cooked, still a little spring to it, and not dry and crying out for sauce as you might imagine, the potatoes were of good quality and well seasoned, and most surprisingly the samphire was fresh and still retained a nice crunch. The sauce was a little lacking in the sorrel and a little more pre-fab as it would have to be to cook and serve in their tiny kitchens, however was not heavy or cloying and well balanced with the rest of the dish. The dessert was served in a pot, very nice good quality, but I have to say, not very Eton messy, a bit too tidy to be a mess, however pleasant enough.

Now was my time to talk with Angela and get the feel for the job, however far too full, and far too comfortable, I simply fell asleep.

Upon waking a couple of hours later, I went to the front galley and conveyed my apologies, Angela showed me the equipment (or lack of) not to mention bench space you measure in inches rather than feet, and the storage which in itself a miracle of packing. If you are a chef reading this, thinking your kitchen is a bit small, forget it, try cooking 24 covers to order, when the guest requires it with one small hob and a equally small oven, and enough room to put maybe 2 plates down. I take my hat off( if I ever wore one) to these guys, to produce very good quality food in these conditions. If you've ever considered it, don't let my comments above put you off, Angela pointed out that along with the travel aspect of the job, being able to spend days in different countries, the time off is very good with decent recuperation time between each flight on long haul, and with a little resilience the holidays soon mount up, Angela has been with BMI for 10 years and has a 7 week annual entitlement for holidays. She also commented the money was pretty good too, although I felt 'how much' was too rude a question to ask.





The return flight was a red-eye, leaving at 1:10am local time, landing at 6:30 uk time, the surprise upgrade was again very lovely, the service again without fault, the cooking this journey provided by in flight chef, Nicky. The only fault on this flight was my own.

As I had agreed to pen a wee (well not so wee now) piece, I felt compelled to order the take off snacks (read full meal), and also breakfast. My advice is to do what the guy next to me did, refuse everything, and as soon as the pane is up in the air, put the eye mask, provided, on, chuck your chair back and get some kip.

I again had the soup, followed by the chicken breast. Both were again well cooked and perfectly seasoned, it is simply I shouldn't have eaten at 2am when all I could think about was how much sleep I was missing out on. I had a beer and a glass of wine, chucked my mask on and got some sleep.

20 seconds later, or so it felt like, I was awaken to be asked what I would like for breakfast. Bleary eyed I ordered the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs and a bucket of coffee, the breakfast was again well cooked and nicely presented, and the attendant must have got the measure of how I was feeling as he simply whisked away each empty cup of coffee and swiftly replaced it without so much as an ask, genius service!





(please note the cappuccino stencil, Angela made this herself, and is a lovely fun touch, but sales won't let her use it, sorry guys... spoilsports!)

I quite frankly was spoilt, the food will never be truly 'high end' but it's as close as it can get, every now and again you will see a 'top chef' take up the challenge of improving airline food, good luck no restaurant or hotel chef has ANY clue on what it takes to complete a service on one of these things.
To Angela, Nicky & the rest of the cabin crew who's names I did not get, thank you for such great journeys to and from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it was truly a great experience, and an extra note of thanks to mr Robert Lickley, country manager for BMI, who kindly sponsored the flight, sir you have a team to be proud of, thank you and well done.

Kai we Care, The Menu

DONATE HERE

After much tooing and fro-ing of venue, chefs and dishes the menu has been finalized for this magnificent event brought together by the power of social media.

on the 4th of April a multitude of Michelin starred chefs, along with multiple AA rosette winners (oh and me & G) will be cooking for 200 wonderful people who are parting with the contents of their wallets readily to help in this great cause. If you have stumbled here and have no idea what I'm on about go to HERE which will give you an insight as to why this is such an important event.

Unfortunately Mother nature seems to have a few issues at the moment, with the Horrors that have happened, and still are in Japan, and whilst typing this another earthquake has hit Burma, all our thoughts go out to all people directly and indirectly affected by these tragedies of nature, however the decision was made to keep this event for the people affected in Christchurch, New Zealand. not that any other is less deserving of charity. It seemed the right decision to continue supporting our original cause.

Anyway cheffy Blog, so the menu which has had it's ups and downs in putting it together is finally ready to print, cooked by some incredible talent am so looking forward to this event, even if with a little trepidation with the responsibility of one of the courses on my shoulder, sure there will be plenty on hand to bail each other out as and when required.

Without further ado, the menu for the evening is as follows

Canapes

Steve Groves; Lisa Faulkner; Druv Baker; Lee Behn

Pork crackling toffee apple, Cured salmon and cucumber “fruit pastille”, port and Spenwood pencil

Pre starter

‘Beetroot’ Simon Hulstone

Tasting of beetroot textures with elderflower curd

Starter

‘Pork and truffle’ Dominic Chapman; Adam Gray

Rare breed pork ‘Scotch egg’, warm tartare sauce, pea shoots.

English quail and summer truffle pie with buttered kohlrabi

Intermediate

‘Fish’ Russell Brown; Adrian Oliver; Kieran Smith

Saffron-poached tiger prawns with piquillo pepper salsa, sherry reduction, olive oil foam

Main Course

‘Lamb’ Mark Poynton; Russell Bateman

Slow cooked NZ lamb, broccoli puree, smoked garlic, Olde Yorke cheese, almonds, wild garlic jus

Pre-Dessert

‘Eggs and Soldiers’ Alex Wood; Ben Goldsmith; Darren Goodwin

Coconut white, carrot yolk, carrot juice toast

Dessert

‘Chocolate orange’ Matt Tomkinson; Mark Lloyd; Tom Kneale

Dark chocolate delice, lavender ice cream, burnt orange syrup

Cheese

Marcus Bean; Johnny Mountain

Goats cheese pannacotta & artisan cheeses; Bournes Cheshire, Stichelton, Cenarth brie. Served with quince jelly, spiced apple chutney, cheese tuilles, oatcakes and fruit crisps

Petit Fours & macaroons

Luke Mackay; Edd Kimber

Pistachio macaroons with saffron butter cream; Rosewater and raspberry macaroons; Rhubarb and hibiscus fruit pastille; Salted Dulche de Leche milk chocolate truffle

As you can see from the list of names above each course this wil certainly be a night to remember for all attending, I am extremely grateful and proud to be part of this, and for such a worthy cause too.

make sure you visit the official site and buy tickets, if you cant make it, simply donate, every single penny goes towards rebuilding peoples lives.

