NEW YORK: Fredrik Berselius might be the renowned chef and owner of restaurant Aska in Brooklyn, New York but it was not necessarily what he aimed to do in life. “Growing up, I wanted to be a professional snowboarder. I never imagined that I might one day become a chef as much as I loved food.” That feeling of being constantly in motion to be able to remain relevant may come from going down those snowy hillsides in the middle of nature with his friends. He considers these to be the best memories of his childhood but moving forward and improving on a daily basis is what keeps him going. It was his sister, Michaela (now married to renowned Scottish chef and entrepreneur Tom Kitchin), who introduced him to the the industry and from there it was no turning back. He would visit her in London as a teenager when she was studying hospitality and had friends who worked with legends like Alain Ducasse and Pierre Koffman. “We all spent a lot of time together when I would visit her and it … [Read more...]

Alexandre Mazzia is used to high performance. So when in the middle of the pandemic he clinched a third Michelin star for the restaurant AM par Alexandre Mazzia it was not necessarily a surprise for him despite the fact that it came in a record six years. He has always set the bar high for himself. As a former professional basketball player he knew that he could count on a number of skills he learnt in sport that applied not only in life but also in his career as a restauranteur and chef. Focus was one such lesson. But another was the realisation that in sport, like in life, you need to fight first and foremost with yourself to be able to improve. “When you are in a high performance environment you need to improve your performance first and foremost for yourself. The team benefits from the individual’s performance,” he tells Food and Wine Gazette in a long conversation. “I’ve always been into collective sport. The idea that a group can be stronger than the sum of its individuals, … [Read more...]

ISTANBUL: The decision for Fatih Tutak to return to his home and open TURK after spending the best part of his career outside Turkey was vindicated this week when he was the first ever Turkish restaurant to clinch two Michelin stars when the French guide released the first ever guide for Turkey. Born in Istanbul in 1985, Fatih may have learned his trade in Turkey and worked in some of the country's best hotels and restaurants including the Ritz-Carlton Cam in Istanbul under famed chef Paul Pairet. it was here that he decided he needed to expand his horizons and get out of his comfort zone. He headed East for what you could call a culinary odyssey going to kitchens in China's Qingdao and Beijing before heading to Singapore. During this time, his drive and evident talent earned him a four month training in Tokyo under Seiji Yamamoto at three Michelin-starred Nihonryori Ryugin, before he was presented with a unique opportunity to join René Redzepi at the much celebrated Noma in … [Read more...]

LOS ANGELES: The Last Days of Roger Federer: and other endings by Geoff Dyer is what came to mind when I came across the story of Mélisse, Josiah Citrin and Ian Scaramuzza. It is about endings, about choosing the best moment to step back and let the future take over. We very rarely know when it is the time to stop, when it is time to move on, when it is time for a big change. More often than not, and that has been the case in sports, in top-level careers, in art and even in restaurants, many don’t judge the moment to stop. But Josiah Citrin managed to avoid that with his once two-Michelin-starred restaurant Mélisse in Santa Monica. Since last year, he has put Scottish chef prodigy Ian Scaramuzza at the helm of a project that changed completely. The restaurant was an institution on the US West coast culinary scene but it needed a refresh and that has come in the form of a new opening in June 2021. The restaurant has 5 tables, an open kitchen and got back its two Michelin stars from … [Read more...]

René Frank: Setting the bar for pastry chefs around the world BERLIN: Pastry chef René Frank is riding the crest of the wave. Just last month, he was recognised as the best pastry chef in the world. But that is the last in a series of awards and accolades that he has been clinching since completing his training as a pastry chef in 2004. He's worked around the world but he is mostly known for creating a two Michelin star dessert restaurant in Berlin, the first ever such restaurant in Germany and one of very few such restaurants in the world. So what's it like to have a dessert restaurant? Is it just for customers with a sweet-tooth only? In this interview, we ask René to explain his vision, the challenges of opening such a restaurant, why such a restaurant in Germany could only work in Berlin and why he thinks we will be seeing similar concepts in future. Born in 1984 in Wangen in the Allgau region, the 38-year-old chef has worked in some of the top restaurants around the world … [Read more...]

FRANKFURT: With all the accolades that Andreas Krolik has received you would think that he would be a household name. Two Michelin stars, a 19 out of 20 rating in Gault & Millau which places him firmly among the world's great chefs as well as the chef of the year title in 2017, Andreas, chef of Frankfurt based restaurant Lafleur prefers to let his cooking do the talking. Since 2014, way before vegetable-based cuisine became the trend of the day, Andreas has been serving a vegan menu alongside a normal menu where he extracts all the flavour from vegetables to make it as satisfying as eating meat or fish. A little shy and also humble, the German chef is slowly starting to be recognised outside of Germany. This year, he was invited to present his flavourful vegan cuisine at Madrid fusion and this will be followed by the same Madrid Fusion in Bogota later this year. He is also heading to London later this month to showcase his vegan cuisine in the margins of the World's 50 Best … [Read more...]

LONDON: The success that Jeremy Chan has had over the past few years has been nothing short of astonishing. Nevertheless, it is not surprising given his determination to improve in every step of his journey. His restaurant Ikoyi opened in 2017 and he has been winning one accolade after the other. Spotted first by the World Restaurant Awards in 2019, the restaurant was named the One to Watch by the World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2021 and this year was awarded two Michelin stars. But, the self-taught chef who graduated in languages and philosophy and worked in finance before he started cooking is just getting started. When I spoke to him a few weeks after he had clinched a second Michelin star earlier this year, Jeremy told me that since opening his restaurant he has kept his head down and worked on doing the same thing but trying to do it better and better. “I’ve only started to become good at what I do this year and last year. What I will do in the next five years will be at another … [Read more...]

DUBAI: Three brothers Mohamad, Wassim and Omar Orfali from Aleppo, Syria have been working to reinvent Aleppo's cuisine in a 60-cover restaurant in Dubai, Orfali Bros, that is open every single day from midday to midnight. Their work has been awarded with a Bib Gourmand in the first Dubai Michelin awards released earlier this week. Mohamad Orfali paved the way for his brothers fighting against all odds to convince his mother that cooking was ultimately the right decision for him. Today, the three have created their own brand of cuisine comprising of food they love to eat. But what Mohamad has been doing is not just studying Aleppian cuisine but he has been working hard to showcase elements like sustainability, seasonality. But that did not come instantly. At first he was focusing on international cuisine but it was an encounter with a Spanish chef that opened his eyes to his country's potential when it came to food. From then on there was no turning back. This is Mohamad's … [Read more...]

FLORENCE: Karime Lopez and her husband Takahiko Kondo, often called Champion Taka worked in sync inside Tenuta Val di Biano in Tuscany when they were asked to reinterpret a dish for a GELINAZ! event last year. At the time, they were one of the world’s top culinary couples working with the Francescana family group. Karime was executive chef of Gucci Osteria, a collaboration between world famous Italian chef Massimo Bottura and Italy’s luxury brand par excellence Gucci. Taka, her husband was one of Bottura’s right hand man. Heavily pregnant with her first child, Taka had been helping her for the previous two months at Gucci Osteria Florence, one of four restaurants to open in the past few years around the world. Sitting in the back of a car on the way to the way to the hills of Lucca, the question I asked Karime seemed obvious. Will there come a time when you work together? That question seemed a bit intrusive given the two formed an important part of the Francescana family. But it … [Read more...]