Lucky Chow

(bright music) - [Danielle] In Scandinavia, fine dining is synonymous with seasonality and regional identity.

Eating what grows here when it grows.

But it wasn't always this way, just two decades ago, the idea of farm to table dining was radical.

Eating local wasn't yet a virtue.

That changed in Copenhagen more than almost anywhere else in the world, this city and its restaurants helped redefine what modern fine dining could be rooted in place and the seasons.

(bright music) At some of Scandinavia's most influential restaurants, Asian ingredients, techniques and flavors are now being woven into this local first framework.

I thought I would have to look hard for signs of Asian influence.

After all, Asians make up under 1% of the Danish population, but I am blown away by how the Asian chefs I found are remaking Nordic cuisine in their own image.

I predict the next big trend in fine dining will be Scandinasian.

At JATAK which means yes please in Danish, Canadian Chinese Chef Jonathan Tam doubles down on the Nordic obsession with seasonality by serving a chef's menu based on the Chinese solar calendar.

It changes about every two weeks so that the finest local ingredients are harvested and eaten at their peak.

Jonathan previously cooked at the hollowed restaurant Noma, whose Chef Renee Redzepi is widely credited for shaping the new Nordic cuisine.

Every element of JATAK is curated, from the see-through refrigerators on display at the entrance to the custom shirts and aprons worn by the staff.

But I'm already just impressed with the precision and- - [Jonathan] Oh, thank you.

- [Danielle] Just your attention to detail and I've been in a lot of kitchens and I've never seen anything just kind of everybody's dancing together in synchronicity.

So how would you describe this restaurant?

- It is my goal is hoping that I can never reach to explain it in like a two, three word punchline.

So I think it's very hard to explain.

- Yeah, you have to experience it.

- Exactly, exactly.

- Like all good restaurants.

- So we thought how could we like, I like to say we like reverse engineered the Asian pantry.

Of course, we didn't have the resources, so we had to be very creative here.

And now that you know, soon, four years we've had the restaurant open, we've figured out these different techniques where we can do that.

It's a celtuce, so this is what it is.

For me, it kind of like has a feel of like a cucumber mixed with like asparagus.

And it is like fun 'cause it is essentially part of the lettuce family.

So we just have the stem that we lightly cooked for a few seconds.

So we have an emulsion based on sea lettuce and a powder.

And then what I want you to do is to grab the vegetable mostly by the leaves and dip and eat the stem.

And then you can also try the leaves as well.

- It's delicious and somebody did a very good job of peeling it.

There's no fiber at all.

- That is key.

Yeah.

Right now, it is the opening bite of the menu.

- [Danielle] Really?

- This is what is setting the tone in the season and- - Do you think your solar inspired menu is more Chinese or Nordic?

- I think it was the perfect way to frame kind of both.

Then as we kind of looked into our approach with the kind of more Asian culture and influences, we found out about the solar seasons.

Yeah, one of the courses we want to showcase was chicken.

Yeah, we looked into the Cantonese crispy skin chicken.

We get it fresh, and before this we dry age it for about seven days and we do the technique of blanching the whole chicken and then also glazing it in maltose and some red vinegar and white wine vinegar and further dry age it to get it to this point where we feel the skin is just very like dried.

And as you can see, as we pour the hot oil, it's starting to crisp and to pick up this mahogany tone.

So this is the different greens.

Can we have some different types of pak choi and komatsuna and all these different mustard greens.

Okay, now we have the chicken ready for you.

- [Danielle] So beautiful.

- Yeah, so now you're seeing the chicken after we did the oil blanching and roasting on the bone.

And then with the legs, we de-boned and stuffed it with the rice and shiitake mushroom.

And then we're just pairing it with, yeah, a double cooked chicken sauce, mostly based on the wings of the chicken.

- It's moist, but you can really taste the texture of the chicken meat.

- [Jonathan] Up for it, we have the chicken head.

