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I never planned on becoming a chef. I didn’t grow up pulling at my mother’s apron strings, watch Jacques Pepin, or take the initiative to cook at Scout camp. I became a chef out of necessity when a friend asked if I wanted a job and I couldn’t say no. After that, I spent a few years in fine dining trying to validate my career choice. I left a job at a good restaurant for a position at a two-star restaurant for the same reason — to see if I could convince myself that I was serious about being a chef.
It happened that my girlfriend got to study abroad in Germany during summer 2019 and invited me to join her. This was not something I could say no to. And so it would be: I would quit, spend a month or two with her on holiday… and then what? I decided that I would stage somewhere. The cuisine did not matter, it meant more to me to have the opportunity to work in Europe. I spent a few days thinking about and researching which restaurants to write to and I kept coming back to Fäviken, that fine-dining restaurant in the middle of nowhere. So, I wrote to them first.
I first read about Magnus Nilsson and Fäviken a couple of years before in an article about the unsustainable nature of working in fine dining. That article resonated with me as I was regularly putting in 60-hour workweeks and did not have time for much else. I spent a week revising my cover letter and going over my CV. I stayed up until 3 in the morning to hit send on the email so that the chef would see it arrive in his inbox at 9 in the morning in Sweden. Looking back, I realized I could have scheduled the email. A couple of days later, I woke to a response thanking me for my inquiry and asking if I had a time that I was wishing to stage. Naturally, I could not say no to such an opportunity.
My stage at Fäviken lasted three months, from late summer to early fall. I observed the slow creep of the seasons foraging for fireweed flowers. Harvested fresh greens and flowers. Found the occasional wild strawberry. We foraged for birch twigs for the oyster dish or perfect birch leaves for another dish. It was a unique, unforgettable experience to work and live with some of the best chefs and cooks in the world.
On Mondays, we would go out and look for juniper branches for the scallop dish. They had to be perfect, meaning free of seeds, brown needles, the correct shape and structure, resembling a Christmas tree, and the right length – about the distance between my elbow and the middle of my palm. We would go to different patches in the area, walk around in the mountains, revisit some patches that had been picked over some time ago. You could tell by seeing notched branches. From time to time, we had to crunch through brush. After gathering enough branches, we would drive to a nearby lake or river, build a fire and cook kolbullar (hunting bread) with whatever vegetables we had on hand and enjoy being in nature. I actually looked forward to these Mondays.
After we got home with the juniper, it was the chinaware stagier’s responsibility to sort and pair the juniper branches, like branches with like, trimming the branches if necessary, and then identifying the strongest branch in the pair and inserting a small paper square in that spot: this is where the coal would be placed when the scallop was being served. We were required to have 15 pairs, 12 or 13 for service and then a few backups. The dirty secret of juniper branch foraging: we would save the other branch and take it home to try and reuse in a new pairing.
When we returned to the restaurant on Tuesday, one of the jobs was to go out into a mossy field with the plate we would use for the scallops and a bread knife and cut out some moss. We had ten minutes to gather fifteen pieces of moss. They had to be aesthetically pleasing, could not have too many leaves or berries on them, and they had to be firm enough to support the juniper branches. Once we had the sufficient number of moss plates, we would ask one of the chefs to come and pick us up, and then we would wait. After we got back to the kitchen, I had to quickly work to trim the excess earth, shape the moss to the plate, make sure it was an appropriate height, that the moss did not spill over the rim of the plate, trim any dead or stray grasses and branches, all the while constantly spritzing the moss with water to keep it hydrated as it sat during the day.
The rest of my usual projects at Fäviken revolved around helping the assistant head chef, Zeke, with the day-to-day, or helping the sous chef, Mattia. Whenever Magnus was in the kitchen, he carried himself with gravitas and composure and would allow himself to relax at the lunch table. It was not so much that you spoke to him as he spoke to you.
During our weekends, we would drive around the countryside and explore different lakes, build fires, go hiking or foraging for berries. Swedes take pride in foraging, as they have a cultural mindset of preserving the bounty of the short growing season for the long, dark winter. It also helps that Sweden allows people the freedom to roam and forage.
I remember one evening we decided to look for cloudberries, which can be found in cool temperate regions. These berries are uncommon and widely regarded in Scandinavia for their tart yet floral flavor profile. We spent an hour walking around a nature preserve only to come back with ten cloudberries. As Tim Russ famously said in Spaceballs, “we ain’t found shit!” It turned out that we were a little too early in the season for cloudberries.