I will post photos, feedback etc after the event, so until then. DONATE NOW!!!

Thank you.

New Zealand earthquake disaster releif fundraising dinner

A little sideways step from the usual blog posts, but all in a fantastic cause.

Follow, support in anyway you can, we are, as should everyone, even if just an RT on twitter

It's going to be an amazing event, can't wait to be cooking alongside some of the best talents in this country

Excerpt copied from Gourmet Guys blog

I don’t have to remind people of the shocking and saddening events that occurred in Christchurch New Zealand on the 22nd of February last.

We all sat stunned as the pictures of the earthquake were broadcast round the world. New Zealand is a proud and prosperous country but in moments its second largest city, Christchurch was devastated. Its iconic cathedral lay in ruins, the proud symbol of the city reduced to rubble. As sad as it was to see, its a building, and buildings can be rebuilt, the lives however that were just as devastated may be far harder to repair.



Last Monday I was chatting on-line to Kiwi chef and Masterchef winner Mat Follas, it was just a general chat about maybe meeting up for a beer later than evening as Mat was going to be in London overnight. Needless to say we began to talk about the earthquake and I said if there was anything he was doing to raise funds then I was more than happy to help. The idea of a supper club was mentioned and we figured that we could do a supper club or pop-up for 20-30 people with Mat doing most of the cooking and me putting my event management background to use organising it. Then we both Tweeted the idea and everything changed beyond recognition.



Within 30minutes the 30 people idea was a distant memory, the numbers increased and the offers of help of all sorts flooded in. From chefs wanting to cook, to producers offering their best products to be used for the menu, to people happy who were simply wash up or wait tables.



I grabbed hold of a friend of mine John Comyn, who has kindly offered to take care of the admin on this, and we met up with Mat in a very late night pub in Borough about half past midnight to try and make sense of it all, the numbers were mind-blowing, the offers of help were humbling and the task facing us was daunting but one thing we agreed on was that we would take this as far as we possibly could and raise as much money as possible. I immediately recruited chef Grant Hawthorne to oversea the technical side of the meal and let us know exactly what was achievable with what time, personnel and produce we had to work with.



There is so much talk of social media these days and how it is changing the world and to be honest it is something I have always had a somewhat sceptical view of but now I see just how true it is. Twitter has taken this to a place we never even dreamed of. From a 30 person supper this is where we now stand.



200 guests attending a 7 course dinner cooked by a variety of very highly rated chefs, including the likes of



DominicChapman, Head Chef at The Royal Oak and Michelin Star holder



Mark Poynton, Chef Patron at Restaurant Alimentum, 3AA Rosettes and listed in the UK’s Top 60 Restaurants



Russel Brown, Chef Patron at Sienna and Michelin Star Holder



Alex Wood, Head Chef at St Stephens Club London



Adrian Oliver, Chef Patron of Margot’s Padstow



Mathew Tomkinson, Head Chef at The Montagu Arms and Michelin Star Holder



Darren Goodwin, Head Chef at Losehill Hotel and Spa



Not only that but



Mat Follas and Dhruv Baker winners of the last 2 series of Masterchef will be cooking alongside these guys



Just like Steve Groves winner of Masterchef The Professionals and now working alongside Toby Stuart at Roux Parliament Sq.



We even have Celebrity Masterchef winner Lisa Faulkner and Master Chef Judges Jon and Gregg on hand to help out on the night.



I can’t even begin to list the prizes that will be auctioned or raffled on the night, full details will be on the website soon but if you have been following us on Twitter @KaiWeCare then you know there are some truly amazing things already offered by so many generous people.



We plan to stream the auction and raffle live as well as make the raffle tickets available to those who won’t be able to make it on the night.



The ticket price will be £150 per person and include wine.



A full menu will be up on the site in the coming days once all the chefs have had a chance to swap ideas and steal the donated ingredients from each others courses!



We will also show the incredible quality of the produce and who so generously donated them.



The auction too is surpassing all expectations and a catalogue of items and those who were wonderful enough to give them to us will be available to view so you can be prepared to get your wallet out on the night. We are hoping to allow people bid via Twitter who are watching the live stream



Vanessa Kimbell contacted me and insisted that she be allowed organise the raffle, those of you who know her know how hard it is to say no to her and those of you who don’t just take my advice it’s pointless, just buy the tickets, it will be far easier and the prizes which will be announce shortly will be mind blowing.



What I ask now is this, those of you who have blogs will you please reprint this on your sites and put the links there for those who wish to contact us.



Twitter @Kaiwecare hashtag #KaiWeCare



Website: http://kaiwecare.weebly.com/



email: kaiwecare@gmail.com



Thank you all for your help and amazing support, it is ye who have changed this and helped make it what it is, Mat, John, Grant and I have merely tried our best to cling on.



There will be far more to follow but for now all I can say is that we are staggered and humbled by the out pouring of generosity



Regards



Dave Ahern



Aka @CorkGourmetGuy on Twitter

Noma - A stagier view of the worlds best restaurant, part two

Ok, so after exhausting quite a bit of material over the last couple of posts, and building this post up, the last of the Noma ones I believe I can dare milk. What is left to say, most of the readership on here knows how a kitchen works, often very closely as I am sure many of you will be reading this in the wee small hours, or on your phones in your splits. Others will simply understand the workings of a kitchen, and am sure you are eager to know what makes this one different to any other kitchen, after all what do they do that makes them 'the best restaurant in the world'

For the answer without the drivel, please feel free to skip down to the bottom, for those of you with a little more time on your hands, I will go into a little detail of the goings on during my meagre week.

