Fusion: the restaurant will combine Nordic and Asian influences
(Picture: Natasha Alipour Faridani)One of the world’s most acclaimed chefs has revealed more details about his debut London opening, which is launching at Harrods later this year.
Björn Frantzén, who presently operates two three Michelin star restaurants, will welcome the public at Studio Frantzén from November 28. The opening is a reasonably large one, with room for 112 over two stories; besides the main dining space, there will be a bar and rooftop terrace.
Frantzén is best known for his eponymous restaurant in Stockholm, which placed 25 on this year’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, as well as his Singaporean outpost, Zén. Accordingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Studio Frantzén looks as if it will take inspiration from both, with cooking a neo Nordic-Asian hybrid.
It’s expected that Frantzén will use traditional Nordic techniques, with preserved foods featuring, some dishes smoked and much cooked over open fire. Dishes will include a tartar of tuna and red deer, with roe, white kombu, wasabi-infused cultured cream, fermented Mirabelle plum and warm ginger butter — said to be one of the chef’s signatures — as well as a Japanese twist on the Caesar salad, called the salad Bonito-Caesar, alongside the likes of quail with dried spruce and bee pollen, vanilla and black pepper emulsion, and a Swedish beef brisket that is salted, preserved, braised and cooked for eight hours before it makes it to the table.
While his first restaurant opening in London, the launch marks something of a return to the capital for Frantzén, who spent his early career here, cooking in both Pied à Terre — London’s longest standing Michelin-starred restaurant — and Chez Nico, where Marco Pierre White once trained.
Frantzén said of his forthcoming opening: “The UK was my home for a long time, and the experience that I gained here early on my career played an informative role in my education as a chef.
“I am overwhelmingly proud to be back in London, one of the most interesting cities in the world, to open my restaurant at Harrods.”
Studio Frantzén marks another step in what might be seen as a culinary overhaul for the famous department store; in the past couple of years, the shop has relaunched its eating and drinking offering, and now has six restaurants in its dining hall, including one from Tom Kerridge.
