Keepers of the flame
A new generation of chefs is rediscovering the ancient art of cooking with fire. Sybil Kapoor smokes them out
By Sybil Kapoor
Niklas Ekstedt was on holiday with his family at their summer home on the island of Ingarö. As is the Swedish custom, he gathered birch wood and built a fire pit in preparation for a summer of outdoor cooking. But one day, too impatient to wait for the logs to heat sufficiently, he thrust a cast-iron pan into the flames and cooked his fish. “It tasted amazing,” he recalls.
An idea started to form. Ekstedt was already a successful chef and tv personality in Sweden – along with René Redzepi of Noma in Copenhagen and Magnus Nilsson of Fäviken, he was one of the young chefs redefining the Nordic culinary identity. He was due to open a new restaurant in Stockholm that autumn, but he’d been struggling to think of a fresh approach.
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