My mornings consisted of preparing items for the days services with one of the section 1 chef de parties, these jobs were tiny Parisienne of cucumber, cucumber slices (both for a sea-urchin dish), fine chopped parsley and tarragon, doing some weigh outs, bio-dynamic grains for the scallop dish (55gm), laurum (bleak fish roe, 24gm), running up and down for containers, ice, many other things I cannot recall. Rolling many, many napkins for the langoustine dish. Then came the bane of my existence for my week, give me bloody beech nuts or veal threads anyway of the week, but no I got to polish the windows overlooking the kitchen, nightmare as you have to climb over the benches to do so, and stocks were reducing each day which you had to artfully move whilst the steam from them screwed up every chance of getting the glass crystal clear and spotless. This I'm afraid is about the only job I didn't sink my teeth into and do to the best of my ability, whilst I understand the need of the window being completely spotless, they can stick it, preferably where the sun don't shine. Sorry, shouldn't really go off on one, but you wouldn't believe how long the damn thing takes.

Anyway this would take us until about 11:30 when we had morning briefing, this is where the whole team, front and back of house would discuss the service, this is one of the first points of note, where they rise above the rest, each guest is researched, if you have ever eaten there, rest assured that they will try and find something out about you, whether you give them a heads up or not, if your email has a 'chef' in it, or the domain name on the email is in anyway connected to the food industry as a whole, rest assured they will be looking out for you, trying to know as much as they can so they can spot, especially, industry or industry journos, don't worry if there is nothing about you, you will still get very well looked after. There is a further briefing before evening service. Every member of staff is present, including stagier at this briefing, as often if a guest comes from a country that none of the paid guys come from then a stagier might be asked to be available for a kitchen tour afterwards to assist with translation. I found the depth of detail towards the guests amazing.

Ok so now staff lunch..... Oh that's right, isn't one, chefs divide to their stations, stagiers are assigned duties if working on service, many hands are grabbed to build chestnuts (more on this in a minute), and all else back up to the production areas. Then we would be given our jobs for the afternoon. For me this consisted mostly of pickles.....







7 different vegetables, in 7 different pickles. The sheer amount of these required to cater for up to 80-90 covers a day is staggering, and my requirements for this was instructed in 'layers' a 1.5 litre container, capable of holding 2 'layers' well compacted, each day I prepared a minimum of 4 layers of each vegetable. Pretty time consuming and the bulk of my afternoon work, occasionally I would be helped on days of 4 layers each service, but generally would happily plod with this, to be honest this is the kind of job I like to be given on a stage, similar to the 4kg of tiny morels I was given by Jocky at the fat duck, technically simple to do, so a minimal amount of focus required, which allowed me to be able to watch all else around me, absorbing as much as I could in my short time there.
Ok a small digression at this point for this, to me, the reason for a stage at any restaurant is to gleam as much as you can in your time there, to me this cannot be achieved if you are stuck in a heavily detailed task for hours on end, you will only see the job at hand, missing out on what's going on, watch what's going on and you will more than likely screw up what you are working on, so my advice is take the jobs that the full-timers hate, the more mundane the better (NOT window cleaning, I might add) so you can get a bigger picture, and not just the chervil stems, again more on this in a minute.
Anyway, often just a few minutes before service a small crew of stagier would be asked to build chestnuts. A wonderful dish to eat, and interesting to out together, only available on the 12 course so at least not one per guest was needed, Sam the sous chef would take care of the basic prep of these, already shelled by the production team, he would peel the remaining skin off about a 5 litre container each day, then for each service slice some truly paper thin, and the remainder required into simply very thin slices. Then 4 or 5 of us would take the thinnest ones and put 2 together so they stood to a point, 4 per plate, then some peeled chopped walnuts were sprinkled in the plate, now the fun bit, anywhere between 10-14 pieces of the next thickness were stood as upright as possible (see picture), using the paper thin ones and the walnuts only to hold them, a great laugh as a small army of chefs tried to build these together, concentrating, focused, and often cursing as one ill placed chestnut could send them all crashing down, leaving you to start again, and with the first guests arriving into the restaurant, no time to dally. A few were left out for the opening tables, the rest, cloched with 1 litre containers and transferred through to the walk in, to be collected as required during service. Now can you see the relevance of describing trying to get through the snacks section?







The dish is finished with a micro mustard cress, and a bleak-fish butter sauce then at the table, lovely and with the 'how the hell did they do that' factor

After this, I returned upstairs to continue with pickles, other jobs could intersperse, picking herbs, putting sol stock (seaweed) on, razor clams were a nice distraction one day, some 40kg of them, pulsing with life and a rich aroma of the sea, these were popped out of the shell, trim cleaned and reserved for a future staff meal, the remainder trayed up and frozen, to tenderise, once frozen they were bagged up in 10's and transferred to the main store across the car park (sorry no description, never went there)

Whilst pickles were underway, other chefs would be doing their thing, generally Leo the CDP would be organising the prep for section 1 and spent most of his time, cutting to shape different fruits, vegetables for stagieres to finish, the leeks and the apples for:-






The veg for the pickles, trying to get the stove space to reduce the stocks. A little time now needs to be spent here, explaining James, the AM chef de partie. In the room off to the side of production, was James' domain.

James, during my stage, was the chef de partie in charge of the AM shift, starting at 6am, they fired everything up, and started the Noma ball rolling each day, His team of 4-5 had a list as long as your arm (assuming you the reader have a pretty average length arm that is, if not please envisage this at this point), to collect from the basement at the other end of the park. As well as other duties I have no idea of before 8am, why? Simply because I was sleeping.

