After working in Chicago’s famous Charlie Trotter’s and Spain’s El Bulli, Ekstedt returned home to set up his own restaurant at the age of 21 (“a cliche Michelin restaurant with purees and white tablecloths,” he laughs) at the height of new Nordic movement – and was touted as Sweden’s Jamie Oliver.
“It used to be that fine dining restaurant food was either French or Italian or Chinese, even in Sweden, we didn’t cook Swedish food in restaurants – it was something you ate at home,” he says.
What’s known as “flambadou” is an ancient Swedish cooking technique, used by the indigenous Sámi people of the north of the country, and revived by chef patron Niklas Ekstedt.
A lot of chefs liked the idea but when they came and lived the practicality [of cooking with only a wood fire oven, hot bricks and a fire pit] they’re like, ‘I have no use for all these things that I’ve learned!’.
Ekstedt was part of the “new Nordic cooking” revolution around 20 years ago, alongside the likes of Noma’s René Redzepi, when top Scandinavian chefs turned their attention to the ingredients available around them.
