Danish tasties

Mikkel Karstad, one-time head chef at the real-life Borgen, offers a simple, seasonal approach to family cooking. By Amy Bryant. Photographs by Anders Schønnemann

Seasonal family fare from the head chef of the Danish parliament

t he morning we speak Mikkel Karstad posted on Instagram a petrol-blue sea below ominous clouds. Water temperature, 1C, wind chill, -20C, according to the caption. This is the Danish chef ’s dawn swim, which he undertakes every other day in the Oresund strait, between Denmark and Sweden, after sharing the view with his 34,500 followers. The rest of his feed comprises extraordinarily beautiful images of barley soup, ginger tea and blackcurrant-stained lamb (his latest dishes), and the occasional golden-haired child (he has four, aged between four and 16). If ever there has been a cause for plate envy, or indeed life envy, this is it – though we’ll pass on the icy dip.

Karstad has worked closely with René Redzepi’s Noma, developing recipes for the restaurant at its Nordic Food Lab, but he is not as famous as Redzepi, and I get the impression he rather likes it that way. Having worked in top-rung restaurants since he was 16, including Gordon Ramsay’s Aubergine in London and Kommandanten in Copenhagen, Karstad is keen to devote more time to his family, and to a style of cooking that is ‘simple and natural’. He inherited his love of food from his grandmother, a kogekone (private cook), with whom he spent all his childhood holidays at her home on the island of Funen, a two-hour drive west of Copenhagen, where he grew up. ‘She grew vegetables and knew all the local fshermen,’ he says. ‘She’d say yes to jobs but couldn’t tell them the menu until she knew what the day’s catch was, or what was best from the garden. I helped out a lot, cleaning the veg or plucking the feathers from the pheasants, and really enjoyed being outdoors.’

Thanks to the New Nordic Kitchen movement launched in 2004 by Noma’s founders, Redzepi and Claus Meyer, Karstad’s close friend and former colleag ue, most of Denmark’s restaurants now work in this way, avoiding a fxed menu and using only what is available from local producers. But when Karstad began his four-year restaurant apprenticeship in 1990, the food was classically French. His year in London accustomed him to