- [Danielle] Mm-hmm.

It's so creamy.

- [Jonathan] Yeah, exactly.

- Oh, it's got that real chewiness to it.

And I guess you've already reduced all the fat away.

- Yeah, we're very lucky and just like very grateful for the amazing guests we have, traveling local support, but also from afar to kind of taste our cooking.

- So is Copenhagen, your forever home now?

- At the moment, yeah.

Having a family and a daughter and now, the restaurant.

- Uh-huh.

- Yeah, Im just really, really, really happy to be here.

- [Danielle] If the new Nordic movement is all about farm to table, then I need to take a look at the farm.

Jonathan takes me to Klippingegard, an hour south of Copenhagen where much of the produce served at JATAK, like the prized purple sword Celtuce is grown.

- [Jonathan] Yeah, the purple sword Celtuce, that's- - It's beautiful.

What makes the purple sword Celtuce so special?

- I think it's a smaller one and we always found it to be much more hearty and texture wise, the bite and it has this really like green almond flavor.

It's been a lot of care put into the vegetables, so we always make the most out of it and yeah, never send anything back.

(bright music) - A chef turned farmer, Scott Chancellor grows specialized Asian vegetables and herbs to order, like Tokyo turnips and mustard greens.

William, a fourth generation farmer practices regenerative farming in a coastal climate that supports a rich and heavy terrar.

With chefs like Jonathan, the farmers bring unfamiliar crops into Danish soil, turning the exotic into something local.

- Now, what's changing is the farmers kind of having the same curiosity as us chefs.

So it's been amazing as a chef being here many years and seeing what's been happening in terms of creativity in the field and agriculture.

- They are looking for chefs that have this mindset where they are willing to adapt to different sizes and shapes of the vegetables.

We try to keep it as consistent as we can.

We have at any year we have up to 60 to 80 different varieties of vegetables.

So it's a lot to manage and it's very diverse, but we think it's important that we have that diversity so that we can offer this kind of service to smaller restaurants.

- Is this fennel ready to be harvested?

- [Scot] Yeah.

- I think I need to spend the rest of the day here.

(group laughing) It's important to be friends with farmers.

- Exactly.

- Yeah, it's key.

- That's how you get all the good stuff.

- [Jonathan] Yeah.

- [Danielle] Kaitlin and Anders, married food bloggers based in Copenhagen, take me to Torvehallerne, one of the city's best love markets to see where Danes do their everyday food shopping.

There, I get a lesson in Smorrebrod, the ultimate Danish comfort food.

There's an abundance of beautiful produce, vegetables, flowers.

- Absolutely.

And you're here right now, like this is the best time to be in Copenhagen.

Like the farms are just blooming with different produce.

It's like the menus are changing so often because there's so much and we're standing in I think the best market in Copenhagen.

But yeah, there's such amazing produce overall, all the vegetables.

This is like the fruit side and then there's more vegetables in this section.

So this is a more modern bakery here that's doing twists on traditional Danish Scandinavian pastries.

- Rogbrod is a very traditional bread, especially in Denmark, and you will see it very often at when you go out to eat smorrebrod.

- Yeah.

- The sandwiches.

- [Kaitlin] And smorrebrod literally just means buttered bread.

- [Danielle] Oh really?

- [Kaitlin] If you didn't know what the name Smorre is butter, brod is bread, so- - Oh well, I always thought it was a smorgasbord.

- Exactly.

- But see, you're demystifying everything for me.

- Exactly.

But there's lots of rules about which breads go with which toppings, so- - [Danielle] Oh yeah.

- You know, rye, you have to have with herring and maybe you can have sourdough with the shrimp, but don't mix them, it's not gonna work.

- Oh, there's rules - Really.

And you have to drink snaps and you have to sing songs.

- Oh, that sounds like fun.

- Absolutely.

- What did you think when you first met her?

- Fell in love instantly, and she took some time.

