NEPO Kitchen Consulting AB

Goodbye to 2015 and hello to 2016, all the best for the New Year near and far.

We had a full-packed 2015 with lots of interesting projects and challenges, here’s a little recap.

January

Lasse Majas Guest House, Stockholm Sweden

Continuing on from the Christmas season I handed over the kitchen operation to the newly appointed executive chef; we analysed the Christmas Smorgasbord operation from 2014’s Christmas season ca. 6900 guests during the 4 week period.

Inspirational trip to Tasmania and Queensland, Australia

Developing an Australian theme idea for our future use within the Hotel restaurant industry, we developed some recipe ideas and I worked with some of Tasmanian’s fantastic produce including the black lip abalone. We also visited the annual Taste of Tasmania food and wine festival in Hobart.

Greek Panorama Stockholm

We did some catering in conjunction with the Greek tourist boards annual tourist panorama in Stockholm, the catering was not a big deal by any comparison but it was great to see some friendly faces from my last visit there with Fritidsresor. Looking forward to getting back there later in the year.

Friend’s arena together with Operakällaren event AB

I found myself back at Sweden’s national football stadium, Friend’s Arena during the period of February to April. After some management changes I was asked to reopen and take on the interim executive chefs position for a three-month period until the newly appointed chef was in place.

An intensive period, great to be back in a kitchen where I spent so much time, I managed also to catch up with lots of old and new friends, great to see the vision and new idea’s from the new management company, and to network with many old friends.

TUI Consulting

April

Caldera beach & Caldera Creta Paradise, Crete

During April I visited two sister resorts in Crete, I was there for the pre-opening preparation and their season opening on behalf of Fritidsresor, two fantastic resorts on the beach at Caldera, I was there in the capacity of company implementation chef looking at their kitchen restaurant concepts in comparison to Fritidsresor concepts, great teams flexible and alert.

Alcudia Pins Mallorca, Spain

Implementation and quality control with Fritidsresor at the Alcudia Pins blue village resort, an intensive visit for a few days in May, with not a lot of sight seeing, Alcudia Pins is a big and busy resort with high occupancy.

Otrium Seven Seas Resort, Side, Turkey

Implementation and quality control at Fritidsresor’s resort on the beach at Side, this was my second visit to Seven Seas, Seven Seas now run by the Turkish hotel company Otrium. I found a focus driven team looking for improvement and flexible to move with the new times.

Baia di Conte, Sardinia Italy

A new Fritidsresor resort just out side Alghero on Sardinians northwest corner, again the focus was on concept implementation and quality control at the new resort. Baia di Conte resort is surrounded by naturel beauty; tennis, golf & water sports abound at the resort.

The close lying Sa Madre gives a rare insight into times gone by, a local farmstead serving slow food, ecological, and local produce and wine.

Food truck to Bornholm

During the summer I worked with many different summer jobs, meeting new and old friends in new and established restaurants and hotels. An interesting period offering opportunity to get a working view of different kitchens, another fun project was a 700km road trip in a food truck to the Danish island of Bornholm.

We found ourselves in Gudjhem a small fishing village, home to the traditional "sol over Gudjhem" open faced sandwich.

BBQ World championships

Earlier in the year I joined the Barbecue Blues BBQ team, in July we competed at the BBQ world championships in Gothenburg as a small low budget team.

We competed simultaneously in the Swedish, Scandinavian and world championships. For our efforts we achieved a 3^rd place in the Swedish competition, 6^th place in the Scandinavian and 18^th place in the world standings, in hindsight we learned that we had been penalised with point deductions that would’ve lifted our standings considerably.

At the moment we are waiting the announcement of the site 0f the 2016 European BBQ championships, we hope its close enough to make the journey there and that we can find a sponsor to help with our costs.

Our goals are podium placing in different classes and top five in Europe

During August Some like-minded associates and I started a loosely structured group of kitchen professional with the common goal of working together as individuals or within the group, working as project consultants within established companies.

We were employed at one of Stockholm’s leading archipelago hotel resorts, the job was for 2 & 1/2 months, 5 of us were active in the project it was a great learning period for us, it strengthened our group which we are still feeding off today, hopefully we will get another project together soon.

Anuga Messe, Cologne, Germany

I even managed a trip down to the Anuga food fair in Cologne was extremely interesting and big big almost beyond belief. The food fair was all about connecting international producers with trade partners and suppliers. I would’ve been more interested if the trade fair was more focused on the next level supplier to user.

Lasse Majas Guest House, Stockholm Sweden

An opportunity arose again back at Lasse Maja in Stockholm some unexpected staff turnover created a hop in executive chef roll during the recruitment process. The position became almost full time as the conference season kicked in at the end of summer and lasted to the end of the year. December culminated into Lasse Maja's famous Christmas smorgasbord. This year we broke the record over 7200 guests. A new executive chef started the 1st dec so handing over the operation at the same time was all part of the challenge.

Good luck for the future.

South Africa

A break in autumn from Lasse Maja offered a window of opportunity which resulted in a  two week round trip from Cape Town through wine growing areas in the western cape with a private tastings at KWV at Roodenberg and Constantia. A trip along the garden route and deep diving into the Cape Malay food culture including hands on cooking at Exotic Tastes workshop. As well some hands on experiences in South Africa's bountiful tourist activities.