Thorsten Schmidt, Chef at Barr

“The mirabelle plum is common in Denmark, as is brining”

The jars are some of the first things customers see when they enter the Barr restaurant. Inside these glass containers are berries by the thousands, multi-coloured citrus, green tomatoes being preserved to prepare for the colder season when picking is impossible. And in many of them are small, greenish-yellow fruits with a slightly oblong shape that at once make one think of Mediterranean olives. The master of the house, Thorsten Schmidt, says, “Those are unripe wild mirabelle plums, preserved like olives.” At Barr, the restaurant that took over the premises left vacant when Noma moved, our tastes buds are trying out a little-known territory that nevertheless is quite vast. Here, the Germanborn chef treats the North Sea basin as his culinary playground. “From a gastronomic standpoint, we often talk about the Mediterranean basin as a unit, a coherent whole. Same goes for the North Sea: everything’s connected. The beer culture is a good example, as is the recipe for the waffles you can find from Belgium to Scandinavia.” This ingenious idea is available in a menu where smoked mackerel shares space with schnitzel or whey-glazed cod tail, the chef’s signature dish. “I’m really trying to construct an intelligible culinary language. And doing that entails exploring products that can become the basic ingredients.”

That’s the objective of the “olives” in the jars: making those mirabelles an iconic ingredient in Nordic cupboards, as their bitter taste, firm texture and central pit are powerfully reminiscent of the green olives snacked on as an appetiser. “The mirabelle plum is common in Denmark and this brining technique is typically Nordic, which is why I chose this ingredient. It’s quite easily found in the wild, growing along the edges of fields. The inspiration came to me when tasting an unripe plum – they’re very sour and reminded me of lemons! It made me want to work with other products picked before maturity, like mirabelles.” In the chef’s dishes, they give a boost to the frikadelle made from lamb and pork, topped with a snowy, translucent slice of bacon and served with broad beans, mustard leaves and white currants.

Barr, Strandgade 93, Copenhagen