marc kaalund

Marc Kaalund, the surprisingly young assistant head chef of Restaurant Fru Larsen has always loved to compete. In fact, he was only a year into his culinary apprenticeship when he entered his first cooking competition. “I placed 11th in the semi finals,” he recalls with a smile. “And unfortunately, only the ten best made it into the finals. But I eventually got in on an remitment, and I ended up placing first overall,” he says with an accomplished grin.

”I am not old enough to have experienced the 1992 Euro Football Championships where the Danish national team pulled off much the same feat. But I recall thinking that the feeling must have been about the same back then,” he laughs heartedly. ”I still remember they thrill of winning. It was a fantastic feeling and it deeply inspired me.”

HAPPINESS is key

As with his sense for competition, the charismatic chef got his passion for cooking early in life, and it came mainly from his bigger brother who is also a chef. “My brother is seven years older than me,” he starts his trip down memory lane. “When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, he would come home from school with drawings of the food he wanted to prepare the next day. His passion quickly rubbed off on me,” says the young chef whose newfound passion in life was not always met with enthusiasm from his peers.

“Throughout my school years, I have met a lot of resistance to the idea,” he explains. “Why would I want to become a chef,” he asks rhetorically. “Your grades are so good,” he mimics his peers mockingly. “Truth be told, I have never wanted to just sit in an office all day. I felt a need to work with my hands. To create something. Something that reflected me. And on top of that, people simply should not tell me what to do. There is an attitude in me, but still more than anything, I am just a happy person who wants to make people happy, myself happy first and foremost.”

And that something, that state of happiness, seems to be what promises to be a long, shining career in the kitchen. If his first years in the industry are anything to go by. Again, he started early. At Varna Palæet in Aarhus where he worked as a kitchen helper before even entering culinary school. Yet, he also determinedly moved on to newer and greener pastures, he surmises. “I actually thought I would do my internship at Varna,” he recalls. “They treated me well, but by a stroke of luck, I ended up getting a call from Tomy Friis at Fru Larsen, my hometown restaurant.”

finding the right mentors

“He offered me an internship and it was easy for me at the time to just move back home and start there,” he shrugs as if this was somehow a decisive factor of his future. “And I quickly discovered that Fru Larsen was a great place for me to shine. Tommy, the head chef, had amazing passion. He loved quality produce, determination and technique. If my big brother was my mentor on a personal level, Tommy Friis became my professional mentor. I still talk to him a lot. He is a bit of a father figure for me. He taught me to be grounded, and to be Myself.”

It was also Tommy who taught a still young Marc Kaalund about personality in cooking. That your cooking should not only reflect the best you can do culinarily but your personality as well. It should show respect for the produce you have been given and make it shine in your own image. But perhaps even more importantly in this context, it was Tommy who first introduced Marc to a new thrill in life, competitive cooking.

“I have always enjoyed the competitive element of cooking,” he states with no uncertain amount of certainty, but admits that it has taken a back seat to other things in life for the past few years. As he has excelled quickly in the ranks to be a leader of a kitchen himself, and has even served as a sort of mentor himself to even younger talent trying to break into the Industry.

“I have been working as head chef for three years now. Being a good chef is one thing, an entirely different thing is learning to work with people. People are important resources in this industry and should be treated well,” he nods. Revealing in a sobering display of maturity for his age, that rather than being competitive, learning to work with people is something that has already taken up a lot of space in his career. “There will always be examples of bad leadership,” he admits, “it is impossible to change.

But if you do not start with yourself, things will never get better. I have worked with myself as a person, I have taken leadership courses, I thought about people, not food. Yet, at the same time,” he says full of determination, “I have missed competitive cooking. I have missed focusing on the food and showing off my culinary talents. I am a highly competitive person after all, and it is good to be back”

Painting a better picture of the industry

As such, participating in the 2022 edition of Sol Over Gudhjem Rising Star seems a perfect opportunity for Marc Kaalund to get back in the game of competitive cooking. “It is a great way to challenge myself again,” he says, “and to compete in other ways than I am used to.” There is more time pressure in Sol Over Gudhjem Rising Star than in most competitions, he argues. More elements of surprise, he adds. “One of the dishes will be entirely unknown to us aspiring, young chefs as we enter into the competition,” he says with an unexpected level of excitement. “As chefs, we like to plan and put things into boxes. Suddenly having a completely unknown factor. That is quite a challenge,” he grins. “Really, what I like here is that it forces us to think outside the box.”

Another thing he loves about the competition, he quickly adds, is its defining purpose; hailing upcoming talent. That it by no means seeks to showcase established or well-known chefs, but rather paints a picture of the hopeful talent to come. “I enjoy that they shine the light on we unknown chefs,” says Marc, “and if I can help inspire others by playing a part and doing the best I can, that is only better. I would love to show people that there is a place for every aspiring chef personality out there and that you should pursue your dreams, whatever they may be. There is absolutely nothing wrong with working in a cafeteria, a bistro, or anywhere else in the trade for that matter,” he nods.

“My passion may have always been fine dining, locality, and sustainability. I find inspiration in nature. I keep things looking natural. And I work with flavors. I love working with vegetables and making them shine while at the same time not changing their appearance too much. The bitterness of cabbage, the sweetness of apples. I love vegetables. But that does not mean it is the only true way in which things should be done. There are so many styles in cooking. What is important is that you feel the passion of the chef and the inspiration, whatever the style may be. And what is even more important is that you feel the passion of the business.”

“It is such a wonderful business,” he finishes, his coming-of-age story. “I love the business and would love to see more people seek into it. Sol Over Gudhjem Rising Star is a perfect opportunity for the prospects of this business to shine. This is not a perfect business, it is not all roses. But we as chefs and new talent can do our utmost to make it better in the future and to paint a more positive image. An even better image of an industry that takes talent seriously while looking to things like organic produce and sustainability as the waves of the future.”