Do you follow? Bjorn Moen
“I suppose it was inevitable I’d become a chef, although if you’d have told me when I was studying to be a lawyer, I mightn’t have believed you!” Bjorn is now head chef at Devon’s Commodore Hotel in Instow near Bideford and he wouldn’t want it any other way.
“I come from a very well-travelled family, of Norwegian heritage. I was born in South Africa and grew up in West Africa before living in Malaysia, the Philippines and the Cayman Islands. That’s a lot of food styles for a growing boy!
“When I settled back in the UK, I took a Saturday job in a hotel kitchen and fell into cooking when the chef didn’t turn up one morning. I realised then, this was where I wanted to be.
“My career path continued to be a little off -piste. I went from a junior Chef de Partie, to running my own kitchen when a friend suggested I run the kitchens of his pub and we split the profits.”
Mixing it up
“I’ve always been restless, maybe it’s because of all that travel. I love experimenting with food too.
“I also like to twist conventions and play with people’s perceptions. A dish I love is simply called Beetroot and Goat’s Cheese. But it’s way more than that. It’s powdered and pureed, raw and roasted, whipped and crumbled. It’s far better to underpromise and overdeliver!”
Foraging workshops
“I live in Cornwall and I love taking people out on foraging workshops (brws.it/forage). There are so many wonderful flavours to discover here.
“I love the instructional side of food. I suppose I’m a bit of an evangelist. If I find something I love, I’m the one running around saying ‘Have you tasted this?’ I suppose that’s the reaction I want all my food to have!
“I have a deep willingness not to be bored. For chefs, stagnation is the real enemy. That’s why, for me, it’s about staying curious, listening to your customers, and always, always seeing what would happen if you teamed this flavour with that one…”
