Chef’s table was set for us and we had the view to the kitchen wherePaul Cunningham and one chef cooked our two-course menu.

Laurent filming…

Mr. Cunningham

Diebolt-Vallois Brut Rosé Champagne

Octopus, Læsø langoustine within, caviare reduction – rossini

The first dish was very intense and quite heavy to my taste. The delicate langoustine was stuffed inside the squid but the flavour of it was overdosed by the caviare reduction and the mushrooms. There was thin black cracker which was a bit too salty. It’s the black thing at the top of the photo.

2005 Duijn, Pinot Noir, Baden

Quail, coquus with pumpkin. Bresse fat, orange, ginger and browned butter.

The quail was nice, medium cooked and had a delicious taste with the spices on the top. Sorry to say, but I have no real recollection of the pumpkin and the yellow puree.

The ambiance was wonderful and it was like being invited to Paul’s private home, because no one else except us were there. Candle lights all around decorated the room in a lovely way.

Anyways, time to move on once more, noma was waiting, and Paul’s kind sommelier luckily got us a van that fit all six of us, and which was available to us also later in the evening.

Thank you so much, Paul, for letting us in!

I very much like the dining room at Herman. It’s classy and stylish and the professional, yet human and warm atmosphere makes me feel good and delighted just to be there. We were immediately welcomed with a delicious oyster prominently served on a glass bowl.

2005 Nicolas Joly, Les Vieux Clos, Savennières, Loire

Bisque of cep mushrooms with scallops from Faroe Islands,

funnel chanterelle, ash, fresh cheese and sherry

A wonderful balance characterized the bisque, juicy scallops, earthiness from the mushrooms and acidity from the subtle Sherry.

The crawlers

2007 Louis Carillon, Puligny-Montrachet, Les Perrières 1er Cru

North Sea turbot as lobscourse with winter truffles,

potatoes, butter from Nimb’s dairy and beetroot

The sweetness and the crispy textures from the cooked and raw pieces of beetroot were great with the delectable turbot, which was covered by a beetroot jelly. The black Melanosporum witt truffles were grated over the butter and offered an intense truffle flavour when it was spread on a piece of the excellent bread. Awesome.

Æbleskiver – batter balls

I completely felt seduced that night at Herman. Everything went completely smooth, both the dishes were stunning and the wines were so enjoyable. In fact, I was so delighted that I’m going back there for a full meal tonight!

Being the second restaurant on our tour and thus menu-wise at the entrees stage of the meal, I may have wished for lighter fish courses. On the other hand, these courses did match-up with Kiin Kiin’s street food, so in that sense it worked well. And really, the fact that the food was so good is the most important thing to me.

Too soon it was again time to leave and the sommelier Emil kindly escorted us across the dark and snow-covered garden to the next restaurant of our crawl: The Paul.

Thank you so much, guys!

On February 8th I attended my first international culinary conference, The Flemish Primitives, which took place in Bruges.

Named after a group of painters who were active in the Netherlands during the 15th and early 16th century in the flourishing cities of Bruges and Ghent, The Flemish Primitives today is the a group of Belgian chefs as well at the name of this annual culinary congress.

The event is organised by the Flanders Taste Foundation and the focus is innovation, creativity, research and collaboration. The chefs are encouraged to take part in tests and experiments with participating universities and companies. The goal is for the chefs to come up with something totally new and never seen before.

I was invited to the event back in September last year when I joined the six hands dinner Identity Crisis at the restaurant In de Wulf and during the dinner I met Bernard Lahousse, who is one of the project leaders of the congress. Also my friend bloggers Bruno, Stephane, Food Snob, Ingo and Laurent attended.

So, with the first morning flight to Paris I arrived on Sunday before the day of the event. Laurent and Bruno met me and Stephane at the Charles de Gaulle airport and we all drove towards Bruges.

On the way we stopped for an intense but excellent lunch at In de Wulf and fully stuffed we finally got to Bruges and the welcoming reception for the invited guests and the press.

After the welcoming speeches, small and delighting dishes were prepared by the chefs, The Flemish Primitives, in the two kitchens in the back of the hall room. It was great to see all the plates lined up and the chefs working together in getting everything right and ready. The dishes were examples of the impressive contemporary Flemish cuisine.

