Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks. I'm here with Fjell and Xander and today we're going to talk about the future of our podcast.
Hey guys. Hello guys. How are you doing? I never get to talk here. I listen to you all the time.
Yeah, how does it feel to be on the other side?
It feels fine. I mean, I've been here twice already, but always good to also join in.
So guys, we've been doing this for two years out of like this silly idea where Eric called me and said,
Hey, Phil and I, we haven't seen each other for years, but we always have these fun conversations about food.
Do you feel like somebody would be interested to listen to us jab about like our lives as chefs and about food in general?
And I'm like, sure, record it. Let's put it on the air. Let's see what happens.
But I've been by the boom, almost a hundred episodes later and two years and here we are.
And I don't know, like I feel we've had, we can call it like minor successes in a way.
Like we had a live show where there's a lot of people that came out.
And I feel you also had some experiences with fans of the show.
Is it like, Hey, I want to work with you. Oh yeah. Yeah, true.
Yeah. I mean, I'm actually surprised how many people listen to it because I mean, like when we started, we all said to each other,
you know, the most important thing is that this is fun.
And I mean, we don't, you know, like, I always believe in like not starting things for like a destination, but just for the process.
And I don't know. I feel like we've been really doing that.
Just kind of enjoying what we've been doing.
And so often I kind of forget that this is something that gets pulled out to like quite a lot of people nowadays.
And so then I'll be like a casual conversation with somebody, you know, and they'll be sort of like, oh, it's like how you say your podcast.
It's a marathon, another sprint. And I'm like, what the fuck?
It's really bizarre. But yeah, it's cool.
You know, it's cool that we can kind of do what we did between the two of us.
And that there's, you know, people who are interested in that, you know, which is, I guess, a very particular, you know, kind of perspective on gastronomy.
No, but Eric, you might be about to host a third show or something like that.
You know, like you've really taken this on about like this whole journalism aspect of talking about food, no?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I really enjoy it.
And also from different angles, because the one I'm doing with BCC is like talking with interesting chefs and taking like very specific angles, not so biographical like the ones we do here.
And I also had like the other one that was focused on digital innovation around food.
And on my side, it has also been interesting that people have reached out to me to join my food tours.
Like there were followers of the show and they were traveling to Spain and maybe they had Bill Bowe in mind and also like a few days in San Sebastian.
And then they said, OK, let's join this tour.
Yeah, that's awesome. That's really cool.
And then also, you know, it's kind of like the tour I imagine gets a different sort of quality also, you know, because obviously there's a very unique kind of the restaurants and the bars and stuff that you take people to do one thing, you know, but also there's such a unique cooking and restaurant culture, you know, with its own little quirks and particularities.
Right. And so like if they know if they know you from the podcast, then for sure they'll you know, I can imagine that there's questions and sort of angles that they take and ask you about that would be quite unusual for like a regular food tour, you know.
Yeah. And also we had like this yearly celebration at the company where all the workers go together to a party and a few people came to me and said, hey, I follow your work.
Your podcast is really cool. And I was like, OK, nice. I didn't knew that.
Like that so many people were following.
Yeah, nice.
No, but like what you say, Phil, about the process being in itself a nice thing and then also having a little bit of a of a goal.
I remember I read something about statistically if you made 21 episodes, you would get enough of a rhythm that you can continue making the show.
So our approach was make it as simple as possible so we can like, you know, keep it going. And I think that's also a little bit a part of the show that like sometimes you're just like, what are we going to talk about?
It kind of like develops as you're talking, which I think is quite nice and also a testament to like obviously your guys' knowledge and your experience and your expertise.
But yeah, I mean, like Eric and I also always had the, you know, a little bit of that dream of having our own food and travel show, having an excuse to travel and eat.
And next week we're actually going to do that. So, you know, the future of potluck, I feel, is at some point following YouTube around the world and discovering places and hopefully making a show that's worth watching.
Yeah.
Next week we're going to Noma. Well, actually Phil wanted to go and then I decided to join because I mean it's a fair amount of money what you spend in this kind of restaurants.
And I was like, okay, fuck it. Like I can permit it to myself. I can do it like at this stage of my life. I like to do something like that, to take a plane to different countries to eat at a restaurant.
Actually, we're going for, I think it's the last week. I think it's like one of the very last days that we're going. So it's pretty special.
