NEPO Kitchen Consulting 2020 revisited

Revisited 2020

Nepo Kitchen Consulting 2020

NEPO Kitchen Consulting AB So here we go again out with 2020 and good riddance, what a disruptive and destructive year for everybody and especially for our restaurant, hotel, food and tourist related industries not only here in Sweden but over the whole world. We are resistant and flexible, at the moment our whole branch is focusing only on survival solutions. Good luck with your efforts. Here is a quick recap on my 2020.

January in Tasmania, an island rich in resources especially food and beverage products, I feel Tasmania still hasn’t emerged as the food destination it could be. I feel that there just doesn’t seem to be the market for keeping local produce local, much of the prime produce is shipped interstate or exported, leaving a too big a vacancy for cheap, standard, frozen and convenience produce.

I love coming back to Tasmania but feel it still hasn't reached its full food destination potential. With arguably some of the best produce in Australia, all exported leaving the state with a minimal tourist exposure window.

While I was there i made a dish with mutton birds, chicks from the migrating shearwater, a love em or hate em taste that I’ve never seen on a restaurant menu, but in the hands of a good chef these could easily be part of an exciting Tasmanian experience.

Dressed Tasmanian mutton birds "if you can find them"

Truffles

Tasmanian truffles

We did a bit of a study visit to the Tamar Valley truffle farm in the middle of summer, Marcus showed us some summer truffles, these truffles aren’t harvested as the dogs would choose and dig up the more pungent and immature winter truffles spores first and thus destroying the more lucrative winter season.

Tamar Valley Truffle farm out the back of Launceston

Pepper berries

Tasmanian pepper berries

A local native product with a peppery bay leaf tasting leaf and a spicy pepper fruit that grows on the palate similar to Szechuan pepper.

they have become commonplace as a tourist curiosity and are making inroads into the local food scene. They are sporadically drifting into both the European and American market, we had them here about 25 years ago. A great compliment to local game meat.

Pepper berries, as stolen from a neighbours garden.

Corona

Back to Sweden in February and the start of the Corona outbreak.

We all thought it would pass without a fuss, a misguided thought that’s still with us. I did a few weeks at Globen in Stockholm, one of Stockholm’s modern landmarks, a globe shaped event, concert and ice hockey arena.

I was charged with the task to help improve the synergies and logistics throughout the arena, come in with some fresh insights and strengthen an already strong team,

I made many suggestions for future operations but as the corona virus started to impact the industry, the event market was reeling and Globen events as we knew it fell apart, and the rest is history.

Globen has since been been changed into a padel courts with its 15000-seating capacity collecting dust.

Big event "1000" starter at globen, during this time we did some plate regeneration, a food technology in its own right.

Corona

During spring 2020 was one of the last food exhibitions, the annual sausage day, a popular homage to one of the best loved snack/meal here in Sweden. They have a fun cook off competition in which I participated in.

Also there was lots of networking, re grouping, idea searching and sitting around waiting for the telephone to ring.

In action at the sausage festival

My foray into Truffle import

A change of direction

Truffles: As the Australian winter truffle season started, during the European summer. It quickly became apparent that not only had Corona disrupted the top end restaurant market for my Truffle aspirations, but some Danish company cornered the market with big purchases and price cuts, so a little fun contact & business that I’d had over the past couple of years went up in smoke.

A change was needed, i helped a friend demolish and rebuild a summer ice cream kiosk/restaurant into a more modern operation.

A change from my chefs’ clothes for my handyman attire.

On the beach

Strand 35

Strand 35 emerged into a successful summer restaurant which we opened, Jonas and his team were in front and I put together a team in the kitchen. Burgers, fries, salads and ice-cream served at the local beach. His logical thinking was a genius idea, we were only cooking and serving hamburgers and fries, but it gave our work ethics the reinforcement we needed.

Grill night at Strand 35

On the quay

Kajen

A new summer opportunity emerged Kajen, Kajen started developing, offering assorted food trucks and happenings, including our pergola restaurant, quay side café, music, entertainment and shellfish theme nights. Kajen gained momentum with the work at home daily corona strollers, wandering locals, social media hip and Stockholm explorers.

August saw the arrival of our stream liner caravan which we quickly transformed into a champagne and shellfish raw bar, this added a new dimension and was very popular especially with our free seating on the quay or in our pergola.

During September we kept Kajen ticking over until the end of September, moving around some of our pop-up service units. The weather as it does in Sweden played its part, poor weather and our business almost dried up, sunny weekends and we got more than we bargained for, “in the shit” a common kitchen term that everybody in our business knows and understands.

Our super nice streamliner

Vanilla import from PNG.

Vanilla

I stumbled over a vanilla exporter hoping to move Papua New Guinea Vanilla into the European market, after months of communication, research and putting together a sales pitch. I put forward my pitch to some of our local gourmet/industry/bakery suppliers, I was convinced it would be a hit even in this dire time. Alas it missed the mark, apparently all the existing French colonies which grow vanilla, “this is pretty well means all of them” are a part of France and thus members of the EU, so they have no customs, tolls, duties exchange charges ect, so good night Papua New Guinea.

Vanilla from PNG

On the quay

Kajen

We packed up for the season, our weather sensitive work stations and pop up kitchens had to be dismantled and moved indoors, our fantastically loyal summer team moved away to a corona decimated hospitality industry and little or no chance of employment.

November at Kajen involved planning for season 2021, a more developed, bigger and more varied selection of restaurants will be added on during the winter months making our destination more complete. Kajen is now a planning & building project with a central kitchen, café, restaurant and banquet/event venue on the go. The addition of these venues will enable us to offer a more constant weather safe environment a larger venue for attracting new clientele and a destination off season restaurant, café/bar, together with our street side and waterfront pop-up units and we will be well on the way to create a new Stockholm destination.

our stream liner an eye stopper

December

December Sälen

No Gran Canaris or Thailand winter consultancy visits this year but some sporadic days in Sälen at Högfjällshotell, “back on the tools”.

As Sweden is still grappling with the Corona virus and its effects our alpine resorts are still open “with some limitations” the opportunity arose together with some friends to jump in and help during periods of hard to plan and uneven guest volumes. Högfjällshotell is an alpine resort 400km north of Stockholm. It’s a pleasure to walk into a quality kitchen if only for a limited time.

All the best 2021

Winter sunrise in the mountains