Filip Clayes and Roger van Damme

Parsley root in different textures and forms

After the reception we all went for a traditional Belgian dinner at the Bruges Concertgebouw. The feast was prepared by 3-star chef Peter Goossens and offered a very nice three-course dinner of croquettes with shrimps, eel with fennel and a green sauce of some kind and with fries on the side. To our surprise the dessert offered vanilla ice-cream, whipped cream and chocolate sauce – also known as Coupe Danemark.

During the evening I was introduced to Jean-Pierre Gabriel, who kindly asked if I would like to be part of the panel discussion the next day along with Peter Goossens, Hof van Cleve, Fiona Morrison, Master Of Wine and Herman Konings, trend watcher. The focus was a combination of discussing the purpose of the 10 commandments of the Belgian gastronomy, which is a list of commitments that Belgian chefs part of the The Flemish Primitives have agreed to follow and respect. The other focus was on the social media’s effect on gastronomy. My role was to explain the effect of the manifesto of the new Nordic cuisine in Denmark and abroad, and also to comment on the social media and the bloggers’ influence on gastronomy today.

Anyway, the next morning at 8:30 the doors opened to the conference and we were there on time  although the first session started one hour later. 1250 people attended the conference which was more concentrated on the technical aspects of gastronomy and more scientific compared to last year’s conference.

The first presentation quite surprisingly revealed a new technique of a high pressure pump, which preserves food by subjecting it to a pressure of astounding 6000 bar. We all got a taster of four different types of shell fish. What struck me was that the fish’s surface was dry. The flavour was natural and very delicious and in fact the taste was quite strong and full.

Other presentations and talks followed, use of fermentation, distillation at low temperature, magnetic fields. All very impressive and unique.

Sang Hoon Degeimbre preparing the Korean dish Kimchi

The three Roca brothers of the El Cellar de Can Roca

Backstage my friends made interviews with a number of chefs, asking them about their philosophy, their restaurant and what they have presented at the conference. The interviews are in French and you can watch them at Cuisigner en Ligne.

Sang Hoon Degeimbre, L’Air du temps

Bart de Pooter, De Pastorale

Kobe Desramault, In de Wulf

Filip Clayes, De Jonkman

What I experienced at The Flemish Primitives was that they are working together, The Flemish Primitives are exploring new techniques and in fact succeeding in finding new ways of working with the produce.

I definitely find exciting what’s going on in Belgium right now. The food I have eaten at high-end places in Belgium is beautiful and inviting. It’s creative and innovative and a congress like this is stimulating new ideas. There seem to be a will to make a difference, to look out and to give a new life to Belgium’s gastronomy. What I brought home from the event was curiosity to learn more about what is going on in Belgium right now. I wonder, is Belgium the new black?

Many thanks to everyone involved!

• Gastros on Tour
• Food Intelligence

From what I understand their philosophy is similar the one of the successful Le Chateaubriand – very good food, wine and atmosphere combined with high-quality at low price (40-45€/four courses).

The concept is intriguing and I’m certain it’s going to be a success with the experience and talent both posses. What I also find interesting about this restaurant to be, is how Christian and Kim utilize the internet and in the best web 2.0 manner, spread the news about their place in a down to earth and very trustworthy and authentic way on the blog Relæ http://relae.wordpress.com/. This means that you can follow the genesis of the restaurant and all the chef’s thoughts about the big decisions and the small details. Ultimately it makes me want to experience this restaurant even more. My luck I don’t live too far from it .

Watch the interview with Christian Pugliesi and Kim Rossen:

By Laurent Gastros on Tour and Stephane, Cuisiner En Ligne at the Omnivore Food Festival.

Pork cracklings with dry curry

Popped tapioka with seaweed and oyster mayo

While Henrik told us the whole story about the restaurant we nibbled pork cracklings with dry curry, popped tapioka with seaweed and oyster mayo, lotus roots with lime leaves and soy roasted cashews with the Dim Sum beer brewed with lemongrass. Especially the cracklings and the tapioka were delicious.

Jelly fish salad with sesame

Then we moved up one level to the lounge. This was a surprised, since I thought we were staying downstairs for the entire time. But next was jelly fish salad with sesame, which was spicy and had a funny chewy texture but a really good taste.

