Go back some years and no one would have bet a dime on Eric Vildgaard. Maybe neither Eric believed that if it got dark enough he would be able to see the stars. Except Tina Kragh Vildgaard. She saw potential and she believed they could not just create a family together but also a restaurant. She had fallen in love with Eric despite his troubled past. "The most attractive part … [Read more...]
The time for creativity is now – David Ghysels
BRUSSELS: The phone rings. David Ghysels, the man behind Hakuna Matata, an advertising and communications agency specialised around food brings out his phone to switch it off. It is an old Nokia. One rarely seen nowadays. How can the man behind Dinner in the Sky and a communications agency use a phone like this, I wonder. He tells me without any prompting or asking that he … [Read more...]
Small is beautiful: What we learned after closing Hertog Jan and how we plan to start again
ANTWERP: When Gert de Mangeleer and Joachim Boudens announced the closure of Hertog Jan at the end of 2018 it was a shock to the Belgian gastronomy scene. At the helm of a three Michelin star restaurant, one of just two in the country, they were at the top of their game. Many could not understand how two relatively young entrepreneurs, a chef and host, could quit at the … [Read more...]
Madn77: Making fresh blended tea to match your mood one cup at a time
BRUSSELS: Naina Madan developed her concept of making fresh hand-blended teas, tisane and chai customised to match moods when things were taking a negative turn in the world. That was not in March this year when COVID-19 brought about a major disruption to the world we knew. “I came up with the concept of Madn77 around three years ago. There was Trump, there was Brexit, there … [Read more...]
‘This crisis is making us focus on the way we consume, the way we travel, how we treat earth’
BRUSSELS/LYON: What does the future hold for restaurants and guides like Michelin or the World’s 50 Best Restaurants? I’ve always thought that we were living a time that I liked to call ‘peak food’. Everywhere you looked, food, restaurants, chefs were part of our daily life. Then came COVID-19, lockdowns, closed borders and everything has been put into question. Over a … [Read more...]