- Yeah.

- But I warmed her up.

(group laughing) - Norwegian Seafood House.

- Yeah.

(laughing) (gentle music) - It's really good with tomato, and it's actually spicy.

I never expected it to be that way, but it's incredible.

I actually love the salty liquorish.

- Ah, nice.

- [Danielle] Ooh.

- It's like a sausage of butter.

This is why the Danish pastries are so good.

- We eat out at restaurants way too much, but we love coming home and just, you know, cooking a home-cooked meal.

- Yeah.

- I'm gonna let you guys go home and stare at each other some more.

(group laughing) You're so cute.

Too cute for words.

(bright music) Denmark is nearly surrounded by the sea, so it's no surprise that its cuisine is very seafood forward.

I stopped by Den Gronne Kutter, a fish market in Torvehallerne, to check out the catch of the day and to carve some of it up myself.

Well, first of all, do you have to be a model to work here?

This gorgeous group of fishmongers.

- You just be a fishmonger.

(Danielle chuckles) Well, the herring, very typical Nordic.

We have the fillet now, I think you can fry it.

- [Danielle] Ooh.

All the local, local people, they have also a lot of the tourism, they come asking for the local dishes, local fish here, like the flatfish, the place also in season now.

- Uh-huh.

- You see the whole one.

And then we're ready for frieding and we cut it.

The Danish people, they like fillet.

- Right.

- Yeah, they've been fried.

- [Danielle] How do you cook it?

- [Yasser] You can boil it, you can make a soup of it.

- [Danielle] Uh-huh.

- [Yasser] Use it for stock, make a shellfish soup of it.

- Do you serve a lot of the local restaurants?

- Yeah, we have a lot of local Danish restaurant.

We have also some Asian restaurants.

I love to work with the Asian restaurant because we use all the fish.

- Wow.

- Wow, that's beautiful.

- [Danielle] What kind of fish is that?

- A very typical Danish, it's a cod.

It's a codfish.

- It's a codfish?

- Yes.

- Hi, fish.

- Yeah.

- Okay, this is a gorgeous cod.

- Yeah.

(knife scraping) Here, your turn.

(Danielle chuckling) Cut like to the neck.

- Uh-huh.

- Is the collar, we took care about it.

And the next part.

- [Danielle] And there you have the collar.

Yes, so firm.

- [Yasser] Then I will show you the cheeks.

- [Danielle] You're taking out the most tender parts of the fish.

- [Yasser] It is the most tender part in the cod.

- Fresh cod straight from the Danish seas.

- You wanna do it?

- Okay, sure.

- You see the bone here?

- Yes.

- And you have to go behind the bone.

- [Danielle] You make it look easier than it is.

- Yeah.

- This actually requires a bit of force.

Can't wait to see what they're gonna do with this in Saji.

- [Yasser] Yeah.

- So sweet.

The smaller the shrimp, the sweeter it is, I think.

- [Yasser] So we have the cheeks and the chunks.

- [Danielle] Wow.

- Now, you're a fishmonger.

- I am a fishmonger.

- Yeah.

- Forget about drones.

When you want something delivered in Copenhagen, you call for a cargo bike.

I'm pedaling to Saji, a restaurant near the University of Copenhagen with my load of fish collars and cheeks, off cuts for the Danish, but prized ingredients for the Indonesian chefs, Sam and Jimmy.

Saji, which means to serve or to present in Indonesian is Sam and Jimmy's ode to Indonesian soul food from the island of Sumatra where they both grew up.

Friends since culinary school, the duo serve up the rich flavors of their homeland using local Danish ingredients.

- It didn't take long for us to realize that we have the same mindset, the same approach, the same respect to cooking.

And along the way, we found out that we call it now, it's called day one mentality.

So every time we go to work, we feel like it's the first time we do it, it's the first time we open it.

After two years, I think in 2018, we already decided that one day we're gonna do together in this big city, Copenhagen, where diversity is open, we're gonna do Indonesian food, then here we are.