Beef roll with spicy marinade

The chef, Morten Bojstrup

Fish cakes and cucumber chutney

Scallops in coconut milk and lemongrass

Then followed beef roll with spicy marinade, fish cakes and cucumber chutney and then scallops in coconut milk and lemongrass. All very tasty and proved to me that the kitchen is still improving. The food was accompanied by a 2007 Thai white wine Hua Hin, which was light, fruity and had a slight note of green olive to it.

Oyster with shallots and Thai sauce

Time flew, I thought we were about to leave for the next restaurant, but the staff told us to go up the stairs to the dining room. The waiter poured the very nice Charpentier champagne into our glasses and soon after a fabulous oyster with shallots and Thai sauce arrived full of distinct and balanced flavours.

Frozen red curry with lobster and lichee

We drank a glass of the excellent and very aromatic 2008 Zind Humbrecht Gewürztraminer with the final serving of the signature dish: frozen red curry with lobster and lichee. The lichee was placed under the curry and worked as a refreshing finish to the spicy taste.

Time to leave, we were a little behind schedule, but the kind staff had organized taxis for us waiting outside. Henrik handed me a bag with five cans and spoons and instructed me in opening them with the little coin to be found in the bag too. So, on the move to the next restaurant we enjoyed a very delicious dessert of Earl Grey and Jasmine tea ice-cream which also contained some crunch. It actually worked as a cleanser and prepared my palate for the next dish.

At Kiin Kiin they had planned a crawl of their entire restaurant and even integrated the transportation to the next place. It was awesome, very good fun and amazing how much effort they had put into making this a great initiation of the CPH Crawl. It was far better than I had hoped for. What a fabulous beginning. Many, many thanks, guys!

So, I’d just like to stress that I cannot see that anything has really changed since elBulli sent out the press lease on 26th January about the future plans of the restaurant.

Very sorry for the confusion, everyone.

OK, so after the January announcement of the closure of two years I guess that we’re not that surprised about this news. But as Ferran Adrià is and for years has been such a huge source of inspiration to gastronomy, I wonder what the closure will mean for the whole culinary world. I’m interested in knowing if it will affect how people find gastronomical inspiration? Where will people be looking for inspiration? What do you think?

So, who took part besides me?

High-End Food Ingo, German food blogger

Food Intelligence Bruno Verjus, French food blogger

Opinionated About Dining Steve Plotnicki, US food blogger and restaurant guide owner

Gastros on Tour Guillaume Coppin & Laurent Vanparys, food bloggers

Sensum.be Laurent Vanparys of the Belgian restaurant webguide

And this was our crawl plan:

At Kiin Kiin we ordered snacks and the Thai street food. Herman, The Paul, noma and MR would serve us raw and cooked fish courses and at Søllerød Kro we would have a meat course and desserts. What were my expectations? First of all, I was looking forward to trying something I had never done before. It sounded a bit hectic from a logistical point of view, but it also sounded like good fun and possibility of comparing the restaurants and the food, service in a new way.

One city, one dinner, six guests, six restaurants. Stay tuned for more…

The restaurant is owned by the famous “smørrebrød” (open sandwiches) expert Adam Aamann who during the early 2009 he extended his business with this lunch / dinner place next to his open sandwich shop.

The first time I dined here was with my parents-in-law a nice summer evening in June 2009. It was a sumptuous day where I first took them to noma for their first time ever and then later in the evening to Aamanns Etablissement.

I’ve been visiting several times since then and I get impressed every time I go. To show you the style of the food here’s what we had on December 1st 2009.

Gravad herring with borecole, quince, onions and crispy ryebread

2008 Jamek, Ried Achleiten, Østrig

A firm fish with a tiny sour note to it, balanced by the sweet quince. A sharp start.
The 100 % Grüner Veltliner was fruity, mineral with kerosene hints in the aftertaste which was a little weak on the fruit side.

Creamy soup of celeriac, apples and smoked eel

2007 Odinstal, Weissburgunder, Tyskland

Again a dish playing with textures and flavours with perfect balance. The soup was delicate and really tasty. The eel was amazing and not too smoky in its taste.

The Pinot Blanc offered a huge bouquet and mineral flavours with lots of fruit and acidity. An elegant wine.