That's fucking amazing. You know, like asking for one seat at arguably one of the best restaurants in history and then it becoming three seats.
Obviously the chances go down and I think we were on the waiting list until the email came in saying like, oh, so a table just opened up. You want to take it? And we were like, ah.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, arguably, you know, there's no argument. It's by far one of the best restaurants and, you know, not just in the world, but just like through its influence on gastronomy.
I think it's crazy. Like how, like if you think about how much Noma influenced the whole global gastronomy scene, you know, and not just like fine dining restaurants, but like small things and like just normal restaurants also, you know, it's absolutely crazy.
And yeah, it's very privileged, you know, because I mean, you know, there are requests for tables in the thousands every day, you know, so it's really special.
I don't even know how we got this because we put in the reservation like what, like a month ago or something like that. And only like two weeks later, we've got the confirmation. So yeah, very easy. I mean, just, you know, this all thanks to Kevin, you know.
So yeah, he put us on a priority wait list. That's how it happened. So I'm like probably somebody canceled a table of three.
That's fucking amazing. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure he went to somebody and said, Hey, can you, because I'm sure even the priority wait list is quite high.
I'm pretty sure that's like when these sorts of places are sort of like, Hey, can you swing something, you know, so very, very appreciative of that.
Should we bring a picture of Kevin to the table and put it next to us?
We should. That would be so nice.
Oh, that'd be cool.
But like, like a really cheesy frame. Like we, I will go to like, like one of these, you know, dollar stores, I'll get the cheesiest frame, you know, with like ribbons and whatever, print out a picture of Kevin and we put it there.
I wonder if we have our own table or if we have a shared table because sometimes when the party is not big enough, but I think if there's three of us, I think it's for solo diners. They have like a communal table with like more like several solo diners, but you sit together.
Which I think it's cool. Yeah, it's super cool.
I would think that if I'm a solo diner, I mean, solo dining can be boring, you know, and if you're with three strangers that are also solo dining, I think that's cool.
Yeah, although I think that if you, if you are normal, I think I feel like we've probably taken care of and you're so enveloped in it that the solo dining would be pretty crazy.
But yeah, I think it's, yeah, it's crazy.
Have you guys looked into the restaurant at all? Because like, I mean, I've been saying this to you guys for a few days now, like I don't want to look at anything.
But usually with this sort of restaurants, you know, especially when I was much more involved with like the Michelin scene, I used to know exactly how a night in a restaurant like this would go, you know, you would go, you would like sit there in the lounge or whatever.
You would get a drink and then like, for example, Fabriken before I went to Fabriken, I knew exactly how a dinner there would go.
Just because I read about it and stuff, you know, you would arrive, you get greeted at the door, this and that, and you would sit in the like, and the foyer before going up to the dining room and whatever, you know, and then you would have the like the desserts and the petit fours in the like little teepee or whatever.
With Noma, I have not done any of that. Like I know obviously that you get greeted, the doors get open for you, the team greets you and stuff.
But apart from that, it's like, I'm sure you get a little tour and stuff, but I haven't looked at anything and I'm trying not to look at any of the menu either.
That's another thing. I'm trying to go in completely blind.
I mean, I haven't seen anything about the menu, but I remember when Noma got its new location, I saw a lot of, I don't know, videos of like POV videos of René walking around and showing like the different areas.
So I would say like I kind of have a feeling of how the building is. I also saw like renders and how do you say, like blueprints of the place. So I kind of know how it is, like the infrastructure.
But I have no idea and I don't know what to expect from the menu. I saw like just quickly, like some pictures, for example, David Silver posted recently.
You shared that, I remember.
Which was also the vegetable menu, which is the one we're getting. But that's it. You know, I didn't want to be into it or anything.
Yeah, I mean, like out of both of you, I mean, you've worked in these places, you've visited some of these places.
I have obviously gone to some Michelin star restaurants myself, like smaller ones, but I have no idea what to expect.
I might be like the odd man out. I might be like, you know, like you would, I feel like you will have to explain to me maybe why certain dishes are maybe even more mind blowing than, you know, what they are at face value, you know.
Yeah, I mean, I have a little bit of like a mixed attitude towards that because like obviously like we have worked in these sorts of places where there's, you know, 40 chefs, you know, I mean, Noma is very, you know, not dissimilar to how El Bulli used to be in some details.