And then Danish markets in general, they are very also, very mindful when it comes to ingredients, sourcings, which kind of aligned with our principles.

- [Danielle] Why Indonesian food?

What do you want your diners to learn about it?

- We try to introduce it in our way and then like, as much as possible, of course, we try to bring like the memories as authentic as possible of the flavor.

- Because really the essence of Indonesian cuisine is not to overlook any ingredients, like off cuts of, or like what's supposed to be discarded, whatever.

Like we use them in Indonesia.

So now, we are here to introduce our values, the original authentic flavors and so on, but also to be truthful and honest with like, what's around us.

- [Danielle] Why do you call this a soul food restaurant?

- The essence really about soul is that when you make it your own.

So in the Indonesian kitchen, there's this thing called bamboe.

Bamboe is like a curry paste.

When you make a good bamboe, you make a good barbecue sauce, you make a good soup, you make a good glaze, you make a good stew, all these things.

People have their own narratives about what Indonesian foods would be like.

Nasi Goreng, Sate Ayam, gado-gado, they just know, okay, this is my understanding about Indonesia food.

And they go to like other Indonesian restaurants outside Indonesia and then being exposed to like what we call the top-of-mind business.

And when it comes to Saji, they suddenly have like, "I've never had like a saute, but with ox tongue.

I thought saute was a peanut sauce or I thought you're gonna make me Nasi Goreng," this and that.

So when they come here, we have like this conversation with them in a way that, "Hey, we know that you've been served with like a lot of delicious good food in your five star resort in Bali, but now, you're gonna come to Saji eating food that we ate like at home," except that now, we put a little twist here and there, we have like this balance of understanding what we can do to like certain ingredient without really losing the essence of it.

This is the time where Indonesian food should also be in Copenhagen food scene, Copenhagen map.

We want place Saji to be just as appreciated.

- [Danielle] At Saji, the story runs one way.

Asian flavors, Danish fish.

A few miles away, the reference point shifts.

Here, a Danish chef looks to Japan.

Overlooking Copenhagen's harbor in an old limestone building that was formerly a customs house, Mads Battlefield and Machu Kojima have built a 15-seat sushi bar where they apply traditional Japanese Edomae techniques to Scandinavian fish.

Mads's insistence on serving the freshest Scandinavian fish, positions him firmly within the Nordic tradition of eating locally and also hues to the Edomae tradition, which was centered on waters around the old capital city of Japan.

Together, Mads and Machu, honor the bounty of the Baltic Sea and the Tokyo Bay.

- I've always been very fascinated with craft and for me, sushi is the most beautiful craft.

- [Danielle] Huh?

- Because it looks very simple.

It is dries its fish and wasabi and the craft of the man who's making it.

But it's so difficult, and that takes a lot of team effort and it takes a lot of effort from the producers to serve it that few seconds.

We always tell the guests, you have seven seconds to eat it.

So this is the local mackerel from north part of Jutland that we cured a little bit, so we salted it and then we pickle with vinegar.

But the funny thing is like when we serve this to guests in Denmark, they always say, "Oh, this is such a flavor of Denmark."

- [Danielle] Huh?

- But it's also such a strong flavor of Japan.

When I'm thinking of sushi, I don't think of western sushi, I think of traditional sushi.

Western sushi is a lot of like rolls, focus on rolls, focus on putting stuff on top, focusing on toppings, mayonnaise and takeaway.

- Mm.

- Which is definitely not traditional.

- [Danielle] Do you think it's important to use local fish?

- I think it makes sense.

And for me, the way that makes sense is it doesn't make sense to transport fish from the other side of the world when you have such a beautiful water around in Scandinavia.

So Edomae sushi is sushi that is nigiri sushi.

So nigiri is Tokyo style and Edomae or Edo is the old name of Tokyo.

