I’m not a chef, I’m a ‘curious human being’, says Bo Bech, man behind Copenhagen’s Geist restaurant
- The Danish chef reveals how he cooked his way into the bank manager’s heart to get the €20,000 he needed to start his first restaurant
- He talks about serving Jorn Utzon, the Sydney Opera House architect, and about how Noma restaurant replaced footballers as the symbol of Denmark
What was your childhood like? “I got teased a lot for being fat, for being a stupid guy. I wasn’t trendy, I wasn’t beautiful, I wasn’t clever – I was an easy target. As a child I was a ghost in a way.”
How did you discover your love for food? “It was pure luck; I stumbled into the pot. I thought a job was something you did so you could acquire money so you could then have fun. I had no idea that a job could be something so full of life and passion. In my case, that happened when I started cooking. The world flipped for me.
“At 24, I was in the army as a United Nations soldier in Yugoslavia in the early ’90s; it was horrible. We had to cook for ourselves, and I realised all of a sudden that there was something interesting and relevant about taking something from the earth to the table. From then on I understood everything about myself. I got hungry for life, and when you get hungry and curious, passion and desire come. Working in a kitchen requires tough love, nothing is easy, but it is easier if your passion comes naturally.”
How did a grilled leek lead to you opening your first restaurant, Paustian, which went on to win a Michelin star? “I had been head chef for four years at a restaurant [Jan Hurtigkarl & Co] that was almost like the El Bulli of Denmark. I took a year off and travelled, and said, ‘I’m going to do this [open his own restaurant].’ The intention was to be the best. But I did not have any money.
