The Culinary Self of
Kristian Baumann

(Fine Dining) Kristian Baumann had to grow up before he experienced what it felt like to look like everyone else. It was a defining moment, standing in the crowded subway in Seoul during his first trip to Korea—he was in his twenties and already a Michelin-starred chef. That experience deepened his connection to his birth country and profoundly influenced his creative approach. His current restaurant, Koan, located in Copenhagen’s harbor district, is a two-Michelin-starred standout where the two cultures within Baumann—Korean and Danish—are intricately woven together. The multi-course menu at Koan includes dishes like a blossom-topped tartlet with acorn jelly and fermented green strawberries—the jelly, made from acorn starch, is known in forest-rich Korea as dotori-muk, a portable protein source, while the green strawberries are a quintessential “New Nordic” ingredient. Remarkably, Baumann only began embracing his Korean side later in life.

Baumann grew up feeling different. For a long time, he and his sister also adopted from Korea—were the only ones in their hometown outside Copenhagen who visibly stood out. “Only later did an Indian family move in nearby,” he recalls. His biological parents were not a couple, which was socially unacceptable in Korea at the time, Baumann explains. He spent the first four months of his life between his birth mother—whom he calls his “first mother”—foster families, and an orphanage. From there, he was brought to Denmark and named Kristian Baumann by his adoptive parents—his Korean names became his middle names. Adoptions of Korean children were common in Denmark at the time, though not without serious issues, Baumann notes: corruption, forged documents, child abduction, and trafficking. Since 2024, Denmark has banned international adoptions.

A Good Start
“My first mother kept coming back for me, trying again and again to make it possible to raise me. When my son was born, I often looked at him during quiet moments and wondered what she must have felt—how torn she must have been between what our lives could become.” On a trip to Korea, Baumann left a handmade book at the orphanage, filled with photos from his childhood and youth, for his birth mother. “In case she ever looks for me. I want her to know what became of me—and that I had a good start in life.”

Baumann’s childhood included two siblings—an older sister from Korea and, later and unexpectedly, the biological son of his adoptive parents—as well as a garden, chickens, and a summer job picking strawberries. “It was way better than delivering newspapers. I ate as many strawberries as I could while working, and I got paid too.” He was very athletic and tried many sports, but eventually realized he was good at many things, although not the best at any. “And I’m a very sore loser. It’s actually good to know that about yourself. I once entered a cooking competition, didn’t win, and immediately decided: never again!” he recalls.

In his school years, he chose a Danish boarding school with no particular specialization, “except for one thing: discipline. It wasn’t a military school, but if something was scheduled for ten o’clock, it meant ten o’clock—not a second later.” One of the subjects offered was cooking. While most of his classmates saw it as a chore, Baumann enjoyed it. He went on to train at a culinary school and completed internships abroad, including in Italy and the Netherlands. In 2005, he got his foot in the door of a restaurant that would become one of the most influential in the culinary world—Noma in Copenhagen, known for making local, wild ingredients and traditional preservation methods “sexy” again. Other key stops in his career, “to keep it short,” as Baumann repeatedly says in the interview, included Relæ and Manfred’s, both run by Christian Puglisi, a chef who left a lasting impression on him. “Even back then, I kept asking myself: Who am I, really? And how can I express that on the plate? Because I saw something different in myself every time I looked in the mirror.” Baumann began to imagine what a cuisine might look like that reflected him—a Korean-born chef. But Denmark’s culinary scene, aside from New Nordic cuisine, was heavily influenced by French and Italian traditions. “The time just wasn’t right.”

Back to the Source
In 2016, together with Noma’s René Redzepi, Baumann opened 108, often referred to as “Noma’s little sister.” “108 was never meant to be a Michelin-starred restaurant. But six and a half months after opening, we got a star.” After that, Baumann decided it was time to finally travel to Korea. “I wanted to get closer to the country I was born in—many adoptees never do. And for a long time, I simply couldn’t afford it.” He made the trip alone, armed only with a few contacts who introduced him to Korea’s food scene, people, markets, and everything from late-night street food to temple cuisine. “It was an incredibly emotional time,” he says. “I had my book knowledge of Korean cuisine and my Western culinary training—and finally the chance to bring them together… or rather, to learn that Korean cooking is structured completely differently than what we know from France or elsewhere. For a chef, that’s truly exciting.”

Baumann points to the role of jangs—fermented pastes and sauces—or temple cuisine, which is fundamentally different from what’s often labeled “Korean” in the West (think “Korean Fried Chicken”—spicy, garlicky, meaty). “Temple cuisine is vegetarian. Alliums, for example, are forbidden because they’re believed to carry bad energy.”

