CURRENT HOMETOWN: Copenhagen, Denmark
RESTAURANT THAT MADE HIS NAME: 108, Copenhagen
SIGNATURE STYLE: Casual Nordic cuisine
BEST KNOWN FOR: His Noma pedigree, and garnering a Michelin star eight months after his restaurant opened
FRIDGE: Candy
Born in Korea, adopted by a Danish couple, and raised in a Copenhagen suburb, Kristian Baumann was attracted to foraging and cooking from childhood. One early memory revolves around a twelve-inch puffball mushroom he discovered on a preschool field trip. He brought it back to class and strong-armed his teacher into cooking it up in butter. “Just so delicious!” he says, recalling the woodsy smell of the sautéed mushroom and the delight he took in discovering it.
Later, in boarding school, he pestered the elderly cooks every day to let him hang out in the kitchen. His schoolmates might have complained about peeling twenty pounds of potatoes and other kitchen chores, but Baumann loved it all, and soon graduated to sausage making and roasting the odd lamb or pork chop. “I had no talent at all but I was having a lot of fun!” he says.
The only thing he wanted to do was go to cooking school, which he did. After a couple of internships, he became an apprentice at Noma, under René Redzepi, and then a sous-chef with Christian Puglisi of Relae. Working with Redzepi opened Baumann’s eyes to what he considers the foundations of the Copenhagen kitchen: foraging, farming, and collaboration. While at Relae, he learned how important it is to rethink the most basic ingredients. Take water, for instance. “There is a lot of calcium present in Copenhagen’s water, but after we installed filters at Relae our stocks became much more flavorful.” On trips to South Korea, Baumann noticed that the monks always brought water fresh from the mountains: “The cleaner the water, the better the rice,” he says now.
Baumann had so many things he wanted to do if he ever opened his own place he couldn’t even sleep. “I was constantly putting my ideas on napkins,” he says. One day, over coffee, Redzepi offered, “Just like that!” to let him use Noma as a practice run for his planned first restaurant opening while the older chef was away in Australia opening a pop-up restaurant. One thing led to another, and their partnership led to the creation of 108.
Located in a former industrial warehouse, 108 has its fair share of Noma DNA, but with Baumann’s particular vision: “It’s the kind of place with an à la carte menu seven days a week, where you can get drinks and share small plates with friends on a Friday night and enjoy a tasting menu with your girlfriend another night,” he says. Dishes such as raw lamb with last year’s pickles and seaweed sorbet with caviar earned 108 a Michelin star eight months after it opened.
Simplicity is Baumann’s MO at home. His kitchen is small and sunlit. The wooden counters are filled with potted plants, cacti, and serving platters heaped with chili peppers and fava beans from his parents’ garden, not showy appliances. He insists that the biggest inspiration and essential driving force behind his creativity and success has always been his beloved Copenhagen and his Danish family and friends, but Korea is never far away. That’s why the shelves of his refrigerator are stocked with everything from handmade miso and soy sauce, smoked herring and fermented pastes, to condiments from half a world away as well as more garden-grown vegetables. All are tastes of home.
- PERILLA OIL—“I got this as a gift in Korea and it can be added to chicken of the woods soup.”
- SOY SAUCE, a gift from Korea
- BLUEBERRY AND BLACK CURRANT VINEGARS—“I use them at home with vegetables. I especially like to sauté romaine lettuce leaves in butter. Once they are juicy and warm, I splash a little vinegar and spoon over more butter.”
- UMEBOSHI PASTE—“A gift from good friends. I use it often on fish.”
- CILANTRO FLOWERS, from his sister’s garden
- EGGS, from his parents’ hens—“The hens eat lots of herbs from the garden and my parents’ leftovers. The yolks are bright yellow, which for me, is a good sign.”
- GOD MORGON ORGANIC ORANGE JUICE—“I start my day with juice along with a mug of hot water and lemon. Once I’m at the restaurant I drink a lot of coffee and tea.”
