Danish food culture has an outsized impact on the world stage. For a country with less than 0.1% of the world's population, Denmark boasts the two best restaurants in the world and has a culinary movement that is the envy of chefs and kitchens around the world. But it wasn't always that way...
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Danish food culture has an outsized impact on the world stage.
For a country with less than 0.1% of the world's population, Denmark boasts the two best restaurants in the world and has a culinary movement that is the envy of chefs and kitchens around the world.
But it wasn't always that way...
In fact, there was a very distinct turning point when Danish (and more broadly Nordic) food became "New".
In 2004 a group of restauranteurs and food experts gathered in Copenhagen to write an outline of how they were going to revolutionise the region's food industry, much in the way the film and TV industry had done.
The result was The Manifesto for the New Nordic Kitchen.
Two of the chefs present were René Redzepi (Head Chef of Noma, now the #1 restaurant in the world) and Claus Meyer (food entrepreneur).
In this episode Sam speaks with Jonas Astrup, head of product innovation at Meyers Madhus ("Meyers Food House" - the company Claus founded) to encourage more people to get interested in cooking and food.
Sam and Jonas talk about:
and how methods such as fermentation are becoming increasingly more popular as a way to create the umami flavour from plants.
Back in September, the What The Denmark team were looking through our (long) list of episode ideas someone mentioned that around this time the world's best restaurants would be announced.
"There might be some buzz around food and so let's do one on the New Nordic Cuisine movement"
We then got the wheels in motion and booked in the Head of New Product Innovation at Meyers Madhus, a prominent food company in Denmark, run by one of the founders of the New Nordic food movement.
The research and interview with Jonas was great, and we covered lots of interesting things about the past, present and future of Nordic food + how this system leads to innovation and high quality culinary experiences.
A couple of weeks later the world's best restaurants were announced and, much to everyone's delight, not only was Noma rated the world's best restaurant again, but Geranium was number 2.
This was a very big deal in the food world, and a result that very squarely puts Denmark (with <0.1% of the world's population) at the very top of the culinary world.
You can click into the tweet below to through a thread summary of New Nordic Cuisine
You can learn more about Jonas Astrup and Meyers Madhus at: https://meyers.dk/
Thanks to Hotel Mayfair in Central Copenhagen for hosting us for the recording. You can get 25% off your stay by using the code WTD at checkout
Learn more about What The Denmark via @whatthedenmark on Instagram
Decoding Danish Culture
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