Obviously, it's very much its own thing, but like in the way that the kitchen is organized and like, for example, to the steps of creating a dish, you know, there'll be tables with, you know, like six, eight chefs, you know, assembling one thing, right.
So it's like very intricate work.
I mean, when I worked at El Bulli.
Exactly. Yeah.
So there's a clear, there's a clear influence.
And, you know, I used to really, again, you know, I used to really dissect these things because for one side, it's like professionally quite interesting.
On the other hand, it's also quite nice to just not overanalyze it too much and kind of put your professional brain to rest and to really just delve into the experience because eating at this sort of level and like this sort of level of food is so emotionally
evocative, you know, everything about Noah is emotionally evocative in a very, very tuned up sort of way of, you know, I mean, it's it's poetic food, you know, it's from the very beginning where it was, you know, a sense, a sense of time and place, you know, I mean, that's yeah, that was their, their credo, you know, sort of like Nordic countries right here right now.
And, you know, that's obviously very, very emotional when you eat something, you're like, oh, yeah, I really get a sense of, of the nature and the season and the origin.
And kind of like, like I tried to do this in in my restaurant also again, a completely different level of food.
But sometimes you have to sit down and eat as a guest, right. So like, for example, I make a dish, and it'll be completely, it'll make complete sense in the kitchen. I look at it, it looks beautiful, the elements are all seasoned and it tastes nice.
There's different techniques etc. seems good, right. But then when I actually asked, I'll tell somebody, hey, I'm going to go sit down in 10 minutes, can you send me this dish? And then the dish will arrive and you eat it, turning off your professional brain, and you will discover completely new levels of things that you haven't thought about.
Right. And it's always, it's always this, you know, eternal question when you go to amazing places like this, where you're kind of like, well, I'm probably only going to be here once in my life. It's sort of like, do I analyze it or do I just sign up for the journey and let myself go?
I mean, what you're saying, I feel it's kind of like a little bit when you're in film school and you learn all these techniques about movies and you go into film and you started like analyzing, you know, camera, oh, what lens did they use? And then you start not seeing the movie and just like looking at techniques instead of just like shutting your brain off and seeing, okay, are these two hours?
Like, is that an emotional roller coaster that I'm invested in and I had fun at and that evoked things in me. And I guess in that same sense, I guess you're at that point that you just want to enjoy the roller coaster and really go there and see if it, you know, makes something with your soul for lack of a better term.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you kind of want to do both, obviously, you know, you want to really look at it and appreciate the craftsmanship also and the idea that went behind it. But you also, I mean, I can only speak for myself, but for me, it's like that. But I also at the same time, I just want to, it's kind of like the red pill and the blue pill and matrix, you know, you kind of like, man, I actually, I actually really want to know what what is behind it. But I also really want to enjoy my fucking steak, you know.
The cool thing is like, we now have this opportunity, which kind of like grew out of nowhere. And yeah, as Eric just mentioned, we do want to use this opportunity because it's pretty rare that we all three together in one place. And I think Noma is a great way of making a first episode of what could become, you know, our food and travel show. So yeah, we want to use this opportunity to go to Copenhagen, maybe question and analyze a bit this new Nordic movement because, you know, I guess Copenhagen,
wasn't even on the culinary map only 20, 30 years ago. And then suddenly some people got together. And I think Noma is like one of the key hubs or centers or whatever you want to call it that kind of like created a whole industry in Copenhagen. And a lot of chefs who came out of there and a lot of people who are doing some interesting things and some research centers about fermentation and whatnot.
So I do think the whole Copenhagen experience is going to be really nice to kind of like have a little adventure, eat some good food, but also like see what a group of people doing things right can accomplish in a certain way. And I think that's going to be really cool.
Absolutely. Hey, Eric, just thinking quick question. What do you think we should bring the kitchen as an Omiyage?
Yeah, as it like, as it like, like a present. Yeah. Anchovies. Anchovies. Yeah. Danes go crazy about Spanish anchovies. Yeah, that's, that's a nice idea. What about your fermented chili anchovy sauce? I still have some. Yeah, I could bring some of that.
But you're going to keep it for yourself. But yeah, we should definitely bring something. I think anchovies, Cantabrian anchovies. I know by fact that Danes go crazy about it. Yeah, cool. I'm sure they would love that.