Mushroom foraging is just as popular during the fall and one of the best ways to be in nature. If you ask a Swede where their best spots are chances are, if they tell you at all, they’re sending you on a wild goose chase. Chanterelles, hedgehog and Karljohansvamp (porcini) are among the most prized mushrooms to collect in the fall. My friend and I spent a few afternoons looking for mushrooms, both conventional and hallucinogenic. Our best afternoon consisted of randomly finding a good patch of ramaria and hedgehog mushrooms. We also came across puffball mushrooms that we decided to leave in the ground because we did not know enough about that particular cultivar, whether it would still be edible or if it had already become poisonous. If I had my druthers, it would be to die in Sweden from a moose rather than a bad mushroom.
Mushroom foraging is just as popular during the fall and one of the best ways to be in nature. If you ask a Swede where their best spots are chances are, if they tell you at all, they’re sending you on a wild goose chase. Chanterelles, hedgehog and Karljohansvamp (porcini) are among the most prized mushrooms to collect in the fall. My friend and I spent a few afternoons looking for mushrooms, both conventional and hallucinogenic. Our best afternoon consisted of randomly finding a good patch of ramaria and hedgehog mushrooms. We also came across puffball mushrooms that we decided to leave in the ground because we did not know enough about that particular cultivar, whether it would still be edible or if it had already become poisonous. If I had my druthers, it would be to die in Sweden from a moose rather than a bad mushroom.
When it came to psilocybin, I did not have much success except for one time. I had just finished showing a new stagier how to gather moss. We were waiting by the side of the road for one of the chefs to pick us up and drive us back to the restaurant. I was looking along the ground and noticed some wilted, black and frozen mushrooms. I quickly consulted a website, which confirmed my suspicions. I gathered as many of these as I could and I told her that these mushrooms were likely what I thought they were, and she helped grab a handful. My friend and I were able to bring some home and let them dry out. We waited for a weekend where there would not be much to do and I grounded the mushrooms through a sieve into some hot water and mixed it with lemon juice. Suffice to say, the mushrooms were still potent and it was an interesting few hours in.
When it came to psilocybin, I did not have much success except for one time. I had just finished showing a new stagier how to gather moss. We were waiting by the side of the road for one of the chefs to pick us up and drive us back to the restaurant. I was looking along the ground and noticed some wilted, black and frozen mushrooms. I quickly consulted a website, which confirmed my suspicions. I gathered as many of these as I could and I told her that these mushrooms were likely what I thought they were, and she helped grab a handful. My friend and I were able to bring some home and let them dry out. We waited for a weekend where there would not be much to do and I grounded the mushrooms through a sieve into some hot water and mixed it with lemon juice. Suffice to say, the mushrooms were still potent and it was an interesting few hours in.
Hunting is part and parcel of living in Sweden, as people will head into the woods for hare, capercaillie or moose beginning in late August. The restaurant closed for two weeks so the groundskeepers could gather some of the proteins that we would need later in the year. During that time, the stagiers and some of the chefs were put to work to deep clean and organize the root cellar, the dry storage, and the kitchens.
A normal day started with the stagiers and some of the chefs changing into our whites and setting up the kitchen as we usually did: putting out a folded towel, a bowl of coarse sea salt, the scrap bucket, a spray bottle of white vinegar and tasting spoons while someone else started the electric kettle and pulled the milk from the refrigerator so we could enjoy fika – the Swedish attitude of making time to enjoy a cup of coffee or perhaps a sweetroll with friends and coworkers – during the morning lineup. The kitchen was also very spartan: white tile, steel cabinets, a flattop, Combi oven and, the centerpiece of the kitchen, the grill and a pass with a heated box for plates. There would be some prep work carried out in the morning, mainly fermentation and drying projects, but the majority of the mise for dinner service would be done between 4 and 6:30pm to ensure freshness. I particularly enjoyed being in that kitchen in the mornings because the windows offered a pastoral scene: a clear view of the local mountain, as well as the rolling fields and forests of the Fäviken estate.
Hunting is part and parcel of living in Sweden, as people will head into the woods for hare, capercaillie or moose beginning in late August. The restaurant closed for two weeks so the groundskeepers could gather some of the proteins that we would need later in the year. During that time, the stagiers and some of the chefs were put to work to deep clean and organize the root cellar, the dry storage, and the kitchens.