Glazed pork breast with spelt sea buckthorn, chestnuts and Jerusalem artichokes

2008 Matthieu Dumarcher, VdT, Rhône

This most tender and tasty pig’s meat with a slight sweetness to it was accompanied by rich flavours of nuts and artichokes twisted with the bitter and acidic dried yellow berries. Absolutely awesome.

The 100% Grenache matched the food perfectly with its dry character.

Caramelized peer ice-cream with verbena and pain d’epise

2008 Domtalhof, Riesling Auslese

Sea buckthorn and carrots sorbet with melted butter and mint leaves

2006 Trossen, Riesling Spätlese trocken

This is one of the best desserts I’ve had lately. The combination of carrot and sea buckthorn is great and the mint on top is a real hit and takes the dish beyond delicious.

Trossen is a good friend of mine – well, not really personal, I mean -  I just very much like his Rieslings. This one was sweetish, bitter and intense, not to mention: very very nice.

Aamanns Etablissement has personality and a clear gastronomic target for where they want to go. And they know to achieve it. Only talented people are able to do that.

Anders, Adam and everyone at Aamanns Etablissement, thanks for the lovely food and wine!

Ferran Adria himself announced this in his speach at Madrid Fusion Summit which took place this week and it’s described in the press release published on the elBulli website.

I have requested a reservation for this 2010 season, but haven’t yet heard anything back. I keep my fingers crossed.

On Christmas day I flew from CPH to Aalborg to visit my family in Northern Jutland. My dad had kindly given me two white truffles to share with my family in-law. The truffles were wrapped in paper towels and put in a jar, which I had put in my carry-on baggage.

At the check point I was pulled aside and asked to open my suitcase. “There is a jar in you bag with something inside that we would like to take a closer look at. Could you open your bag, please?”. The security officer was most polite, though, and I gladly explained him about the white truffles, the very strong scent and the preciousness about them. He asked me to unwrap one and commented on the strong smell that quickly infused the air around us.

He seemed to believe the these were really just truffles, but he still wanted to ensure that he hadn’t missed anything and so requested to show it to his colleague. OK.

In my attempt not to slow down the cue and thus focused on putting both my two lap tops and other parcels on the conveyor belt I had forgotten all about my small plastic bag with liquids. Of course, they had noticed this through X-ray as well, and I now felt like a true drug courier.

But luckily the white truffles were approved to be completely safe to bring on the plane, and while reminding me that I should always place the liquids on display, the security officer eventually let me go.

Next morning when I was unpacking my bags I realized that all my clothes had the most exquisite scent of white truffles. The truffles had only been in my bag for five hours.

In the evening we made spaghetti with a plain cream sauce with one garlic clove lightly fried in butter and shaved the thinnest pieces of the white diamond over our plates. A nice Barolo 2004 from Cascina Cucco accompanied the wonderful dish.

So, I have no photographs from this delightful evening at Mistral in the southern part of Stockholm. But the staff has been kind enough to send me these photos of the interior and the dishes we got. The photos in this post are all taken by Erik Olsson (www.eof.se), and it is therefore the first post on this blog featuring someone else’s photos.

If you choose to go to Mistral, don’t be fooled by the huge red neon lights spelling Barnevognsfabrikken (‘The Pram Factory’) on the building in the middle of the residential neighborhood. This is where restaurant Mistral is housed. We came with probably the kindest (elderly) taxi driver who insisted on ringing the restaurant to double check the address – while we were sitting in the car just outside and across the street.

Inside we got a warm greeting by the Daniel and Helena and were shown to our table at the opposite end of the main dining room close to the bar and the stairs down to the kitchen. We were the only guests in that end of the restaurant and had the area all to ourselves the whole evening. It made for a quite special and a very private experience.

The restaurant’s interior is light and plain with white walls, white table cloths and simple, personal decorations.

Mistral has an excellent wine list. It only offers French wines but the selection is full of tempting whites and reds from most regions in France. I had almost made up my mind from home when I droolingly browsed it and considered what to choose this evening. I therefore quickly ordered the N.V. Jacques Selosse Initial which I have heard a lot about from Thomas at Mad About Wine and longed to taste for the first time.