During the main part of the day, they cracked on with a number of tasks, from the crisp chicken skin, and rye toast for the sandwich in snacks, to making, drying and slicing the corrugated bread for the toast snacks, James' biggest challenge was that he had control of the only heat sources in production. 4 induction rings, 2 combi ovens. Not to bad perhaps, but up to 30 chefs need stuff cooked, and your stuff is ALWAYS the most important, however you have to convince James, why yours is the most important, my admiration with whoever has that role, you have not only to get your own work done, make most of the juices for the juice pairing menu, and get the huge amount of staff food done, make sure the dishwash area is kept in at least an orderly mess (sorry forgot to say, that's in there too), as he is the one who polices the stove and ovens, if he doesn't agree it it doesn't cook, so out of the chefs to stay on side of, after Rene, this is your man.

So the remainder of the afternoon was generally ensuring enough mis-en-place was in place for the sections to reload for the evening, and to break the back of a few of the more long winded tasks, chervil stems etc. Now I have been using the stalks off herbs as main ingredients in my dishes for some time, the most basic I guess being the Rosemary skewer, but also make infused dressings and oil from fine parsley stems that kind of thing, but chervil stems, they are in a league of their own, very nice to look at and nice to eat, but for a stagier, quite simply a crap job, mundane, but requires all your focus. Each 3branch sprig was removed, then very carefully each leaf is removed leaving as much branch structure as possible, then the leaves..... well, on my chervil stem day, went in the bin as there was no immediate need for them. If you stage here, just make sure you only get one batch to do, very time consuming and by stem number 3, you've learned all you're going to about this task.

At 4:30 the production sous calls a set time to have your work boxed and fridged, then the kitchen has a deep clean, from tile top to floor, only the walk in fridge doesn't get a full going over, not a problem with 20 odd chefs picking a piece of wall, and a further 5 or so armed with squeegees and cloths. After the clean, staff food is served, the only break of the day, officially 30 minutes, but translates into good 45 if you had your afternoon prep sorted. The meals for staff when I was there, whilst a little cauliflower heavy, were simply fantastic, by now, anything would have been great, everyone survives on a diet of stolen cucumber trim and apples all day (and in my case imperfect pickle prep) so you are starving and ready for anything. But in fairness to the AM team, it's lovely simple homely food, pies, curries etc, load your plate high you will need it.

After evening service briefing at 5:45, it was either back up to production for the night jobs, or if you have shown any affinity in it's construction, chestnuts.

I will list the jobs tackled in the evenings a little later on, but just to finish off the timescale of an average day. Prep ensued for the rest of the evening, but the pace a little less frantic, whether this was down to simply winding down by all, still a huge amount of work is done by a huge amount of people, or whether once the morning shift had gone home, there was more space for everybody, the fight for containers was lessened the sheer volume of football throughout the kitchen was less? Not sure of the reason, just that is was less pressured.

Around 10:30 when the kitchen was slowing down from service we would get communication to start drawing to a close, the production sous would call 10-15 minutes, by which time we needed to be finished and fridged ready to clean, some split off to strip the cold room which got it's daily deep clean at this time, which allowed for easier ordering by the chefs. After clear down and service had wound down, there would be a steady stream of guests being shown around the restaurant, one lovely touch is that they would pair the guest up with a chef who had the same native tongue if possible. then once everything had died down, about 11.45 there would be a kitchen meeting, this was to cover any issue discovered during the day, and to avoid future ones, and also to discuss the following lunches guests.

After this we (the stagiers) busted it, but the main team would start their planning for the next day, putting MEP in the right place, hoarding containers, cloths, c-folds. Should you go to noma as a stagier, take some blue wipe down cloths, rags, these are gold dust there, they will love you for it, think of it as a kind of barter system. I digress, sorry. The chefs would sort last minute mis en place. by which time I was in the seven-eleven near my apartment picking out the next days breakfast, and tumbling into my cot. Biggest advice, unless you thrive on no sleep, get accommodation not too far away, it will pay dividends by the end of day three.


The night jobs seemed much less pressured than the day work, with the AM team leaving the building between 7 & 8 pm, left a noticeable hole in the amount of chefs on the floor, the jobs that came out were the longer ones and more time to converse and find out about the colleagues from all over the world, also giving their time for the cause. My first night was beech nuts, mentioned before so I will not labour much further. Outer skins were removed before we got them, so our job was the removal of the hard shell, then toast and rub until White. To be honest this was not a hard job at all, anyone who has tried to peel a perfect walnut half will testify that nuts can be challenging (which we did some of these also, only to be told half way through not to worry, they were for chopping), it is just with the beech nut it's demoralising, myself and 2 other chefs after the first hour, looked at our achievement, we hadn't even peeled enough to cover the bottom of a 1 litre container, many hours later we had a half litre and was deemed enough. Thanks fully the scallops that they were for, were coming in too small so the dish changed and no more were needed all week. That was pretty much Monday evening done, I would love to recount Wednesday evening but as I had lunch, then was given the evening off, I merely typed up a few notes, had a couple of beers, watched a movie and was out, for the lunch post if you missed it, you can find that HERE

Thursday was an odd day, it ran its course, albeit with enough pickle prep to keep me going for the evening as well, interspersed with prepping a couple of boxes of sea-urchin (lovely), but the mood was odd, maybe it was the fact from 6-11pm I had most of the room to myself, no-one was in the mood to talk so was the longest night, I left that evening wondering what the hell was the bother, quite depressed and pissed off, but so everyone seemed, not the best service by all accounts at the evening meeting, quite a few things could have gone better. just one of those days I guess.

Friday was on the other hand an excellent day, the morning went as usual, with the fun of the stocks on section 1 stoves in desperate need so window cleaning was nigh on impossible with the constant steam of reduction screwing up every wipe. so bugger it I've given it my best shot, it stays like that. usually move up to production, but we had a private table in upstairs that evening. so the prep was a little more for all, and yep, more pickles, quickly (as I could) busted them out, with a little more sea-urchin prep. after tea Matt came up to run the event, he had a couple of black face pigs hanging in the cold room for a week or so, which he pulled everyone to see how he butchered it down, a well held masterclass, the then took the loins and slow roasted them using its own fat, this he incorporated into the evenings party menu, thankfully during the evening he called me over and carved a hunk of it off the rump end for me to try, absolutely incredible.

