Happy new year!: Life lessons from my favorite meal of 2022
I’m not one to go in for self-improvement resolutions, but I have decided this year to pause and take stock of some of the things I experienced over the past year (some better than others). One of the things I can say for sure is that I’ve been very lucky to cook, eat, and drink a lot of delicious things. It’s no great revelation to anyone that I think food has a huge influence on how we interact with each other, with culture, with the environment, etc., but I’ve realized that it can be too easy to forget to stop and reflect on how and why, and really appreciate some of the food and drink that we’ve been able to enjoy. In that spirit, I asked myself what my favorite meal I had in the past year was, and why, and actually the answer I think gives some interesting clues for culture not only as it has been, but also where it might be going in the near future.
So, what was my favorite meal? I think I can easily say it was a dinner (shared with a wonderful friend) at ARK in Copenhagen. It’s probably a cliché to say one's favorite meal was at a green-starred tasting menu restaurant in the contemporary capital of fine dining, but please hear me out. I went in with high expectations (after all, I knew I would be paying enough for it), maybe of something serious and intellectually interesting, in which you marvel at the complexity of how ingredients have been modified, in a quiet setting in which everyone is hyper-aware of the attention they should be paying and what they will say about it afterwards. I’m not sure my original expectations of what the experience would be were entirely met, but in the best way possible. Overall my initial idea was quickly exceeded by the feeling of comfort and the pleasant, uplifted buzz I walked out with, as though I had just had a lovely dinner at a friend’s house.
Part of what made the experience so comfortable was the atmosphere, in a space surrounded by large windows, and tables mostly designed for groups rather than intimate pairs. And in fact there were a few groups of friends seemingly having laid-back dinners together, leaning back in chairs, enjoying relaxed Saturday evenings. The staff were friendly, encouraging genuine enjoyment rather than over-seriousness, and occasionally willing to weigh in on our personal gossip between explaining the components of dishes to us (the latter probably precipitated by me rather than themselves, to be fair). Basically, it felt like a pleasant cross between a local neighborhood spot and a Michelin starred establishment.
But let’s focus on the meal itself of course. I should start off by saying that, uncharacteristically, I barely remember the wine I drank - other than I know I had a champagne, and two different chardonnays, and a gamay, all of which I enjoyed - because I was too mesmerized by my experience of the food. As was expected, there was a flurry of plates, tiny dishes of varying types of stone, foraged herbs, different cutlery being replaced every few minutes, and spoonfuls carefully designed to evolve in flavor over the amount of time it takes you to actually consume them. So far, so tasting menu. While everything was interesting in its own right, it was when we were presented with sourdough crumpets - falling somewhere between injera and cornbread if I were to try to compare - topped with smoked ‘ricotta’ and celeriac remoulade that I first considered asking if instead of the rest of the meal I could just indulge in four more of those plates. It was pristinely presented, sophisticatedly smokey like a challenging aged cheese, but also the softness of the crumpet, and the creamy, celery-laced topping immediately brought to mind a tuna salad eaten at lunchtime during a summer school vacation, when I was just old enough to graduate from peanut butter. I mean it as a compliment comparing this to a sandwich-bread meal - the pillowy texture of the crumpet and the creamy tang of the topping were pure comfort.
A few more dishes in and the instagram-favorite blue oyster mushrooms appeared before us, grilled in an umami glaze and presented with a side of savory Japanese custard topped with black garlic caviar. In my frame of reference (lest we forget that food experiences are always constructed through experience), this combination of ingredients would be a set of things I could never have enjoyed before I was at least a teenager. Deeply earthy, hot next to cold, intensely satisfying umami on more umami, a bigger, denser flavor than I would have expected from a delicate mushroom. And yet with one bite of one of those oyster mushrooms, grilled on a teppanyaki (if I remember the waiter’s detailed description accurately), that rich depth of flavor gently charred around the edges, all I could think of was the grilled flank steak I would request for my birthday every year as a child.* It was the most unexpected hit of nostalgia, almost a laughing gas high, that made me need to sink back in my chair for a moment, until I devoured the rest of the plate.
As dramatic as my Proustian mushroom moment was, being the simple person that I am, the bread course is always my favorite. Most tasting menus I have experienced recently feature some genuinely delicious, fluffy, crusty, and suitably waxy fleshed sourdough baked locally to the restaurant. It’s a formula that’s impossible to go wrong with, but I’m grateful to Ark for not taking the straightforward road here (especially when it would have been easy with so much good bread in Copenhagen). Instead, two miniature brioche buns appeared, tucked away gently in a napkin-blanket, peeking out their sesame seed-dusted heads at us. And yes, there was a ‘champignon’ paté, and a shallot and sherry jam, both of which were devoured with relish, but frankly those little brioche buns brought me joy like few foods could claim to be able to do. Baked in a shape that instantly encourages you to pull them straight apart in halves, pillowy insides revealed like pages of a book, these little miso-glazed buns brought me to nearly-crying levels of laughter, just from the texture and the smell alone. (Frankly, my companion looked ready to ask if I needed to leave.) Salty and sweet, they reminded me of scones with big chunks of salt on top and orange butter that used to come with the breakfasts at a place near my parents’ house (I wonder if they still do those scones?). This is a highly specific reference, yet again, but regardless I feel there is something childlike about brioche, as if the chefs decided to treat us like their grandchildren, albeit with sophisticated, plant based attitudes. I have never felt so taken care of in a restaurant before.
I’ll spare my waxing poetic about the grilled cabbage (that to me was chicken noodle soup on the sofa after school), or the plum, barley, tonka bean, and creme fraiche dessert**, but ultimately everything became an unexpected trip home to some part of myself that is not often indulged, even in a relatively unfamiliar city, sitting in Scandi-modern surroundings that could have been anywhere in the world. And actually I think there is something exciting in the way this restaurant was able to draw out comfort and nostalgia from unlikely places and techniques, creating nostalgia without exactly replicating the past. In fact I wonder if this is something important and necessary as a culture, as we look for ways to address climate change, ethics in what we consume, and also just help ourselves overcome the collective trauma of the past couple of years.
Thinking about why this meal stood out to me so much, I realized that whilst there are plenty of places I have been with truly delicious, wonderful food, the emotional element of it was something unexpected. Specifically in food, it feels like there is a constant need to be the most adventurous, to be challenging in some way, to give everyone a special unique story to tell that their friends will not truly be able to relate to, no matter how eloquently someone describes the dish. Whether that’s an uncommon cut of meat, or a carrot that has gone through over five steps of processing to taste like nothing you’ve ever eaten before. Of course, like all artists and scientists, chefs want to innovate, but it can often feel like innovating for the sake of it. There’s nothing wrong with that, and you need to experiment to discover something. But I don’t think this is only true of high end food culture - in fact with technology, with endless amounts of information and inspiration available at all times, it seems impossible to stand still, or stop and look backwards much. I wonder if, collectively, it’s starting to get a little tiring. What becomes so refreshing, though, is when innovating brings us closer to our emotional selves, to ‘nature’, and to simple pleasures very viscerally experienced. Instead of constantly innovating for the sake of it, the meal I had at Ark is evidence that some balance is possible, that innovation can also bring comfort and familiarity while doing so in a way that fits contemporary values, lifestyles, and sustainability considerations. I wonder if we will see more of this in 2023, whether it’s in the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the media we consume, or just how we think about our own lives. Personally, I think that is an idea that I would like to take forward into the next year, appreciating things that bring joy and childlike pleasure, without sacrificing who I am now.
*for the record I haven’t eaten meat in over 15 years now, so this is a rare occurrence.
**two words: Apple Jacks. Don’t ask me why.
