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FINE DINING
PETIT AMOUR
P
assionate
about
prod-
ucts‹?
Although
these
words are often used to
describe chefs, there is
something absurd about
them inasmuch as, if
they don’t use products
to make food, what else are people in
kitchens supposed to use? No-one talks
about tennis stars being ›passionate about
tennis balls‹, after all. Then again, the kit-
chen is not the tennis court, and there is a
broader issue with products inasmuch as
decades of supermarket advertising pro-
moting whole chickens for less than the
price of your average tennis ball mean
that many restaurants have also started
prioritising price when it comes to select-
ing the products they work with. Quality?
Sure, but it shouldn’t cost too much.
The knock-on effect of this is that
a lack of natural flavour has had to be
compensated for with all sorts of kitchen
tricks and fixes.
So when a chef like Boris Kasprik says
that ›it’s all about the products‹, that isn’t
as banal a statement as it may seem.
Kasprik – short blonde hair, angular
glasses, 34 years of age – is part of new
generation of chefs who are going back
to basics. In a time in which a changing
climate is becoming a tangible reality and
we are increasingly becoming aware that
resources are limited, many chefs are
starting to see a broader societal role for
themselves: valuing and respecting food-
stuffs; encouraging people to think about
where the food they eat comes from,
about the conditions in which they would
like it to be produced, and about the fact
that, by and large, good quality simply
cannot be had at rock-bottom prices.
Not that Kasprik sticks, like many other
young chefs in Germany today, to a radic-
ally regional concept; as far as he is con-
cerned, a tomato doesn’t have to be grown
on a field within sight of his restaurant
to taste good. What is more important to
Kasprik is the quality of the products which
find their way onto his chopping board: »I
am passionate about products. It’s almost
a fetish,« confides the Hamburg chef; and
no country awakens his product passions
as much as France. »It’s simply the case
that the things I like to cook – artichokes,
for instance, or turbot, shellfish, poultry –
are at their best there.« Accordingly, his
Michelin-starred restaurant Petit Amour
in Hamburg’s laid-back, villagey Othmar-
schen area, is a homage to French cook-
ery. It’s a small, unpretentious corner
space which aims for big cuisine: Kasprik,
born and raised in Hamburg, worked for
star chef Alain Ducasse in Paris, and in
his tiny kitchen, he works on refining and
reinterpreting what he learned there and
elsewhere during the years he spent in
kitchens in Germany, Belgium, and Japan.
Asked to describe his own cookery, Kasprik
opts for »contemporary, premium, but
harmonious«. His philosophy is that, al-
though, both as a chef and a host, there
is always room for improvement, always
reason to re-examine what you do, there
is also no need to reinvent the wheel: »Just
as a good wheel is always round, so a good
dish always needs a good sauce; certain
combinations of flavours – crustaceans
and peas, for example – always work well
together, too. That’s why you’ll often find
them together in my dishes.«
As a general rule, Kasprik likes to de-
velop two new menus per season, taking
account of the weather each year. He
gets weekly deliveries from France –
and is aware that this expands his car-
bon footprint, which he tries to rein in
in other areas: »Where I can, I go local.
German onions are generally just as good
as French ones.« And then there’s the
German foible for mineral water: »I don’t
see the point to having water driven up
from Italy like many restaurants do. All
you need is a water filter: what comes out
of the tap Hamburg is excellent.«
Just to make sure that the same ap-
plies to his other products, once a year,
Kasprik jumps in his car and heads south
for a week’s camping. It’s a rare break
from what is no easy job: as well as cook-
ing, running a restaurant means being
a boss, a caretaker, an accountant, and
a sommelier, too. And when so he’s on
holiday, Kasprik visits producers such as
vineyards, lobster catchers, and oyster
famers to get a better understanding of
these ingredients.
Two highlights among these journeys
of culinary discovery were when went
out searching for truffles – in Piemont
with an Italian who had trained a dog and
in Périgord with a Frenchman who pre-
ferred to use a pig. »It was a very inter-
esting to compare the two,« he says, »and
I learned that dogs will start barking at
each and every truffle, whether ripe or
not, because they are hoping for a re-
ward. The pig, however, only goes for the
ripe ones it wants to eat itself.«
If that level of detail sounds somewhat
nerdy, it’s probably worth remembering
that it is precisely this depth of know-
ledge which distinguishes truly excellent
chefs from the merely competent.
Boris Kasprik kocht so, dass Gäste
jedes einzelne Produkt erkennen. /
Boris Kasprik cooks in such a
way as every ingredient remains
recognisable.
PASSIONATE
ABOUT
PRODUCTS
In his
Petit Amour
restaurant,
Hamburg’s
Boris Kasprik
lets traditional
French cooking
and quality
products do
the talking –
and can
sometimes
be found
searching
for truffles
himself.
Das schicke Lokal liegt im unprä-
tentiösen Ottensen. / His stylish
restaurant is located in Hamburg’s
laid-back Ottensen district.
›
