Atelier Food was never meant to be an ordinary restaurant. But Atelier Food is rather a pretty good excuse to use food as tool to develop things, to gather people, to socialize and to experiment. A few weeks ago I had a coffee with Klas Lindberg, the chef of the year a couple of years ago in Sweden, and Johan Agrell, nowadays running Stockholm’s best wine bar, Gaston, and formerly helping Magnus Nilsson to run Fäviken Magasinet.

We said we had to something together. And that this something would be something that could never happen at an ordinary restaurant. So we started that very day to collect. People. Ideas. The next steps. We were curious to see how things would evolve. Instead of starting at the end, a dish, we began with the beginning, with asking others what they would suggest for us to do.

We asked 15 friends to invite 15 friends. To see what mix of people that would create. And then four people were asked to suggest two ingredients each, for four dishes. Carsten Höller suggested rabbit and cabbage. Charlotte Birnbaum suggested liver and thyme. Magnus Nilsson suggested clementine and Brussels sprouts. I suggested herring and oysters. We asked Stefan Sundström to make the playlist for the evening. We asked a lot of the guests to somehow participate even before the dinner…

The way Klas treated to suggestions was incredible. And the wines suggested by Johan as well. It was truly fun. People got to meet. To talk. To participate. And to eat.

So this was the first ever Atelier collezione. It will be followed by many more.

Jan Åman