So it's always focused on nigiri, but it's also focused on what was in the Tokyo Bay.

So back in the days, you were only allowed to use what was caught in the Tokyo Bay.

- So how can creativity enter into such an ancient craft?

- Developing, tasting, doing stuff with local, it's innovative if you can say, but I still think it's a belief in the local, which I think it's, it's very strong and traditional.

Machu is, how do you say, is my backbone.

It's a guy that I can always trust.

He brings in is a lot of traditional knowledge and I will bring in what's in season, what's catched where in Denmark.

And I think that combined together is a very good team.

Funny as it sounds, a lot of the fish that we serve, most people haven't heard about it.

- [Danielle] Huh?

- Like this fish, which is called whiting or white lake fish, it's very traditional on the west coast of Denmark.

I was fascinated about something that you could see and you can look at, but you know, yeah, you didn't have a chance of knowing the flavor.

I think that was something that tricked my mind there quite a lot.

- [Danielle] So you're attracted to the craft of sushi?

- [Mads] Yes.

- And what was your first experience of sushi like?

Do you remember?

- I remember sitting in Japan and having the first bite, something that I never tried before.

The way that the rice fell apart, the temperatures and just the way of eating, sitting in a counter is like something that you've never seen before.

- [Danielle] For some chefs, heritage informs their food.

For others, food becomes their way back to heritage.

Chef Kristian Baumann was adopted from Korea and raised in a traditional Danish family.

Near the Little Mermaid, his restaurant is the two Michelin star Koan, located inside a former naval warehouse.

The striking entrance sets the stage for an elaborate 17 course meal.

One that I had the pleasure of sharing with Anders and Kaitlin.

Kristian grew up in the suburbs eating standard Danish fare.

But it wasn't until he visited South Korea as an adult that his cooking became more influenced by his birthplace.

He has created a temple to South Korean flavors, a perfect fusion of his upbringing and ancestry.

- So Koan basically is a question in Zen Buddhism that is meant for you to create an open mind for you to go out on a journey and not find a specific answer.

For a long time, I was wondering, you know, how can these two worlds meet?

You know, I was trained in French kitchens and in Nordic kitchens, and I always thought that it was my weakness being adopted.

My parents, they couldn't have children, so they adopted my sister.

Four years later, they adopted me.

Since I was a child, I was very aware of my surroundings.

I grew up in a very traditional middle class family, had a very traditional upbringing, loving parents, great family life.

The big change came when I started researching and development for food.

But in terms of getting closer to my birth country and understanding it, and thereby also embracing my heritage.

There was a small moment when I was in boarding school when, you know, it was a very strict boarding school.

And these three old ladies that were in charge of, you know, cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all the students, you know, they divided the tasks and all the other students, they hated it but I actually liked it.

And there was one evening where I had to take out the trash.

The moment when I stepped outside the kitchen window, the sun was setting and I actually realized, wow, I really enjoyed cooking for my, like fellow students.

- [Danielle] What was it like when you first discovered Korean cuisine?

- It was very overwhelming in a good way because I felt like an apprentice again.

At this point in time, you know, I've studied for so many years and trying to understand it.

But then when I was starting to travel back to Korea a lot, I had this overwhelming feeling that I don't know anything.

And I think that is a very good feeling.

Some of the flavors that you will taste is one to one very Korean flavors, but then they will be surrounded by small flavor explosions that will elevate them into something else and something new.

But there is now room for other types of cuisines and we need to continue the work to make sure that there will be room for even more great restaurants in all different kinds of categories and all different kinds of genres because the diversity of the restaurants is actually what makes the market very successful, in my opinion.

People understanding that it's about being on this journey and that we share the journey with you and you share the journey with us.

And I'm very happy and very honored that so many people are willing to take part of it and that they want to understand it.

If we can shift or make a small impact, a small shift in people's perception about traveling to Korea, experiencing new culture and learn something new, then we have done our part.

(bright music)