As stagier in production, when there is an event upstairs, you are actively involved in service as the menu is a very slightly shorter menu (not always) than the main room, including the snacks menu, some could be done ahead of time, but my favourite 'Toast'

Takes a good 3-4 minutes each to prepare, depending on the quality of herbs and skill of chef. so it was all hands on deck, and as Matt and Yannick (production sous) had taken over most of the bench space upstairs was a very nice breather from just prep. we were also very involved in the service of the food to the guest, as in the main restaurant the chefs deliver a majority of the food, not so much the snacks as they are done 4 portions to a plate so the waiters take those, but for each other course, every plate entered the room at the same time, place in front of the guests at the same time. Then all the oohs and aahhh's are in unison. we swiftly vacated the room, so Matt could introduce each dish.

service took up a lot of the evening, and with long chats with Matt about the pork and various other banter about food, didn't get much else done except helping him (lazy git). I also had the opportunity to try dishes not on the menu with my lunch including the razor clam in parsley gel, horseradish, yogurt mousse, sorrel granite and the walnut ice cream. this is why I love my job, truly.

Saturday was mental, truly mental. One of the first things Matt told me was they didn't encourage lunch bookings in the private room, due to the sheer difficulty in logistics making it happen as the production was in full swing during the day. So today was lunch 43, plus 10 private dining. then dinner was 45 plus 12 private dining. absolute maximum covers, so everyone was in full swing, for me the day went pretty much the same we were more cramped and moved into the back room due to the lunch function, but that was fine, about 20 of us in there at one point, then Tom from the snacks decided he wanted a circulation of air to help dry his leathers so opened the window, and with the temperature barely above freezing one by one, we sneaked back into the production kitchen, prepping perched on the edge of benches, using balance only Russian gymnasts have the possibility of achieving. lunch went well, we cleared down, had tea and got ready for evening service. A mammoth chestnut session ensued with most tables on 12 course, Sam Miller the sous not very happy when I asked if there was more chestnuts and still 10 plates short, he seemed a little, well, miffed. with all done I made my way swiftly upstairs before Sam found whoever had not ordered enough chestnuts.

Once upstairs, saw Leo with the obligatory, "what now?" he asked me to pick a few herbs, then do some weigh outs, ok what then? he said that was it, but there was a party again so I could just get involved with that. Ok so picked the herbs, just a few so no worries, 20 recipes of weigh outs for the coming week well should have been a cinch, as it was, however the ingredients to weigh took 5 minutes to gather, the plastic containers to store them in took the rest of the evening, with me eventually having to rob them from sections whilst backs were turned, good fun though. we also had the function running which again Matt looked after, I spent most of my time helping out ( a bit more efficiently than the previous day), again being given some wonderful pork to sample. This time he slow cooked the shoulder from the day before and finishes it in the fat and juices of yesterdays pork, well take all that flavour and condense it into the glaze for a low temp working muscle, Bloody hell it was beyond amazing.

Being the last day of the week before they close for two days, the wind down is more relaxed everyone is planning their weekend jaunts except for the 4 on projects, our last job involved every spare hand. 2 gastro trays of parsley and lovage for oil, blanched and squeezed and in need of being laid out pretty much leaf by leaf to dry at room temp for the weekend. at one point there was 15 of us on the job and still took us until 1am to finish, but was a good laugh with such a big crew.

The final meeting of the week then happened, final plans made, discussion of the following Tuesdays lunch guests, and then to projects. For those not in the know, now is the chance for the Noma chefs to cook their own creations, unlikely that they will ever make the menu, but an opportunity to express themselves Noma style to the whole team. It is not only a chance for them to express themselves, it is expected that 1 member from each section (at least) comes up with a dish each week. 4 plates of each are done up, as there is a big turnout, Best I go through them dish by dish.

first up was Oliver, my CDP from section 1, he had an idea to attempt to replicate the growing conditions on Jersey to get his own crop of Jersey royals to grow, they had been in touch with a farmer who was ploughing seaweed into his soil to get the same soil and the first crop would be ready to test next year, for the dish in question, as the spuds were a little way off, he used the vintage potato from the Noma menu, with some barely cooked clams, pickled seaweed, seawater gel, crown dill seeds and a cappuccino of the clam juice, the story behind it was very interesting and I wish him all success in replicating the potato, although I truly feel Royals may only grow with the flavour they do, because they are grown on Jersey.

Second up was Yo-Bo from section 2, his dish was a slow braised pork tongue cucumber, celery, cauliflower, slices of horseradish, finished with a ham hock glaze, very hearty and also light at the same time, fitted perfectly with the Noma brief, however for a dish in the middle of a 12 course menu after 10 snacks, thought there was simply too much food on the plate.

Third was Matt, the head chef who all week I had seen him prepare the cauliflower for the menu, during the prep he had noticed the cauliflower stalk where the leaves joined the stem had visual appeal, he had squared the stem off, fried it as you would a piece of meat, then held it for 2 hours in a juniper emulsion, he then served it up with some purple cabbage, raw cauliflower, spinach rounds and a sauce made of the split emulsion and some of the pork juices from the last 2 days private dining menus. This dish excelled (he is Head chef after all!) the stalk tastes earthy on first bite, then slowly the juniper comes through on second chew, then a little garlic, flavour deepening with every motion in the mouth, outstanding.

Last up was Carol, who's inspiration for her dessert was honey and mead, she made a mead parfait, covered with a honey gel, served with a rosehip sorbet and crisp bread. this dish has possibilities, but she made the gel with agar and was a little too brittle and the bread tuille was quite thick. these minor issues aside another great dish with clean obvious flavours packed into small packages.

And that was it, a week at the worlds best restaurant done, the option to join the guys to sample the left over wines of the week was there, but as I had booked an early flight, I passed. It was now nearly 3am and needed my bed, even if it was only a couple of hours. I had a few conversations with Matt, Sam and the purchasing sous (and the guy who organises stages) Viktor thanking them and offering my two penneth of advice before heading my way into the very cold night.