- NATURLI ORGANIC SOY DRINK—“I have a slight lactose intolerance so I drink soy quite often.”
- SOY SAUCE, another gift from Korea
- ARLA ØKO SKYR—“My girlfriend likes skyr the best.”
- HONEY-PRESERVED PINE CONES
- SOYBEAN PASTE, from the Mangkyengsansa temple
- SOYBEAN PASTE, bought in Seoul
- CHICKEN OF THE WOODS MUSHROOMS
- SWISS CHARD, from his sister’s garden
- AGED COW’S MILK CHEESE, SMOKED BUTTER, PARMESAN CHEESE, JUTLAND-STYLE CHEESES—“My mother gave me these.”
SMOKED BUTTER—Baumann uses his signature smoked butter for grilling meat, fish, or vegetables. The recipe is here.
Q & A
What have you always got in your fridge? We always have miso, milk, eggs from my parents’ house, Parmigiano, and whatever might be in season, especially from my sister’s garden: apples, cabbage, Swiss chard, cilantro, chilies, potatoes, parsley.
You have a lot of unlabeled mysterious containers and jars—what are they? Well, friends and colleagues from around the world bring me all sorts of stuff. I have Korean soy sauce and wild sesame oil from a chef friend. The most interesting thing I have is honey-preserved pine cones from a couple of Russian chefs I cooked with last year. I always have soybean paste—I use it in sauces and soups, for fish, in dishes I cook for friends and family. It adds layers to the cooking. Umami.
It looks like something is growing on the bottom of the refrigerator! What is it? It’s a chicken of the woods mushroom. I was out foraging with my girlfriend looking for puffball mushrooms and she found this gigantic chicken! It was so big I had to freeze it. I’m going to chop half of it up and cook it with vegetables and a miso sauce and make her a nice dinner.
Are there any foods you’ve banned from the fridge? Salmon, you’ll never find salmon. When I was an apprentice chef, for the first three years, I was working in a salmon area, so I was just surrounded by it all the time. I wouldn’t say I hate it, though—I just dislike it.
Does that plastic container in the bottom drawer say “smoked butter”? Sounds very restauranty—what is it? Yes, it’s something we make in the restaurant, but easy enough to do at home, if you’re motivated. (See how in the recipe opposite.) We use it for whatever we grill—meat, fish, or vegetable. It’s a great asset and brings a lot of flavor to the product. The fat dripping onto the charcoal gives off an amazing aroma as well!
You were in Korea recently. Did you bring back anything interesting? I’ve got a bunch of stuff from temples, and each temple has something different. Some make a soybean paste called doenjang, or gochujang, a red chili paste; others make their own kimchi or miso sauce. It varies so much from region to region, and echoes their individual heritages.
The tastiest thing I have I think is the homemade perilla oil, made from ground-up perilla seeds and given to us by the temple nuns. The temple is called Mangkyengsansa, and it’s a few hours northeast of Seoul. You get a real glimpse of the past there. It’s just seven nuns living up there happily, cooking, farming, and meditating on the mountaintop. They also use their knowledge to enable the local famers to know what to grow and hook them up with chefs who will buy their produce.
Do you cook at home or does your girlfriend? We both do. If I’m cooking for Taya, it’s normally some sort of fish, like monkfish sautéed in butter. But if she’s cooking, and she is a fantastic cook, it will be a home-style Thai dish, my favorite thing to eat after a long day. I love larb hed, a minced mushroom salad flavored with fish sauce, lime juice, ground rice, and fresh herbs, or a cold noodle salad served with whatever condiment I feel like digging out of the fridge.
Where do you shop for food? Most of the time I eat in the restaurant, but if I do shop, it’s mostly at small greengrocers or in the organic aisle of supermarket shops.
What do you feed your cat? My cat’s name is Steak and we used to feed him store-bought cat food all the time, but one day we started making him special food. He loved it and his coat is healthier and his eyes are clearer. The dish I make for him is puréed chicken and corn. He just loves corn.