Vitenparken

“Even though we have a hard time turning around completely, we have to try to twist a little at least!”

Chef Willy at Andedammen cafe and restaurant Vitenparken looks like he's tearing his hair a little as he lifts his cap and runs his fingers through it. We're talking about the future and about food. The wall behind is decorated with one of radical artist Banksy's most iconic street art images; another person in a cap, with a scarf over his mouth and nose, about to throw a bouquet of flowers as if it were a Molotov cocktail. First painted twenty years ago on a wall in the occupied West Bank. When I talk to Willy I get a clue as to why it now also adorns the short wall of his office. It smells of smoke. There's a revolution going on here!

Diversity, like a multi-headed troll

In the café, keyboards are rattling, tables are buzzing and glasses are clinking. The espresso machine is steaming. People from all over Campus Ås and the locals meet here over good food and drink. Much of it is home-grown at VitenEnga, the Science Park and NMBU's own school and market garden a stone's throw from the café. Or brewed in the basement, in the science centre's own microbrewery " Parken ".

Well-prepared plates are brought out. The kitchen serves food on several levels here. Both on floors, in the many meeting rooms and halls of the Science Park, but also in complexity. From fresh baguettes in a glass case to fine dining for over a hundred guests. There is a la carte and buffet. Parties, a bar and a café with sweet pastries. In addition, they often fire up the wood-fired pizza ovens or the grill on the large outdoor terrace that is idyllically located by the duck pond. The local landmark from which the café takes its name. A kitchen with diverse levels of activity, just like nature.

“It's quite unique. There are many restaurants that grow their own food, brew their own drinks and promote it, like ours. It may not be so easy to see and I don't think many people know it, but it should at least be tasted and seen on the plate! Here you get proper food, made with good ingredients,” he says bombastically.

Willy has the main responsibility for both the kitchen, the café and the brewery. They are not large in area, but make up for it in activity. The location provides an excellent opportunity to communicate and inspire for a greener world. Provide ripple effects far beyond Andedammen. Surrounded by the latest research on sustainability and with enthusiasm for communicating it. The audience is served both seminars, science weekends and dishes that highlight food and climate-related topics. Such as composting food waste as a resource for new food production or that we must eat more Norwegian-produced plant protein, seaweed, green, local and smart.

“10 out of 15 dishes on the menu are now vegetarian.” He flicks through the new menu proposal. “But you don’t necessarily notice it. One of my favorite ingredients, porcini mushrooms, has fooled several carnivores here! Umami, the fifth sense of taste, has to be included.”

He leans back. There's more being added to the basket. It's not just food they serve here.

“We make excellent sourdough pizza using our own culture, but you can also take a course in how to make it. Or something else. There are things happening in the evenings too. For example, our regular music quiz every second Friday of the month.”

Don Willy crosses his arms in a mafioso manner, revealing a tattoo on his right arm; “667, the Neighbour of the Beast.” A reference that could have been a quiz question in itself. We are going to the British Isles, heavy metal and a decade that, according to the kitchen's frontman, historically produced some of the best music. That he contributes the questions that are in the more “heavy” quiz categories is not surprising.

Past, future and merger

On the bookshelf are titles such as “Grandma’s Fruit and Berries” and “A Day at elBulli”, the famous Spanish restaurant that started the wave of molecular gastronomy. Traditions and innovation on the same level. Here they are mixed to create new taste experiences. More food in monitor!

The desktop background on the computer screen is a picture of a pot roast from when they make red cabbage from scratch for Christmas.

Even though it says “I don't work here” on his coffee cup, I get the feeling that I'm talking to someone who really works and is passionate about good food.

There should be a thought behind it and it should give you a thought afterwards. Thought. Whether it's traditional dishes or the food of the future. Yes, you can even get it with yesterday's food. "Save me!" You get it at a reduced price. Here the focus is clearly on food waste. Less waste. The leftovers from the brewery, the coffee grounds from the cafe and the vegetable scraps from the kitchen go back to the garden, are composted and become nutrition for new food. Circular and local resource utilization.

However, he is clear that there is always room for improvement. What is sustainable is constantly evolving and it is important to stay up to date. Adapting to local conditions. The context in which you stand and move. That is one of the reasons why he applied to the MAD Academy in Denmark. Founded by, among others, René Redzepi from NOMA (voted the world's best restaurant for several years), it will, through training, contribute to service institutions radically changing how they relate to people and nature in a sustainable direction. He is now a student there on an intensive five-day course together with an international selection, in addition to steering the ship in the kitchen. It is clear that he has been inspired.

“They took us to an organic industrial area in the north of Zealand. Absolutely crazy. There were breweries and processors here. All with a focus on sustainability. We were shown around and taken on a gathering tour in the surrounding nature. They showed us what we could pick and when they were at peak taste in development and should be harvested. It was clear and practical proof that we can change the systems we work in. It is possible!” Willy almost boils over, is back on the road to the facts and feeds himself with an imaginary, wild growth.

