After an hour at North Road watching chef-patron Christoffer Hruskova burning hay and smoking fresh cheese, it’s hard not to fall head over heels for the young Dane’s alchemical flair.
After an hour at North Road watching chef-patron Christoffer Hruskova burning hay and smoking fresh cheese, it’s hard not to fall head over heels for the young Dane’s alchemical flair. Pickling, smoking, wild foods and foraging are at the heart of a menu that is as elegant as the induction kitchen where it is prepared. “The new Nordic cooking is a bit similar to Japanese,” Hruskova tells us. “A lot of wild food, clean flavours, fresh fish, whereas before, Danish food was about big portions, pork and potatoes.”
After training in Denmark and following his culinary muse across continents, Hruskova came to London with the intention of staying a month; that was 13 years ago. During this time he worked for Peter Gordon at the Sugar Club and Christine Mansfield at East@West Covent Garden, before opening his first venture, Fig, now Fig Bistro, in Highbury and Islington. It was here that he honed the wild and fresh approach he brings to North Road, which launched last year in Clerkenwell. “We use the food of nature instead of production,” Hruskova tells us. “Our philosophy is to go back to old ways of cooking. There are so many exciting flavours and it's all seasonal – you have to eat it here and now as much as possible and then move on to the next thing.”
As an amuse-bouche we have a steamy and satisfying veal-stuffed aebleskiver, a traditional Danish dumpling that can be served savoury or sweet. The tasting menu proves bountiful, with veal showing up again for a standout dish of breast, sweetbread and tail served with cucumber essence. Much to our delight, the Kent vegetable salad features the hay-smoked cheese we saw Hruskova prepare earlier. Made from strained yogurt, it is smoked for just a few minutes – enough time to infuse it with a bottomless smoky depth. And then there’s the caramelised clove parfait with sorrel leaves: sharp, sweet and creamy, a perfectly realised finish. Our advice: go to North Road for the tasting menu; lose yourself in the parfait; leave feeling excited about food again.
Of course if you’re looking for a down home Scandinavian lunch or Sunday brunch in the centre of London, Scandinavian Kitchen, a cafe, sandwich shop and grocery has carved out a Nordic niche for itself on Great Tichfield Street over the past three and a half years. Jonas Aurell (Swedish) and Bronte Blomhoj (Danish) are a husband and wife team whose broad approach to Scandinavian flavour translates as nostalgia to ex-pats and comfort food to everyone else. “We're about husmanskost,” Blomhoj tells us over a delicious, naturally-sweetened blueberry muffin. “This means food for the working man, basic and good. We draw on the Scandinavian tradition of open sandwiches – you have to slow down to eat them properly.” Luckily you don’t have to be a Nordic labourer to appreciate the wonderfully sloppy meatball and beetroot sandwich, the havarti with salad or the curried herring on rye. The grocery, which has crisp breads a-plenty, 25 different kinds of herring, (“from the beginner stuff to the stuff you have to open outside,” says Blomhoj), fresh rye bread, fresh yeast, and over 15 different Scandinavian cheeses, is now online for orders across the UK. Aurell and Blomhoj also plan to publish a charity cookbook later this year.
Ananda and Neil visited the Scandinavian Kitchen on Wednesday, 16 March at 1030am, and because they just can’t get enough Nordic food, they visited North Road on the same day at 6pm.
Text by Ananda Pellerin
Ananda Pellerin is a London-based writer and editor of Wheel Me Out. Neil Wissink is a visual artist also based in London.