There was more to it than I've written, but am tired of typing now and want to get this post out to those who are interested, to you I thank you for your support and for being the reason for me logging this experience, it's lovely to re-live it through words. if this is the first time you have seen this blog, thank you for dropping by, please stick around got some interesting things coming up, such as why I no longer need a stock pit to make the best sauces I have ever tasted, amongst others.

If anyone has any questions, criticisms or just random banter, please leave a comment, email me or follow my witter on Twitter

Thank you, have a great weekend.

NOMA - A Stagier view of the worlds best restaurant, part one

Having never spent more than a day away from my family in many years, saying good bye to my kids and my wife and mum to be of number 5 was a horrendous wrench, I had set this up in November not really thinking the ramifications through fully as to the impact of this trip on my family, but Sally is the strongest woman I know and the kids are inherently good natured, and under severe instructions to help mummy so hopefully the rest of the week will be manageable for them, as for myself, whilst the wrench is a horrible feeling, by tomorrow I will not have time to think of anything other that what I have been instructed to do.

I have seen a blog, and our own pastry chef, 'G' who has done a week already, have regaled me with the prep that can be given, pine needles (not too bad) veal threads or fibres (extremely bad) but truth is, the restaurant is a constantly evolving one, all I know is that a sizeable force of both paid and unpaid spends hour upon hour painstakingly preparing for each service, each job a mission for small teams of chefs to ensure the chefs in service have all the perfect prep they need, when they need it, how painstakingly I was yet to find out.




The walk each morning was brisk to say the least, running water frozen and the breeze cutting across Knippelsbro bridge froze me to my core, painful on day one, but the rest of the week was essential to ensuring I arrive to work awake. A swift left turn and through a small industrial area and Noma sat at the end, I walked around a while wondering where the heck to get in, finally see a door where a chef was working in the instantly distinguishable brown apron, with a few butterflies in my stomach approached the cook, who very politely broke away from his work to tell and guide me to where I would get changed. Whilst getting changed I met my chef de partie, Oliver who had been briefed on who I was and where I was from previously, he showed me to my first (an consequently my most worked on task for the week) the pickles prep.

After a short while of about 15 pickles, I was taken for a show round of the working areas by head chef Matt Orlando, the kitchen is spilt over 2 floors.



Downstairs, the main service kitchens, section 1, is the cold section, and where I spent my week. They do a considerable amount of cooking on the cold section, however a lot of what this section does is about assembly, and they have a (small) amount more space than the other areas, just adjacent is section 2, responsible for all the cooked items, from cauliflower to reindeer tongue. Behind these two sections is a door through to the potwash, where their 1(YES ONE) kitchen porter Alieu works, although he doesn't get in till 11am, so a large majority of what you need, you wash it yourself, but I digress. Alongside here is a corridor through to the pastry section and the walk in fridge, however the corridor contains probably the busiest sections, snacks, from here, chefs work shoulder to shoulder throwing out the 1st ten or eleven plates you receive, madness ensues from this section, but sets the tone for the meal, containing a large amount of Noma signatures, such as the radishes in a pot, complete with the perfect malt 'soil', perfectly cooked, impossibly peeled, delicately smoked quails egg. The chicken skin smorrebrod. Quite amazing, what is also amazing is how the hell to get through the corridor when snacks are in full swing.

Through from the snacks section in the pastry section, quite a decent size, but again as the appetiser is plated up here and a further 4 chefs are needed to keep the section running, it feels cramped as Rosie and her team buzz around all day long. At the end of the section is the main walk in coldroom for downstairs, which is used by all sections, hence my comment on trying to get through snacks every time you needed to get something from there, ie chestnuts, which I will explain a little later on.

This concludes downstairs, well not quite, outside through a door accessible only through snacks (again) there are a number of storage sheds, which contain veg (when it's not freezing, so not now) to cleaning utensils (different shed, so don't worry) to a small BBQ area, I mean small, like one of the small drum ones you see in a DIY store, where the pastry cook the grilled pear for the pear and pine dessert. Then we enter through the furthest door and travel on upstairs, to where I spent a majority of my time.





First thing you see upon climbing the stairway is a nicely carpeted area, with bookcases adorning the furthest wall, including a sizeable collection of great cookbooks. To the right is the 'staffroom' a private dining area for up to 15 guests, tastefully and minimally adorned, a very lovely room, to the left through 2 huge glass doors was the main production kitchen (pictured), through here also just off to one side is the AM kitchen, the AM shift starting at 6AM to start things going, from collecting provisions from the main store, to getting stocks and sauces on, they in turn for the ungodly start time, were out by 8pm when I was there, although this can run later during busy periods. In this kitchen was the only stove and ovens for upstairs, and the chef de parties job was to allocate time for the other chefs to be able to do their cooking, and art in itself, they were also responsible for staff feeding, something again I will come to later. Beyond the production kitchen is a massive beamed room, multi purpose as staff would eat here, meetings would take place and overflow preparation would occur here also, Victor the produce sous chef kept the veg and herbs in here as it was still too cold when I was there, Matt the head chef also had his desk in here, although I can't say it was used much as it's very much a hands on kitchen, all the time.

Ok filled up quite a lot of space with that, so am going to leave it here as my iPad software really isn't happy with me going on and on, and I hope this is not the case with you, so to make this a little more manageable will post another in a few days, a little more bite size shall we say.




Next I will run through some of the work and the structure of the day telling the ups and downs of the worlds best restaurant, thanks for reading, and if anyone wishes to comment, please do either here, or tweet me on www.twitter.com/esenses

Laters.

Noma, my take on the meal at the best restaurant in the world

Awarded the best restaurant in the world for 2010, Noma as a chef is not so much a restaurant to visit for a special event, but more a pilgrimage to worship at the temple of natural cuisine, at it's peak. And it's for this reason alone (and meeting Rene Redzepi last November) that I decided to do a stage there, here and now (January 2011). The stage itself will be subject to a separate post, a glimmer of this you will see over on www.thestaffcanteen.com shortly. This one is about a wonderful surprise I received from head chef Matt on the second day of my stage.

