Power

PLATES FULL OF BORNHOLM

17 november 2020Door MASTERS Redactie4 min lezenMASTERS MAGAZINE

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As an islander, Nicolai Nørregaard (Svaneke, Denmark, 1979) grew up with what the earth and sea had to offer. This purity can be found on the menu of his restaurant Kadeau, with branches in Copenhagen and Bornholm. MASTERS visited him in the Danish capital.Text: Bart-Jan Brouwer | Online editor: Natasha Hendriks
Image: John van Helvert

Gift

Upon entering Kadeau Copenhagen, the cozy character is immediately noticeable. No weddings and parties here, but lunches and dinners in an intimate setting. When the weather is nice, on the patio or at one of the wooden tables inside. What is also striking: the amount of glass jars with juices, vegetables and fruits that are displayed in a huge cupboard that separates the kitchen from the entrance: the fermented treasures of Bornholm, where Nicolai Nørregaard comes from.

Small

Food has always played an important role in the Nørregaard household. “My mother was raised growing her own fruit and vegetables, and good food is in the genes on my father's side: my great-grandfather was a butcher and always threw big parties on Saturdays with lots of meat and drinks; my grandfather was a postman, but spent every minute outside cooking, growing, preserving… He loved it! He was the one that put everything in my head. He became my mentor and taught me how to taste, the importance of the quality of ingredients, how to ferment, pickle, preserve and preserve to prepare a stock for the winter. Only then I wanted to become a musician. My grandfather never pushed me to make cooking my profession. At sixteen I went to the Music Gymnasium in Copenhagen, where regular education was combined with high-level music lessons.”

Music turned out not to provide the fulfillment he expected and he therefore saw no reason to stay at the gymnasium any longer. His mother gave him permission to leave school, but then he had to find a job. “I was able to work as a bellhop at Hotel d'Angleterre, the most famous hotel in the country, in the center of Copenhagen. That's where I came into contact with restaurant life. I found it exciting to walk through the kitchen and experience all the fuss. I stayed there for a few years. I then returned to Bornholm to work in the Svaneke Pakhus restaurant there during the summer months. I ended up managing that restaurant. I worked on the island in the summer and at restaurants in Copenhagen in the winter. Together with my friend Rasmus Kofoed (not to be confused with the star chef of Geranium; ed.) I made plans for my own restaurant.”

Business plan

In 2007, both friends bought the beach pavilion Strandhytten, in the south of the island. “When that location was put up for sale, we were ready. The thesis essentially became our business plan, which we used to approach the bank. He gave us the green light. A few months later we opened Kadeau Bornholm. That was the first time I worked in a professional kitchen. Why that name? Gift is Danish for 'respect'. In our case, respect for nature, the ingredients… respect for Bornholm! The fact that we write it with a K is because only that domain name was still available, haha. It's a weird name. We hesitated for a long time whether we should change the name. Now it is what it is. Managing a restaurant in practice was more difficult than we expected. It was hard work: seven days a week, fourteen hours a day. But we were willing to do that. The season ran from April 1 to November 30, the other months we spent in Copenhagen, where we both had an apartment and a girlfriend. Coincidentally, Rasmus and I both became fathers in 2010 and we could no longer spend two-thirds of the year as singles on Bornholm. That is why we decided to open a second restaurant in Copenhagen in 2011, together with Magnus Hoegh Kofoed.”

Intimate experience

The Copenhagen branch was the first to receive a star. That was in March 2014, shortly after the move. “We never thought for a second that we could win prizes. It wasn't even on our minds, we had no idea. At the time, a press release announced which restaurants had received a star. We got a call – 'you have a star!' –, television crews were at the door. That was a big surprise. But the star we received for Kadeau Bornholm was an even bigger surprise. That was in 2016, when the first Michelin Guide for Nordic Countries was published. I had just returned from holiday in Thailand: we landed at seven in the morning and I was expected at the presentation two hours later. I was tired, jet lagged. I thought that the guide would again cover restaurants in the major cities of Europe and that only restaurants in Copenhagen and Aarhus were eligible. Nobody knew that Michelin would come up with a new guide. I suddenly found myself on stage! It was great to bring a star to the mother island. That was a big, big, big thing. We celebrated that for a while!”