Energy Work
Speaking of bad energy: when Kristian Baumann got married in February 2020—“on 2.2.2020”—a virus from China was the number one topic at the dinner table. By September of that year, he had to close 108; the COVID-19 pandemic had made it impossible to continue. Yet in the midst of this global crisis, when everything seemed to be working against the restaurant industry, the idea for Koan came to life. During a brief lockdown-free window, he launched his first pop-up, presenting his vision of a cuisine that fused the flavors of Korea and Denmark. He had carried the name in his head for ten years, he says. In Zen Buddhism, a koan is a kind of riddle with no fixed answer.

Forging His Own Path
Kristian Baumann finally opened the current Koan in spring 2023, not far from Copenhagen’s famous Little Mermaid statue. “We were 450 percent over budget,” he recalls. The narrow but tall rooms of the long pier building had previously housed a restaurant—“terribly furnished,” in his opinion. With financial support from family and friends—“we didn’t have a super-rich investor,” unlike other restaurants in Copenhagen—he had the interior redesigned to his vision: bright, linear, with an open kitchen and floor-to-ceiling cabinet doors made of ash wood and rice paper. It’s a space that blends Korean and Danish influences in its aesthetics just as much as in its cuisine.

Shortly after opening, Koan received an invitation to the Scandinavian Michelin gala. “The one-star restaurants were announced, the Green Stars were announced, and Koan wasn’t mentioned. Then came the announcement that Denmark had a new two-star restaurant—and our name appeared on the screen.” This happened just ten weeks after Koan’s launch. The result: pride, relief, and pure joy. “That moment made it clear to me: we can continue on our path—without lunch service and without two evening seatings.”

The First Bites Set the Tone
Even the first morsels at Koan signal the direction of the cuisine. In a traditional Korean brass bowl, you might find a raw Norwegian shrimp wrapped in rose petals with red dates and caramelized seaweed, a tiny Melothria cucumber with fried Korean anchovies and basil blossoms, or a grilled kimchi plum. Absolutely breathtaking: a kind of praline made from house-made silken tofu with pine nut inlays, langoustine, mustard seeds, and intensely aromatic dried strawberries, rolled in caviar from Danish producer Gastrounika. It’s a completely new dish, nourished by multiple culinary traditions.

For a carved kohlrabi rose with white radish kimchi granita—an element inspired by temple cuisine—Baumann searched Korea for the right serving dish and found bowls made from Chinese Ming dynasty shards with newly mounted porcelain tops. The name of this series by a Korean artist: Reborn. It was another goosebump moment when he learned the name, and Baumann immediately shared his story and mission with the dealer.

Like many chefs, Baumann has a special fondness for ceramics. For one of the main courses—a rice bowl accompanied by a variety of banchan, the typical Korean pickled vegetable side dishes—he had to restrain himself. “Normally, you serve them individually in lots of little bowls, but that would be too much for us,” he says, laughing. At Koan, each guest receives no fewer than eleven banchan, ranging from white currant kimchi to cucumber with black garlic to magnolia with yellow tomatoes. “So we arrange them on a square plate and include a labeled guide in a rice paper envelope.”

A Drink to Match
At Koan, the drinks go far beyond Champagne, German Riesling, or Burgundy. Guests are also served soju cocktails, chilled green tea in tiny cups, and Korean rice wine made in Denmark—brewed by Yunguna Brewery using nothing but water, rice, and a special yeast: nuruk.

Two Meals That Changed Everything
There were two restaurant experiences that changed everything for Kristian Baumann. “One was El Bulli by Ferran Adrià, the other was the Jingwansa Temple, 45 minutes outside Seoul. It was so flavorful, so nourishing, so satisfying. And that, even though it was vegan — and I’m a convinced carnivore! It was so tasty, even though the temple cuisine cooks without onion or garlic. Every dish was so simple and yet so incredibly complex. There was fried tofu—but the absolutely perfect fried tofu. A wild-picked shiso leaf and dongchimi, a cooling radish water kimchi.”

Since that experience, Baumann visits as many temples as possible during his trips to Korea. He even spent time with Jeong Kwan, the Buddhist nun made famous by the Netflix series Chef’s Table. “Her pantry alone! There are soy sauces aged for three months, three years, twenty-five years—and everything in between. Then: persimmon vinegar, mandarin vinegar, and so on. When I asked her for a vinegar recipe—and as a chef, you expect precise instructions—she said: sun, air, wind. Every follow-up question got the same answer: sun, air, wind.”

Baumann tasted dried slices of mandarin from a 500-year-old tree—another awakening moment that revealed the potential of drying citrus fruits. “That unexpected freshness of caramelized citrus … I knew immediately: I want to use this in my restaurant.” Those very dried citrus fruits became part of the first rice dish he served at Koan’s opening. That mattered to him. “That ingredient was a reference to my emotions.” It’s a symbol of Kristian Baumann’s late-discovered but deeply felt connection to Korean temple cuisine.