A normal day started with the stagiers and some of the chefs changing into our whites and setting up the kitchen as we usually did: putting out a folded towel, a bowl of coarse sea salt, the scrap bucket, a spray bottle of white vinegar and tasting spoons while someone else started the electric kettle and pulled the milk from the refrigerator so we could enjoy fika – the Swedish attitude of making time to enjoy a cup of coffee or perhaps a sweetroll with friends and coworkers – during the morning lineup. The kitchen was also very spartan: white tile, steel cabinets, a flattop, Combi oven and, the centerpiece of the kitchen, the grill and a pass with a heated box for plates. There would be some prep work carried out in the morning, mainly fermentation and drying projects, but the majority of the mise for dinner service would be done between 4 and 6:30pm to ensure freshness. I particularly enjoyed being in that kitchen in the mornings because the windows offered a pastoral scene: a clear view of the local mountain, as well as the rolling fields and forests of the Fäviken estate.
During the hunting season, the chef started off the lineup with some friendly chatter before directing the some of us to grab hotel pans and Lexan tubs from the storage closet and head towards the prep kitchen. I had no idea what would be in store until we filed into the cooling room and started grabbing bins of carrots. It suddenly made sense why we had received 20 kilograms (44lbs) of carrots a few days prior.
A couple of the stagiers would sort through the carrots and give them to us to scrub with a nail brush. The bristles would allow us to remove all the dirt while preserving the appearance of the carrot.
While scrubbing the carrots, I remembered another article that I’d read about Fäviken after I accepted this stage. The chefs were preparing asparagus for a dish and, even with a deft touch, peeling the asparagus still removes too much of the stalk. Magnus’ solution to the problem was to scrub the asparagus with a sponge. This preserves the natural aesthetically pleasing shape of the vegetable.
I remember making a request to play “Friday” by Rebecca Black on a portable speaker, as we were doing this on a Friday. It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday… If that’s not the official anthem of Fridays, then I don’t know what is. I know that the rest of the stagiers got a kick out of it.
We worked like this for a day and a half, all the stagiers, some of the chefs, Victor the gardener and Yasin the dishwasher, all sorting, scrubbing and jarring carrots. Jarring was relatively straightforward: we would tare the glass jars, add the carrots and water, weigh it again and then add 3% of the weight in salt.
We were slowly reassigned to other projects as we started running out of carrots. I was directed to sort and vacuum pack 30 boxes of apples. Spending my 30th summer inside of a barn in Sweden, scrubbing carrots with chefs from China, Estonia, Ireland, Australia, Germany, Brazil and elsewhere, I was struck with a profound sadness that this moment would never repeat, until we moved on to scrubbing cucumbers.
Some people were sent to the charcuterie operation, which ended up being relaxing, compared to working at the restaurant. Others foraged for berries over a couple days. After a few days that were filled with a myriad of other cleaning, foraging and inventory projects, we were all rewarded with a week off to rest and travel.
These ingredients would find their way into various dishes over the last few months of the restaurant’s life cycle. The fermented carrots that we worked so hard on were part of the first bites and were served with cognacmedwurst (a Jämtish sausage). The frozen apples would be placed into a wooden press in the dining room and be slowly pressed during service to make apple juice to be paired with a dessert during the fall and winter seasons.
After my stage ended, I returned to Washington, DC to work at minibar by José Andrés, a two-star restaurant with a focus on avant-garde cuisine and molecular gastronomy. I spent six months on the morning prep team until I was furloughed when the restaurant industry and the rest of the country shut down due to coronavirus. I am now the sous chef at Mozzeria, a Deaf-owned, operated and staffed pizzeria. My experience at Fäviken sharpened my sense of urgency during prep, instilled in me high expectations for the quality of my work, as well as the attitude that no task is too small or big or unnecessary as it is all for the guest. I make sure that every move I make flows into the next move, that I collect as much of my mise in as few trips as possible to maximize my time. All of these experiences have made me a much more critical chef, which may not always sit well with my subordinates, but they will learn.
These stories are but some of the many, wonderful memories that I have of my time in Sweden. The restaurant has since closed, Magnus has written another cookbook and is now directing MAD Academy, a culinary think tank. My friends and chefs have now scattered to the winds. Fäviken will always remain a special time and place in my heart. Oh, and if you are ever wondering what to do if you encounter a moose while foraging in the woods? The best advice is to run. 
