Frederikshøj aims to be a gastronomic stronghold worldwide
Few people with even a slight interest in food and gastronomy wouldn’t know who Wassim Hallal is. The star chef from the restaurant Frederikshøj in Aarhus, who with Wassim at the helm, earned a Michelin star and put Aarhus on the gastronomic map of Denmark.
“I am a man with a great passion for cooking, and food is the foundation of my life,” he says.
Wassim Hallal grew up in Thy and started his apprenticeship at the age of 15. He trained at Hotel Limfjorden and has since worked at several major restaurants in Denmark, including d’Angleterre, Formel B, and Molskroen.
“I have always been interested in cooking and gastronomy, and that’s why I jumped into the industry when I was relatively young,” he says.
Wassim Hallal joined Frederikshøj in 2009 and since then, among other achievements, has had the restaurant named ‘Restaurant of the Year’ in the Danish Dining Guide, become one of the first outside of Copenhagen to receive a Michelin star, and turned the restaurant into a multi-million dollar business. At the beginning of the year, Frederikshøj won ‘Dessert of the Year’ and ‘Caviar Service of the Year’ in the Danish Dining Guide, while the sister restaurant anx won in the ‘Open Sandwich of the Year’ category.
Although things are going well for Frederikshøj, the ambitions are high. Wassim Hallal dreams of putting the restaurant on the global agenda.
“Frederikshøj should be a gastronomic stronghold, both domestically and ideally also internationally,” he says.
We ask – Wassim answers
What is his best memory from the kitchen, what are the ambitions for Frederikshøj, and what is Wassim Hallal’s favorite ingredient? We ask and he answers.
Education?
I am a trained chef.
Why did you become a chef?
I did it because I was interested in home economics as a teenager. I jumped early into the industry, and it turned out the interest remained. It particularly sparked my interest that no two days were alike.
As a person, I’m curious about making things work together while having variety so you don’t experience the same thing every day. That’s the same thing that attracts me to the chef profession.
Have you always been interested in cooking and gastronomy?
I became a chef apprentice when I was 15, so yes.
How has your journey been to what you do today?
When I started being a chef, there wasn’t much positive talk about being a high-gastronomy chef. Today, many are trying to elevate the industry. Many chefs pop up and then disappear again after two years. I feel that the generation of chefs I popped up with is still here. But the journey to where I am has been long and hard. It’s a mission, and it’s been a long, tough battle.
What are the ambitions for Frederikshøj?
They are as they always have been: we must always make ourselves better every day we go to work.
We should be a high-gastronomy stronghold, both in Jutland and Aarhus, but also ideally throughout Denmark and internationally. The ambitions are also for it to be a profitable business because I own Frederikshøj. But I think those two things go well together.
What is your best memory from the kitchen?
There are many of them. But the best feeling in a kitchen is when a service is well-overcome. Before service, you have a bit of a vision that a service is unreal because there are many people, many dishes, and many things that need to succeed. It seems like something that can’t happen. When it succeeds, it’s like a feeling of happiness goes out of the balloon.
What dish do you like to make the most?
The dish I like to make the most is risotto. Preferably with chicken, completely plain or with langoustine. I don’t always have langoustine in the fridge, so I often make it with chicken and mushrooms.
What is your show-off dish?
At home, I really like to make a whole turbot, either bake or steam it. Then I will whisk a good sauce emulsion and make some good vegetables with it. It can be asparagus or potatoes when they are in season, or peas when they are in season.
At Frederikshøj, we have a dish that has won ‘Caviar Service of the Year’ in the Danish Dining Guide. It’s with caviar and lemon, and visually it’s a slice of lemon with caviar in it, but where the caviar symbolizes the seeds in the lemon. That dish really hits the mark in my kitchen right now.
Do you have a favorite cuisine?
I generally live a complicated life in my kitchen at Frederikshøj, so when I eat otherwise, I want it to be uncomplicated. Therefore, Asian and Italian cuisine are my favorites. The Italian kitchen is raw, simple, and flavorful. The Asian also has lots of taste, and you often use different sauces and salts. They have different things, and I like that.
What is your favorite dish?
Risotto – if it must be. I usually say that my favorite dish is food, as there’s nothing I like more than another. I like it all. But a good risotto I will always gladly sink my teeth into.
What is your favorite ingredient?
A potato. It is a vegetable that is complex in many things. It is incredibly difficult to explore all its properties. You can use the starch in the potato or you can soak it and use it by itself. There are many things in a potato that can get the creative brain going.
One thing you always have in your fridge?
A tin of caviar. I like caviar, so instead of salt, I can top the dish with such a spoonful.
Where and when were you last impressed by a dining experience outside?
We don’t get out much these days, but I have just been up with one of my good friends, Bo Bech, and had a fantastic meal with him and two others. It was an adventurous dinner where Bo made ten different small dishes, different vegetables, there was entrecôte and lovely accompaniments.
Do you have a favorite restaurant?
I like to eat at Tickets in Barcelona. It’s a restaurant I enjoy visiting, especially because my children love the surprise Tickets gives them when they come. It’s not necessarily the food, but the experience.
What type of knife do you use the most?
A chef’s knife at 27 centimeters with a very thin blade. For me, the most important kitchen tool is a good, sharp knife. Then you can have all sorts of other things too, but if you don’t have a sharp knife, then the other is insignificant.
Which machine is your favorite?
It must be a blender that blends with heat. The one we use the most in the restaurant is called a HotmixPRO. For private use, it’s known as a thermomixer.
It can do most things, but what I use it for is making purees from vegetables. You don’t need to cook the vegetables first, but you can cook the puree in the machine and retain the complex flavor that the vegetables have.
Which kitchen machine do you have a strained relationship with?
I don’t have such a machine because it wouldn’t be in my kitchen. However, a deep fryer could well be done without in the kitchen of gastronomy, if you ask me.
What will be the next thing from your hand?
I have an incredible number of projects in the pipeline, I just need to be allowed to do them.
At Frederikshøj, we have spent the time learning new techniques, so when we start again, it’s with a completely new menu.
I am very much looking forward to welcoming our guests again. It has been a tough time for me, but it has also been a really tough time for my staff. Seeing them a bit dimmed in their eyes because they live and burn for cooking. We are not a people who are comfortable just sitting on the couch waiting for someone to cook for us.
The most important and the happiest thing will be seeing the joy in my staff’s eyes again.
Facts
Name: Wassim Hallal
Age: 40 years
City: Aarhus
Owner and head chef at Frederikshøj in Aarhus, as well as anx, which is a lunch restaurant.
Frederikshøj, under Wassim’s leadership, earned a Michelin star in 2015. It has been maintained every year since.
In early 2021, Frederikshøj won ‘Dessert of the Year’ and ‘Caviar Service of the Year’ in the Danish Dining Guide, while anx won in the ‘Open Sandwich of the Year’ category.
Wassim Hallal has previously worked at, among others, d’Angleterre, Formel B, and Molskroen. Under Wassim Hallal’s leadership, Molskroen was named ‘Restaurant of the Year’ in 2006 and ‘Aarhus’ Best Restaurant’ the following year.
Find Frederikshøj on Instagram at @frederikshoj and Frederikshøj anx at @frederikshoj_anx.
Photo: Rais Foto