That's assuming that most people working there are Danes. Also true. Well, they all love fermented fish. If you were working on normal, you love anchovies. Yeah, I assume that.
You know what would be a power move? Bring it up like a leg of ham. That would be a power move. Does that fit in your hand luggage, Eric? Ask Evan what he thinks, what he thinks would be a good idea. I mean, he knows.
Just continuing with what Xander was saying. What happened in Copenhagen is really interesting because as you said 30 years ago, there was no conversation about the food scene in Copenhagen.
All of the restaurants there were French and they were eating sausages and potatoes. And so it probably like one of the key figures in this movement was Klaus Meyer, who was already like an entrepreneur with many bakeries, also like a TV chef.
I don't know it like I work for the man and the project I was in Bolivia. It was he was the owner of that project. I didn't know that he wanted to replicate like what he did in Denmark in Bolivia.
And actually he did. If you look at Bolivia today, it's also in the conversation of fine dining in Latin America. And it was not like that 10 years ago.
So he was a main and one of the main investors at Noma. At the beginning, he's not part of Noma anymore. He sold his part. And when Noma opened, it had actually two head chefs. It was Rene Rizepi and Matt Reslund.
And what I've heard is that at the beginning there were there were like unbearable and heated discussions every day about what Noma should be and what not. And a lot of people say that that tension is what drove them to be so good.
Like, you know, because everybody had like a point to prove and that kind of became like the DNA of the organization. And after one year or so after the opening, they wrote this new Nordic cuisine manifesto, which by the way was inspired by the new Basque cuisine manifesto.
But it was very different because here in the new Basque cuisine, they were talking about elevating and refining in terms of technique and other things, traditional recipes that were already in the region.
But the like the approach from from the new Nordic manifesto was completely different because they felt they didn't have like such nice traditional recipes apart.
Like, as I said, from sausages and potatoes. So that's the they were like, OK, let's redefine or reshape our food identity.
Put vegetables in the center, health in the center, like working with fermentations to make vegetables more interesting and also looking around and finding ingredients that have been there all the time.
But nobody's eating because nobody knows. And there are for sure like taking advantage of the whole biodiversity of the region.
So like woodbarks, insects, types of seafood that were never eaten or served in a restaurant before, special items of hunt from all of the Nordic countries.
And the interesting thing is if you go today to a normal bistro in Copenhagen, you will feel the influence of this.
It really became like a regional strategy to promote like not only like gastronomy, but also tourism, general health of the population, agriculture, sustainability.
I think that's also like what Eric is saying, the cool thing about like the progression of Noma and like this Noma 2.0 and stuff, because, you know, like you were saying, having discussions, they were so strict in the way that they were.
In the way that they were cooking, in the way they were running the restaurant. So like, you know, no lemons, no this, no that. So if you don't have a lemon, you know, you need to find alternative ways of creating products that serve the same function.
And that's why you use, you know, fermentation, etc.
And but then also, I think, so that was very cool. And that was very interesting. But then when Noma did the second step after, I don't know, like 10, like, I don't know how many years, more than 10 years now when they opened Noma 2.0.
And they kind of stepped back from this very rigid limitation and they sort of like, okay, now we are going to start using a few small things from outside, right.
I was talking with a friend about this the other day, because I had an interview the other day. And during this interview, I noticed once again that the term fine dining is so difficult, you know, because it's like, like, what the fuck does that mean?
You know, fine dining, it's cooking is such a broad craft. And I just always feel like the term just doesn't quite, you know, feel right. And it feels elitist.
And I was talking to him about it and he was kind of talking about, you know, what a global cuisine means, you know, anyway, it was kind of spitballing.
But talking about the fact that what is a regional cuisine, actually, and how do you define it and how do you define a regional cuisine in our day and age with our input of information and our exchange of cultures, you know, internationally, like what is what is regional, what is local and what is not because
saying that nowadays, you know, like, for example, take Berlin, right? That's, you know, Berlin is in Germany, but anybody who's been to Berlin knows that Turkish culture is as ingrained as German culture here, you know, and, you know, that is a cultural and social aspect of cooking and gastronomy.