Working, it's much a normal day as I can gather from the one day I have been here previously, I was looking forward to the mornings prep, and more so to the promise I was given to work service on my section, instead of production upstairs, don't get me wrong, without production this eatery could not exist, but service is where it's at, the coal-face, the heat of battle (choose your own metaphor). After we had set up on section, we still had about a half an hour before our section would see any action, so I was sent upstairs for a short job, to await kick off, by this time, snacks was already taking off in a big way, one of the busiest sections in the kitchen by a mile. Anyway, 2 minutes into a lovely job of picking tarragon leaves, I felt a tap on my shoulder, looked around and Matt was gesturing me to one side, I thought this was my service call and called that my job would have to be taken over, once at the side, he asked as there was a table free would I like to make up a '2 top', now booking a table here is nigh on impossible, unless you have the day off on the 1st of the month, and the utmost patience on a telephone, and also can book 3 months in advance, with no real qualms about which service, which day, after all travel arrangements can be made afterwards, but here was a table handed to me on a plate (poor pun I know, I'm sorry) as I started writing this, I was still stuffed filled with amazing memories of one of the great meals of my life. The only regret is my dining companion couldn't be my beautiful wife. It was however one of the other stagier, Brian Skinner, who proved to be great enthusiastic company, and the taker of a majority of the photographs in this post, for which I thank you very much, great pictures chef.

Anyway, without further ado, the meal itself.

As mentioned before, snacks is where it begins. The menus are 7 course and 12 course. As we were probably not going to have the opportunity any time again soon, we both opted 12, again wouldn't want to walk away from the opportunity so rarely given.

Snacks came thick and fast

Branches

First was already on the table, malt crisps. Cheeky little number hidden amongst the branches of the table decoration, very light nice, just a little bit forgettable, not so the:-

Lichen

Crisp fried moss, cep powder. Wow, something so very simple, moss deep fried and dusted with a cep salt, one bite, bliss

Leathers

Next up came sea-buckthorn leather, pickled Rose petals great visually and a beautiful refreshing burst of acidity, cleaning the palate, leaving us wanting just one more, simplicity again, perfectly executed.

The snacks were building up on our table as we tried to keep up with the dish introductions, and taking pictures. But even in the face of this hardship, you will be glad to know we battled on.

Leeks

Next, perched on the edge of the table was 2 whole leeks, looking half cooked, I mean half! The root end was crisped up, the White looked blanched, and the top most definitely raw, this had been blanched, deep fried at the very root, and stuffed with a smoked garlic puree, a great bite, even if it was odd to see guests in a 2 Michelin star restaurant chow down on whole leek, very playful and perfectly executed.

Next came a battered old cake tin, I've better kept ones in my house with the kids forever in and out. Inside was 2 little purple discs, introduced as

Biscuits

Savoury biscuit, speck, pine shoot, blackcurrant, a wonderful light crisp biscuit, moist speck, dusted with an intense blackcurrant powder and topped with tiny pine shoots, crisp, fresh, sharp. Wonderful bite again.

Sandwich

Chicken skin, rye bread, smoked cheese, lumpfish roe.

A play on a smorrebrod, traditional Danish open sandwich. Served upside down, with the crisp chicken skin on the bottom.

Smoked quail egg

The softest, most perfectly cooked quail egg, looked like it was strongly smoked, but the flavour was very delicate, yet lingered on the palate for just the right amount of time. Just glad I was never asked to peel these during my working time there.

Radishes in a pot

Pretty much a signature dish now, loads of fun and felt like a kid pulling the vegetable out of the 'dirt' the aerated herb yogurt adding to the depth of flavour, the crisp fresh radish not too strong, simple. And the best soil I have ever tasted, we make a few different soils at work for this and that, but this felt in the mouth like when I came off my bicycle as a child, crunchy, dry, but obviously with a deep flavour of malt. Just great.

Herb toast

Extremely light undulating toast, dotted innumerable times with a deep smoked cods roe emulsion, filled to capacity with an array of crisp fresh herbs, topped with (amazingly) the skin from duck stock, a lovely savoury topping to the best snack served. They were all amazing but this stood that little bit higher.

AEbleskiver

Traditionally a sweet item, a light bun with apple and powdered sugar, this one was a savoury version, very light centred with pickled cucumber and studded with anchovy. Not to my taste, the bun was superbly executed, the cucumber a refreshing respite from the dough, but the fish. Not needed, they look funky but the taste, even for my outlandish palate, was an ingredient too far. Not that it impeded on my meal in any way, just not the best from an array of brilliance.

This, amazingly was the end of the amuses, generally the free little extras given by the chef to whet the appetite, and to also buy time for the kitchen to prepare the rest of the menu, we had been sitting a good hour and worked our way through 10 dishes already! Now our appetites well and truly rearing to go.

Bread service, goat butter, pork fat

Sourdough was amazing, served with a goats butter, and a rendered pork fat with crackling.

Appetiser:-

Leek and apple

A very playful beginning, the leeks and the apple prepared so you have to look closely to tell which is which. The leeks cooked nice and soft, the apple raw and crisp, interspersed with the two gels, and each spire topped with the smallest, strongest flavoured thing I have ever tasted, the kelp crisp, fantastic, easy to make, added wonders to this already great dish.

Dried scallop, grains, rocket, beech nuts, squid ink sauce

DON'T GET ME STARTED on beech nuts, you will have to wait a little for my stagier post to find out why, anyway back on point, dehydrated scallop, 4 biodynamic grains in a rocket emulsion, toasted beech nuts, squid ink sauce (beech nuts were lovely and stood out on the plate BTW)

Hugely intense flavours from the scallop, lightened by the accompaniments, harmony in 4 bites.

