2015 revisited

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

Hand over the kitchen operation to the newly appointed executive chef; analyse 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, developed some recipe ideas and worked with Tasmanian’s black lip abalone, visited the annual Taste of Tasmania food and wine festival in Hobart.

Black lip Abalone from Tasmanias south coast

February

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.

February- April

Friend’s arena together with Operakällaren event AB

Back at Friend’s Arena Sweden’s national stadium, after some management changes I was asked to reopen and take the 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 also caught up with lots of old and new friends, great to see the vision and new idea’s from the new management company.

Old guys rule

April

Caldera beach & Caldera Creta Paradise, Crete

Vised two sister resorts in Crete, I was there for the pre-opening and implementation of 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.

Addictive greek pastries from the Caldera resorts

 May

Alcudia Pins Mallorca, Spain

Implementation and quality control with Fritidsresor at the Alcudia Pins blue village resort, an intensive visit – a few days 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.

Freshly baked pita at Seven Seas in Turkey 

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.

June

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.

Sol over Gudjhem, traditional smoked herring open faced sandwich

July

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

Our Home fare presentation grilled halibut steak with asparagus, skagen filled grilled new potatoes and egg mayonnaise on grilled rye   

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.

September

Lasse Majas Guest House, Stockholm Sweden

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.

October

Lasse Majas Guest House, Stockholm Sweden

My roll at Lasse Maja continued, with a focus moving to long term planning for the Christmas smorgasbord.

Anuga Messe, Cologne, Germany

A first time 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.

November

Lasse Maja’s Guest House, Stockholm Sweden

My roll at Lasse Maja continued, opening the Christmas smorgasbord at the end of November.

Study trip, South Africa

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.

This guy wasn't on the menu but he thought we may've been

December

Lasse Maja’s Guest House, Stockholm Sweden

Christmas smorgasbord for 100%, we had a great Christmas season breaking the all time high over 7200 Christmas smorgasbords. The new executive chef started the 1dec so handing over the operation at the same time was all part of the challenge.

The hot buffet on Lasse Majas Christmas smorgasbord

Good luck for the future.

Goodbye 2015, welcome 2016 and whatever challenges you bring.

There's more information in some of the individual blogg posts & at,

in English at. www.nepokitchencomsulting.com 

and Swedish at. www.nepokitchenconsulting.se