The flames burn so bright one can barely see what is going on. Just a moment ago, guests were presented raw oysters in the kitchen of Ekstedt restaurant, “an invasive Pacific species on the west coast of Sweden”, and a few seconds later their surface is caramelized. Burning reindeer tallow was drizzled onto the shellfish through a flambadou, an iron funnel with a long handle. “The tallow can heat up to several hundred degrees.” It is served with beurre blanc, whipped up from butter and the liquid that was collected when the oyster shells were carefully opened.

With dishes such as the “Flambadou Oyster”, Niklas Ekstedt who was born in 1978 and wears a miniature flambadou as a pendant around his neck, has achieved international renown as a “fire chef”. However, it is difficult to believe that he struggles with this attribution despite his success. Ekstedt does not want to be the fire chef but the “chef with different techniques” whose goal it is to prove a thesis. Cooking with fire is merely its by-product. “I want to prove that food tasted better before electricity was invented.” In this endeavor he asked the Royal Library in Stockholm for help in researching how the Vikings cooked and rummaged through old books on household management in search of inspiration, among others. “The library staff were very happy. Finally something exciting to work on!”

All dishes from the Ekstedt kitchen in the center of Stockholm have an additional dimension, making them particularly delicious. For Niklas Ekstedt is not interested in the bold smoke and grill flavors the barbecue generation is longing for at all. In fact, he gets annoyed when he is referred to as “barbecue chef”. If anything, his dishes are enveloped in a delicate veil of multifaceted flavors that are either added or brought to life by fire. Whether it is the perfectly risen porcini mushroom soufflé from the wood-fired oven, the quail cooked in hay with fermented white asparagus or the langoustines, that are bedded on seaweed, cooked over coals and drizzled with pine cone oil using a brush of pine needles. It is the element of fire that ensures that the iodine-rich seaweed gives the crustaceans an additional flavor. Niklas Ekstedt probably thinks of details like these when talking about “different cooking techniques”. With the exception of pepper and chocolate, his ingredients are exclusively Scandinavian and he only uses birch wood.

The element of fire is not only palpable during the guests’ inevitable visit to the kitchen at the beginning. (Afterwards, you will not smell of campfire at all, the ventilation is truly superb.) Later on, too, a lot takes place right in front of their eyes. For the butter course, for example, the service staff drops a piece of glowing coal into a glass jug containing the reduced whey from the butter production supplemented with lovage oil and few minutes later the heated whey is poured around a butter rosette. Then, sourdough bread from the Italian oven is dipped into it.

In the compact kitchen of Ekstedt restaurant, the chefs use bricks to partition their fireplaces as required, moving them around almost every hour. A small closed cooking chamber above their heads is used as a zone for moderate heat, “our Stone Age microwave”, the head chef explains. It is used to cook quails, fish and other foods that are sensitive to heat. The plate warmer is powered with ember, while flambadous, bellows and, above all, numerous cast-iron pots and pans are mounted on the wall. According to Niklas Ekstedt, they are essential for cooking with fire. Just compare dishes that were prepared in these with those from a plastic bag in a sous vide pan. A “plett pan” is used to bake blinis, while the dough balls filled with claw meat and fermented lingonberries are prepared in a “munkepanne” with its hemispherical cavities as the second component of the langoustine course.

Ekstedt has the Argentinian Florencia Abella by his side as head chef, someone deeply accustomed to cooking over open fire. She plays a key role in shaping the culinary style and leads the team with expertise. It is the je ne sais quoi that fascinates Niklas Ekstedt about the element of fire. “You can’t replicate dishes that are cooked on fire with an electric stove.” There is something about fire that cannot be explained. “It’s like listening to the violin playing live. You can’t explain why it sounds better.”