Dining off the grid and away from it all on Nat Geo’s ‘Restaurants at the End of the World’
Kristen Kish readily admits she was never much of a traveler and as a businesswoman has a real problem with giving up control. So her experiences making the National Geographic docuseries “Restaurants at the End of the World” were more than a few steps out of her comfort zone.
Premiering Tuesday, March 21, the four-part series follows chef and restaurateur Kish as she visits some of the world’s most remote restaurants in Panama, Norway, Brazil and Maine and meets the chefs and people who keep them going.
These are eateries that are far off the grid, so traditional supply lines for them are non-existent. So these tenacious and imaginative chefs/restaurateurs take what nature and local suppliers such as farmers and herders give them to create one-of-a-kind meals and menus for guests who themselves are culinary adventurers.
Kish embedded herself with these folks to listen to their stories, follow their thought processes and observe the day-to-day balancing act it takes to bring their unique fare to the table, which she found helpful in her own kitchen.
“Like we were developing dishes hours before the guests were coming ...,” she says. “You know, the way I come up with dishes before I serve them, I test them, we work through them, we taste them, we give notes, we edit and like a few weeks later it finally hits the menu.
“This was like, ‘Oh well, we have the same (ingredient), we have this but like maybe we can’t get this so we’ll just try something else. And I went, ‘Oh my God! OK.’ So the idea of experimentation without fear is something that I definitely had taken with me and I will try to continue taking with me as a constant reminder.”
But the ceding of control was another matter. As a chef and restaurateur, Kish is a meticulous planner and likes to maintain control over as much as she can. So the idea of giving that up to Mother Nature was anathema to her.