Chestnut, walnut, mustard cress, bleak-fish sauce

How do they do that, very in sliced raw chestnuts, standing on end (I know how, had to build a few, great effect for the guest, card building for the chefs), chopped walnuts, mini mustard cress is brought to the table, one of the chefs then sauces tableside, a rich beurre blanc with the roe of bleak fish, rich & fresh, outstanding dish. Brian, my dining companion, made a great comment that tackling this dish felt like kicking over sandcastles as children.

Langoustine, oyster emulsion, sol seasoning

next is delivered a huge, warm rock. The payfulness of the presentation here adds greatly to the theatre of it all. Perched on this is a single plump langostine, fried on one side and just shown the pan on the other. proper finger food as we dragged the perfectly cooked (partly due to the residual heat in the rock) langostine through a wonderful oyster and parsley emulsion, seasoned with a seaweed powder.

Oyster in a pot, beach herbs, tapioca, cream

As we lifted the lids, memories of clean beaches as children rushed back, the seawater and rocks, with a few interspersed shells heightening the sensation, in the main shell a lightly cooked oyster, the biggest I have ever seen, cut into 4 segments for ease of eating, coated with a variety of herbs, some tapioca and a hint of cream. Yet another success in a wonderful journey.

cauliflower, pine, horseradish

Quite simply the star of the show, having seen this prepared at the book launch, had been longing to try this one, and it most certainly didn't dissapoint, caramelized cauliflower with a pine salt, sauce of whey and pine oil. Amazing and the best yet.

Celery root, roast in goat butter, black truffle, sorrel

wedge of tiny celeriac bulb, confit then roasted in goats butter, with a hugely rich truffle emulsion, as it sounds this is one of few 'hearty dishes' the sorrell cutting through the richness of the rest of the plate nicely.

Pickled vegetables, bone marrow, roast pork sauce

This is the dish my wife is most envious of from the whole menu, and with good reason. again a play on tradition, where in Denmark would be normal to have roast pork with pickled vegetables, here the vegetables take centre stage. & vegetables in 7 different pickles, bone marrow and a pork sauce, my nly comment on this whilst it was very lovely, don't get me wrong. When eating the dish as a whole, it is nigh on impossible to distinguish the varying pickles. when rolling them (my job for the week) you can easily, however the guest perspective here, I couldn't. so prep for preps sake?

Reindeer Tongue, apple, lemon thyme

Slow cooked sous-vide for 12 or 24 hours, depending on the weight of the tongue, served with a rich reindeer stock, lemon theym, and every bit of the apple. wedges cooked in goat butter, pickled apples, powdered skin (cloying in the mouth) and the seeds, but not so. A malt pasta dough, cut into apple seed shapes and lightly fried to mimick crispy seeds, a real manly dish to finish off the savoury elements of our meal.

Dessert 1

Grilled pear, pine parfait, pear and thyme oil sauce

Sweet warm pear, grilled to order on the outside BBQ, paper thin slice of fresh pear to mask the presentation with a full coating of flowers and leaves, the sauce is an unctious syrup of pear, split with an intense thyme oil, and the showpiece on the plate the pear parfat, the smallest amount of parfait mix in a vacuum box, cold boiled in a chamber vacuum machine and frozen, intense fragrance and flavour of a walk in the forest, this dish works on every level.

Dessert 2

Bitters

Ok stop the press, knew this was going too well, and before I damn this dish I want to point out that its quite a good dish, just in the wrong place on the menu IMO, had this come before the pear I would understand the transition from savoury world to sweet world, but between the 2 true dessert dishes, no, not for me.

Milk ice cream nice and soft, sandwiched in a crisp frozen (liquid nitrogen?) whey ice, surrounded with a sorrel jus. technically excellent. before dessert fine. where I received it, sorry no.

Dessert 3

Ollenbrod, skyr ice cream, warm milk espuma.

wow, what an end, the perfect pudding wish the portion was 10 times bigger, because even though I was stuffed silly by this point, I could have kept eating this all week.

A rye porridge soaked in ale, served warm, under a milk foam with the chill of the icelandic yogurt ice cream, as I said "WOW"

petits fours

after 4 and a half hours, we moved to the lounge for coffee, we were presented with the petit fours

Smoked bone marrow caramel

a slow release toffee, the smokiness renewed on every movement in the mouth, a standout petit four

Chocolate coated meringues

As in his book, was only surprised at the size of them, massive, flavourful, a dessert in themselves

Choc and fennel coated chocolate chips

Potato chips, dipped in chocolate with fennel seeds, simple tasty and a good end to a great meal.

I struggled my way back to the apartment, thankful of being given the rest of the day off, amazed by what I had been given to eat, amazed at the seamlessness of the service, the attentiveness of not only the front of house but the chefs who would top up our water whilst walking past, one very well oiled machine.

The rest of my week can be glimpsed over on Staff Canteen and a fuller version will appear on here in a week or so.

Now the question, is it the best restaurant in the world, having seen both sides of the operation as stagier and guest my answer is, err.. dunno.

This is not because I feel it isn't, its because I do not know enough of the others on the list, but I can honestly say it does deserve that recognition, is an essential part of that list, and would be surprised to see it merely retain it's 2 star status in the michelin this March.

My thanks for this experience begin with Rene Redzepi, who whilst absent during my time on a well earned break, I beleive, runs a very tight ship and ensures all stagiers are welcomed into the fold and as guests are excellently welcomed by both the kitchen and Restaurant teams. My thanks to Matt Orlando (Head chef), and Sam Miller (sous chef) for ensuring my lunch service went as smoothly as the ones we worked, especially to Matt who made the available table mine. Also at this point, to the guests who were booked for my table and couldn't make it. my eternal gratitude.

To the whole team of chefs and stagier, for making the most mundane tasks fun due to great company.

For my club owner, for helping me go, by giving me the use of one of his apartments in Copenhagen, close to Noma, much needed was the short walk each day after work.

And finally to my wife Sally, for picking up the slack at home to allow me the time to get this out of my system, without your support I am nothing, I love you. please follow her on twitter @lallypo, not much to say, but when she has its great and will make you laugh.