That's very interesting. But I then took like, for example, the example of Noma as a really good example, because I'm sort of like, well, what is it international and global cuisine, you know, is it, you know, you being in Europe and importing langoustines from here and, you know, fucking vegetables from there from all over the world and whatever, or is it actually using what you have around you in close proximity with a sort of, you know, quality and sustainability aspect, but using all
of the knowledge and cultural input that you have available at your fingertips to your advantage, you know, because why wouldn't you use local products with a technique from Japan or from Peru, you know, from the Andes from Africa from wherever, you know, like that that would just be silly. Like, us having this like, or romanticized idea of like, no, I'm only going to use how they used to do it. It's kind of like, well, do you think in the, you know, 18th century, they would have not used an
information that was available to them as if that hasn't happened like a million times, as if the Spanish would have said, you know, when the Arabs came to take over, it's like, I don't want any of this, you know, they know, obviously, they took it, you know, they took it stuff from the Silk Road, you know, that traveled through the world. They took it, you know, they weren't sort of like, I don't want any of this is not local, you know, it's local right now. And so I think that Noma is a perfect example of that, like nowadays, and why also that second step that they took is even more interesting than the first, because they still only
use local ingredients, but with this broad approach of things that they've learned internationally and drawing from this, you know, so it's like, is it is it local? Is it regional? Yeah, of course, you know, all the products are hyper hyper local. And that makes a large identity of it. But also the, the, the approach and the like execution and the technique is a combination of them finding their own processes for years through this like limit of creativity, but also through this wide
knowledge of people that have come in and gone out and shared the knowledge, people coming to work at, you know, Noma from all over the world and enriching the culture and culture. And I feel like that's very zeitgeisty, you know,
I recently read this book of Ariel Johnson flavorama.
Oh, nice. What a legend.
And the introduction is by Renae Recep and he talks about all of these. And he says that they're not in that stage anymore, where they're 100% only local, for example, they're introducing now, also Mexican chilies, for example, or Renae has like, if I'm not wrong, Macedonian Albanese heritage.
So they're also introducing kind of like recipes from his heritage. And if I'm not wrong, also Turkish, you know, like that they're playing a little bit around with things that are not only 110% Nordic grown. And I think that's also interesting. I mean, like that's part of the fun of having a restaurant. It's being playful, you know?
Absolutely. Yeah, it should be, you know, because, of course, it was important for them to do that. And it shaped their identity. But at some point, it's also important to evolve a little bit, you know, and to take the next step. Once you've really sort of worked out, you know, one aspect of what you're doing.
And, and then it's kind of like, well, now, like, we've limited ourselves for such a long time. And that is good, in a way, you know, for many aspects, right? That we I don't want to get into because I'm just going to go on a rant.
But then, you know, like loosening that not just here and there a little bit, then again, you know, throws open like, you know, a million sort of new possibilities just by, you know, opening, opening it up a little bit here and there. All right. And like, I think it's also, it's also, you know, the passion of it, you know, like, I mean, everybody knows that Renee is so passionate about Mexican food, you know, and I think that's also, you know,
and everybody who's been to Mexico knows that it's an amazing, it's an amazing world of chilis, you know, that for Europeans is, you know, is very surprising because we just know chili as like a spicy thing. And like, why not like go with it? But like doing it in a way with not like, okay, everything goes now and like, let's get the Madagascan vanilla and let's get the
Jose Trocaball and here and there and Alba truffles. Just a little bit, you know, that's cool. And that's restrained. And that's even more sort of like, I guess it like it's a it's a catalyst for new things.
Just to like bridge the gap. I do believe that our approach for like the show and the episode that we're going to do is also having a very limited tools. That's always been the case for our show. Like I'm not saying and I don't want to in any shape or form compare what we're doing to like the incredible influence that Noah's had.
But I think there's something indeed liberating about saying, hey, let's make a show. We don't even have microphones. And now we're flying to Copenhagen. The three of us was, you know, my crappy camera, your guys's phone. We just got a couple of microphones and we are no shape or form going to have the slickness of a chef's table.
But I think, you know, it's going to be dirty. It's going to be rough. It's going to be real. And I hope it's going to be a lot of fun. And hopefully, you know, we end up shooting something that ends up being like, like something that could be a cool future for for everything that we've worked for and on for the past two years.
That's it for this week's episode of potluck food talks. If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok as potluck food talks. The show airs every Monday.