RI Chef Works In World’s Best Restaurant
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Recently Benjamin Sukle, Chef de Cuisine at Providence’s La Laiterie and Johnson & Wales University graduate, had the opportunity to work (stage) at the World’s Best Restaurant, Noma in Copenhagen. Now we’ve got Sukle back in Rhode Island and I wanted him to share his experiences with local food lovers who are now pining for the fjords of Denmark.
First, a little explanation of that word “stage” and what Sukle was doing when taking a three week vacation to work unpaid at Noma. In the restaurant business this kind of internship or fellowship is known as a stage and a restaurant as acclaimed as Noma would have around a dozen cooks at a time, from around the world, working as stagiares. They’re there to essentially learn the best from the best. Noma was named the World’s Best Restaurant by Restaurant magazine’s academy of over 800 judges. The list was first published in 2002 and the number one spot for the last four years had been El Bulli until Noma’s win this past April (other number one restaurants were The French Laundry and The Fat Duck). Noma’s kitchen is run by partner and Chef René Redzepi and has been described as new Nordic cuisine. Frank Bruni and Mark Bittman have written extensive, excellent pieces on the restaurant and if you’re not already familiar with those articles, please check them out.
Back to Sukle, we talked for well over two hours, discussing his time in Denmark and the experience of being in the kitchen at Noma. Sukle wanted to assure me and the many people who love La Laiterie that he’s not thinking of suggesting any changes there. This stage at Noma was an experience that no young chef would think of passing up and any influences would run deep into his future, while in the present he still loves cooking some of the best bistro food that Rhode Island has to offer. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation.GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST
On letting his mind free and just working in the kitchen:
It was three weeks of me working 18-19 hours day but I didn’t have to think. It was like a vacation from my mind. The fact that two things that I did went on the [Noma] menu, they were tasted and they were thought more than good enough to put on the menu. It’s refreshing to know that your palate’s doing what it should be doing and your thought process is doing its thing. Being able to plate was really cool. The fact that I was trusted to plate and garnish and let plates go out. How easy it is for them to do this kind of stuff, I was struggling with some of the thing that they have to plate, but it looks so easy. The start of the meal you start with these “snacks” and one of them, there’s nine you could possibly get, one has this little piece of toast. Just the toast alone for one snack was two stagiares plating.
On foraging:
We went out and foraged for our ingredients. We had to drive an hour and a half away to get things. They have foragers on hand, they have food historians that work for them. It’s a want to use the best and it just so happens that ingredients that are grown in the soil in Denmark are some of the best. [The chefs at Noma forage] for something that they [farmers] really can’t grow. What I was told immediately was don’t pick too much. What their general rule was they can’t pick more than 30% of what’s found because things depend on it. It’s not there for [people] to pick and if you pick a whole thing out you’re just ruining it. The distances we travelled between foraging points was huge. They [foraged items] aren’t there for you. When you leave, it shouldn’t look different.
On delivering dishes to tables:
Ninety percent of all dishes are brought out by the chefs, which is something René started, and that’s something that was really cool. The server, no matter how intuitive and asking [questions about] the menu, will never know as much. I went with the Chef de Partie [line cook] and we picked the scurvy-grass, he can go out to the table [to talk] about it. It’s hard not to be influenced by that. You don’t want to copy, but it’s cool stuff.
On having customers being served a meal with no set menu:
If something runs out it’s on to the next thing. I know it’s asking a lot of the customer to trust that.
On Noma’s influence:
In Europe, any restaurant you go to seems to be doing what they’re [Noma] trying to do. There’s something to be said about that. Is it already a tired thing that they’re doing? Is it already getting tired or [is it] the thing to do? You see it starting to cross into the U.S. It makes you question why you do what you do. Are you doing it because it tastes really good? Are you doing it because you’re influenced? Are you doing it because you saw it somewhere? [These are] all things chefs should ask themselves.
On age:
I was old in that kitchen. At 25 I was old.
On Copenhagen:
Denmark is one of the cleanest cities in the world. It’s very much a bike city. There’s never really traffic jams. What’s starting to happen in Copenhagen, there’s all these expats of Noma who are opening places. There’s a general healthiness to it. Everyone is either on bikes or walking and it’s a very nature driven area. It’s just so old so there’s not huge skyscrapers anywhere. When we got to go foraging, outside Denmark, it’s untouched. The only thing that’s modern is the wind farms.
On eating lunch at Noma:
To be able to see it was really cool. Nobody didn’t laugh during their meal. In the end it’s just really good. They do a lot of food that puts you out of your comfort zone too, and that’s on purpose.
On his overall time there:
In the end it was a lot of fun. I had a great experience outside of work. People were more than hospitable there. And then doing food, I had never done that kind of stuff before. I’ve never done food at such a different level. It was a lot of fun. We’ll see how it impacts me.