Back to “the Flower Thrower”. Climate change is storming towards us and it is burning both in the kitchen and in the toilet. What we eat and what we throw away puts red numbers in the climate calculators. Willy wants to pave the way and show that we can make a difference.

“We have to change tracks. Become more aware of what we eat. How we behave towards nature. We have an insanely great responsibility towards the generations that come after us. They don't throw away bottles. They have the logic inside. We are the ones who roll down the window in the fossil car and do it.”

Although changing the world is not done overnight, we can make it more livable – one bite at a time.

The season's snaggletooth

The kitchen fan is whistling and I get associations with wind and autumn storms. He waves me into the kitchen, lines up soup plates on the steel counter and pours in something creamy that has a value that in Jotun's color palette is referred to as “Sisal”. A muted yellow-brown gray tone. It is topped with pieces of something darker, a stol brown. This is where the smoky smell comes from! There are pieces of smoked portobello mushrooms that are paired with a soft, slightly acidic mushroom soup. Balanced and delicious. It tastes a little traditional, but also surprisingly exciting. It is almost the season for forest.

“We are working on a new menu for the fall. Now there will be seasonal menus. This will probably be one of the soups. Have you puffed buckwheat before?” With an experienced arm, Willy grinds out cooked grains on a tray that is fed into the dehydrator. I don’t have time to answer before he continues. “Neither do I, but I have to try it! Healthy snack.”

For the chefs, the kitchen is a laboratory and a studio. Dishes and ideas are tested. Beyond our bottom-scraped bowls lie small, orange, yellow and purple roots with a short, green stump, freshly peeled and crunchy on a wooden board.

“We just pulled those mini carrots out of the ground. Now they're going to spend a long time in pickle brine before they're included in a game dish this fall.”

With experimentation, there must be basic knowledge and experience at the bottom. This chef probably has a lot in his bag already. You have to have that to dare to walk new paths. There is something Heyerdalian about the man. Someone who knows his limits, but who is not afraid to challenge them and think about something new. If there is a chef's “Explorer's Club” he probably has a lifetime membership.

From science to Venice

“I retrained as a chef in my late twenties. I haven’t always been that good at cooking, but I’ve always found food and its world interesting. The science behind it too. For example. You’re going to make mayonnaise. Then you mix ingredients that don’t really go together. Eggs, oil and a little water. If you pour everything into a bowl and try to stir it together, it will separate. But if you whisk in the oil in a thin stream, little by little, it works. It’s a chemical reaction where the result is an emulsion. The fat is finely dispersed in the water. The kitchen is full of chemistry and physics!”

Drops of the creamy soup still release aroma in the mouth. Now there is only a faint note of smoke. I am still on the path. Where does my interest in food come from? The traces go far back.

He mentions the family. Which partly comes from the north. From strong traditions of gathering and fishing. Campfire. Blueberry heather. Forest floor. Sustainable use of nature.

“Both my mother and father were hunters. We had plenty of access to both game and fish at home. And I was allowed to experiment. Learn. I think it was that little bit of experience that made me complete the two-year cooking school in half the time!”

It's good to have a lot of experience and knowledge in your luggage. It can actually make the journey easier. Willy is both a carpenter and a tinkerer. New interior at Andedammen or an expedition vehicle with a destination around Europe.

Over the winter he refurbished an older van which he named “Vesla”. This summer she was packed with sunglasses, sun cream and the family of five who then ate and looked down the continent. Everything was wittily documented through humorous travelogues on Facebook. We readers were showered with short, swinging updates such as; “skimmed through Austria”. Rome. Typical tourists. (With checkboxes for the well-known tourist attractions.) On to Pompeii. It was hot there, but I think it has been hotter there before… Run to the hills”.

With yet another reference to the aforementioned British heavy rockers, I leave the song in two voices in the background and join them over the Alps to Italy. On the slopes down, he reveals that it is the food in this country that he loves. The focus on raw materials. The handmade and the craftsmanship. The love of good pizza sauce and dough, for example. It is this Italian “finezza” that he brings with him when he turns the sourdough pizzas around in the stone oven at the outdoor terrace. (He emphasizes this by having a picture of a pizza in a red-hot stone oven on the front page of his Facebook profile.)

“Even though many technical terms in the kitchen come from French, and they make incredibly good cheeses, that country is just something you have to go through to get to Italy. The food is praised,” he says dryly. But classic onion soup is still on the new menu. (Although with a slight jab at French cuisine in the description.)

“I also love to travel through taste. Fortunately, we live in a world where good cuisine spreads internationally and is adapted to new places. That's why I also like fusion cuisine where you pair flavors from different worlds.”

That's how new ideas are born. You create something new based on what you already have. The fact that you could mix oil, water and eggs to make mayonnaise also came out of such an experiment. You have to challenge the established in order to change. Then we move forward. You have to try a new path to get to a new place. Willy and Andedammen café invite us in, to the table and on with it. Sustainability is not cooked overnight, but we must at least put the pot on the heat!