It won’t be the last time I drink Selosse, or at least I hope not, because it was such a lovely experience. Just the taste of it and following how it evolved during the entire evening was quite something. The bottle was degorged in 2007. The nose was very expressive with many nuances of light fruit, slight Sherry tones or oxidization and some oak (can this be true?) in a delicate way. When I first zipped it, I was surprised how fine the mousse was, and yet at the same time it effervescently grew bigger and entirely filled my mouth. The acidity in the after-taste sort of manipulated the taste and even more sophisticated flavours evolved.

We got no snacks, appetizers or regards from the kitchen but started out with the first course listed on the evening menu.

It offered raw and creamy carrots with grilled squid, saffron, coffee and meadow sweet. It was a very pure and fragile dish but also very tasty. The flavour of the grilled squid was copious, and the carrots were spiced with saffron in a subtle and delicate way. What an excellent match not only in colour but also in taste.

Next course was composed by dried potatoes with lavender and brown butter, creamy farmhouse egg and bleak roe in yogurt. The bleak roes were placed under the potatoes and added salt in a nice way. This dish was pure as well but did have a bit more character than the first one. The egg was perfection, soft but not runny and balancing the dish.

Then followed baked and marinated beetroot with redcurrant, hibiscus and cocoa on raw crayfish. The beet had a really intense teaste, the cocoa was restrained. The yellow powder (hardly visible in the photo) was inspired by bottarga and gave salt and bitterness to the dish and thereby balanced it with the sweetish beetroot. Very good.

At this point we got some bread on the table. Bringing the bread to the table so late insured that we hadn’t eaten too much bread from the start of the evening. I liked that.

I ordered a 2006 Leroy Bourgogne Aligoté to accompany the following courses. The scent was dominated by earthiness, cow shed, minerals and burnt hair. I loved it. There was a remarkable balance between the nose and the palate. Even though it’s just appellation Bourgogne it is a seducing wine. After hours of air it was still as consistent as after the first hour.

This dish was inspired by Michel Bras, and dedicated to each ingredient in respect of its qualities. Raw, lightly marinated and fried autumn vegetables with fruit and leaf and milk skin and grated Brazil nut. It worked so well and presented the products in a way that made it possible to enjoy them for what they were but also to appreciate them in combination with the rest and a more complex taste. There were so many different flavours to perceive and appreciate. At Arpege earlier this year I had a similar course where the vegetables had different textures. At Mistral all the vegetables had the same softness to it and this was delighting. One of the highlights of this evening.

And the magic continued as this next dish totally blew me away. Lightly cooked, glaced leeks with almonds, sugar and balsamico traditionale and melted lardo presented in such a simple but beautiful way. Sweetness came from the balsamico and acidity from the wood sorrel and combined with the subtle lardo and the way that they worked together was absolutely phenomenal. A little cup with almond milk was served on the side. It had a pure taste of almonds but also comprised a good amount of acidity so the milk wasn’t too sweet.

I do love scallops in all forms and here they were accompanied by raw shrimps put underneith the green covers of parsley root. Raw shrimps can have a rather bland taste to it but in combination with parsley root it didn’t.

Then followed the main course of lamb with lightly cooked and crispy cabbage, green bread and a green powder which was a bit too dominating. The lamb meat was of excellent quality.

There were two desserts and also the desserts’ focus was on vegetables. First lightly sweetened cucumber, almonds and mint with yogurt-olive oil sorbet and cocoa bread. It was sweet as well as refreshing and really nice.

So were the summer tomatoes preserved with hibiscus. They were accompained by a reduction of something called ‘lagen’ in Swedish, raw honey and milk ice cream and tomatoes marmalade. I was quite sceptical when I read about tomatoes for dessert but this was very delicious.

Mistral is an exciting place. It’s unique and very special. The food is unique and the personality of the staff makes it a very special place. The staff master what I find is important and essential for high-end restaurants: The gift of understanding the guest’s preferences and how to communicate on the level of the guest. I cannot wait to get back and this time with my new Canon 500D.

Great primitives like BART DE POOTER from ** De Pastorale, SANG HOON DEGEIMBRE from ** L’Air du Temps, KOBE DESRAMAULTS from * In de Wulf and SERGIO HERMAN from *** Oud Sluis are part or the event and great chefs like JONNIE BOER *** (NL), PETER GOOSSENS *** (B), JOAN ROCA ** (E) and many others are joining as guests.

More information at http://www.theflemishprimitives.com/.