Poul Andrias Andriassen Zinka is a rare bird in the world of haute cuisine. Not only because at 28 years old he already had two Michelin stars, nor because his KOKS restaurant in the Faroe Islands is the most remote in Europe. Nor because a few months ago he has moved it even further away, to Greenland. A Doctor in Alaska between the stoves.
Zinka is not only the protagonist of one of the most beautiful food documentaries in the world (Michelin Stars II: Nordic by Nature, by Rasmus Dinesen, shown at the San Sebastián festival no less), but he has created a very local gastronomy and with ingredients that have absolutely nothing to do with the restaurant menus of the famous red guide and that are sometimes risky to hunt. Yes, there is also seal blood tartlet.
Whale, birds that taste like fish because they don’t eat anything else, fermented lamb intestines, clams that you take out of the water a few minutes before cooking. And of course, many herbs, algae and an overflowing imagination to which his travels and stays at Star Geranium (3 Michelin stars in Copenhagen) and at Mugaritz (2), by Andoni Luis Aduriz, have contributed.
An artisan first and foremost, the chef has visited and cooked at the Gastrònomic Fòrum Barcelona and this time he had no problems bringing his ingredients. He could write a book of recipes, but also one of adventures at the airport trying to get his goods through. He is not waiting for the third star, just for the good weather to arrive, in June, and for it to last long enough to close in September. Below, a very pleasant interview with a simple genius.
What are you going to cook and, above all, how did you bring the food?
I’m going to prepare three or four dishes, let’s see how time goes. One will be dedicated to the sea, another to the land and the last to the sky. The first will be a clam that we call mahogany (mahogany em in English), a marine creature that can live up to 400 years, which are the ones we collect from the sea ten minutes before cooking them. We will serve it as a tartlet with vegetable dough, a little creamy emulsion, seaweed and pieces of raw clam. Very simple with a very strong taste of the sea.
Is it difficult to think simply when you have two Michelin stars?
It is and it is not, because we use many techniques that are not, but when you try it and see it, it looks simple, but it is not a dish with 50 ingredients. That’s the first one. The second is a recipe with a bird called gamet, which you have to go down the cliffs to hunt, something dangerous. It is also an uncomplicated dish, we bread it and fry it.
How do they do that?
We have done a lot of research on how to do it and we have tried many Asian techniques to achieve it. We discovered a sauce, like yeast, that in Japan they make with rice and we make with barley and that is the base of sake, for example. We let the meat rest with salt for two weeks and that’s it. The funny thing is that the meat tastes a little fishy because the birds on the islands eat a lot of fish and shellfish, they like anchovies, a lot. They only eat fish and sometimes the taste can be very overwhelming.
Curious, meat that tastes like fish…
But these birds are special, yes… so we season them in one way or another. We serve it with celeriac puree. This would be the plate of heaven.
And the one on earth?
It’s fermented lamb. It is a typical Faroese dish. What we serve are the intestines that we curiously call fermented fish. The flavor is very strong, we like it but there are people who find it very extreme. We stay faithful to the original recipe. We serve it differently and it tastes good, always with potatoes.
It is fermented a lot in the Nordic islands. In Iceland, the shark, for example…
Fermented shark smells like ammonia, it is very strong. Fermented lamb has more of a blue cheese aroma if you will.
How did you bring the food?
In a bag, easy. But it’s not always like that, sometimes I have problems. Depends on the situation. On some occasions I have had to do a power point because the food has not arrived. In others, when you have to cook for 80 people and the food doesn’t finally arrive, we can’t do anything. I go to the market and buy as close as possible to what I had in mind.
It has moved from a village of 80 inhabitants in the Faroe Islands to one of 40 in Greenland. Is cooking even more difficult there?
The thing is that in Greenland there are not many more ingredients than in the Faroes, but they are different. We like to change the dishes quite a bit, I don’t know if it’s as often as they say, but yes. We like things to change without having to add foods that have nothing to do with the landscape. In Greenland there is more meat, reindeer and animals like that. In the Faroes 80% of the menu is fish and seafood.
He talks about “us” almost all the time.
The core of the team is made up of three people, the one who takes care of the food; Karen, who also runs the networks and is also a sommelier, and Johannes, who is the main owner of the group of which the Koks restaurant is a part (they have 15 establishments and three hotels). It’s my turn to do the math, but not too many.
What do you consider yourself to be? A minimalist artist in a remote location?
What a question… no artist. What is an artist? Food can have connection points, parallels because it can move you, it can take you to nostalgia, to the past, but art…. More like craftsmanship, I like that better.
You worked at Mugaritz and at Star Geranium. He learned abroad, but he cooks with a local mentality.
Yes, what I make is with local or regional ingredients and the inspiration comes from our land, but the techniques come from abroad, Japanese, European… Our team is international, our clients are too.
Where do they come from? What feelings do they confess to you?
Especially from Denmark and the Nordic countries, also American because they are quite close. In fact, it’s true, Trump wanted to buy Greenland. They come via Reykjavik, which is relatively close to them. What do they tell me? I don’t feel different from other chefs, it’s not like I start comparing. Let’s go on our own. Customers explain to me that they are dishes different from anything they have ever tried. So it’s fun to offer a new experience. The truth is that if we look around us there are many products that can be food. There are not that many in the Faroes either but a few.
When you were 28, you had two Michelin stars… Now at 33, do you think a lot about the third?
In ten years I see myself doing the same thing, cooking, making people happy. Our menu will not be the same, I already know that. I also don’t see myself opening a Koks in Abu Dhabi. We opened a sister restaurant in the Faroes while we were here, it’s called ROKS and it’s more casual, a seafood bar. Two is enough. It’s not about the money, nor is it the empire that attracts me, but about working every day. Next year will be the last year in Greenland and in 2025 we will return to the Faroes, in a new location very similar to the one we had.
And the third star?
I don’t spend much of my life thinking about the third. If they give it to us, sensational. What we worry about is working better every day, improving. If it arrives… good.
How many months does one have to wait to eat at your restaurant?
Now, in Greenland, which we open from June to September due to weather conditions, we have just opened reservations and, as we are a little further away than in the Faroes, you can still book (laughs).
Where does your job come from?
Not from my parents, but at home we ate well. We lived in the capital Torshavn (which means the port of Thor), and food was always very important. My grandfather had a little piece of land where he grew vegetables… it is very common here. In the Faroes we didn’t have a restaurant industry when I was a kid, it’s quite recent. It started about 15 or 20 years ago.
When you don’t cook, what do you like to eat? Where?
I like to try new things. Here in Barcelona, ??for example, I went to a restaurant, I don’t remember the name, but without a star. It was tapas. And I have a table at Enjoy to try. I always do that, I go to one very very good one and the rest more every day. I have made trips where breakfast, lunch and dinner were in Michelin star restaurants…
¿I wonder if it’s harto?
In the end you don’t enjoy it, really. We opened a pop-up restaurant in Singapore for six weeks and I swear the best place I ate was a dim sum restaurant in a back alley, very seedy, there were rats. But it was my best experience.
To you, who are Nordic, asking about the climate in Singapore seems in very bad taste…
If you stay inside the places you survive, outside is a sauna (laughs).
