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At Ark, vegetables are always the stars of the show. Founder and forager Jason Renwick and executive chef Brett Lavender discuss the influences and ingredients behind their plant-based project.
ByAdrienne Murray Neilsen
Published October 14, 2023
• 9 min read
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
Australian entrepreneur Jason Renwick came to Copenhagen in 2005, travelling in and out of the country before opening vegan cafe Souls in 2016. He then teamed up with British chef Brett Lavender, who had spent much of his career cooking in luxury hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, to open Ark restaurant, in central Copenhagen, in 2020. The seasonal plant-based menu is a surprise for diners on the day, but might include signature dishes such as barbecued blue oyster mushrooms or deceptively complex combinations like turnip with apple and macadamia.
The business grew and evolved, and today, Ark Collection comprises three plant-based restaurants — Ark, Bistro Lupa (both of which hold Michelin Green stars) and Beyla — as well as urban mushroom-growing operation Funga Farm, which supplies restaurants in the Danish capital.
How do you approach plant-based cooking?
Brett: How to get flavour, depth, umami out of very few ingredients was a massive learning curve for me. I started to approach it in the way I would cook a piece of meat: do I want to marinate, sous vide or let it rest? Vegan cooks don’t think like this. And I’m not a vegan. It’s about cooking vegetables in the best way possible and making sure they’re the star of the dish.
Where do you source ingredients?
Brett: We work with a number of farms [close to] Copenhagen, and also a little bit further afield. I’m not a magician, so some things come from Sweden and elsewhere in Northern Europe. In winter, nothing grows, but in summer we have an abundance, so we preserve and ferment. You might see elderflower that we’ve pickled or last season’s strawberry trimmings that we’ve turned into vinegar.
Jason: Mushrooms are the most important ingredient by far. We were producing 250kg a week out of this tiny basement at Funga Farm, but in spring 2023 I invested, and we moved into in a bigger space. Now we can do about 1,500kg a week. All our reviews [of the restaurant] focus on the mushrooms, thanks to dishes like blue oyster mushroom cooked on the yakitori grill and brushed with sake and mirin. I also go foraging for 20 hours a week. Christina Rasmussen [previously a forager at Noma] came to us and taught me what to pick. It really changes with the seasons, but I pick rosehip, elderflower, meadowsweet, mulberry, blueberry and wild garlic in bulk. I try to gather enough of the flowers so that we can start to make aged vinegars.
Which Scandinavian ingredients do you enjoy most?
Brett: We always have the blue oyster mushroom on the menu. They have a great taste, great texture and the structure of the mushroom gives me the ability to play with it a lot in terms of cooking. Lion’s mane mushrooms also play a part; they can really resemble meat. This isn’t something I try to do intentionally — it’s just showing the mushroom at its best.
Jason: I’ve foraged Japanese knotweed — it’s an invasive species and sort of everywhere. The flavour is similar to rhubarb; it’s got a really nice tartness. That’s probably the coolest ingredient because no one else is using it.
Is there a dish you’re most proud of?
Brett: The turnip is such a humble, often-overlooked vegetable, so in terms of a breakthrough dish, it’s turnip: sake-brined, served with a sauce made from leftover brioche and cucumbers, a yuzu dressing and lemongrass oil. Plant-based food at that high level — the clever preparation, the balance of flavours — was really a sweet spot to hit. We’ve also got [a take on] chawanmushi, a traditional Japanese egg custard, on the menu. Eggs are always the biggest challenge to swap out in terms of consistency in dishes; you can’t replicate it. It took a lot of trail and error.
What are your key culinary influences?
Brett: A big influence has been my time spent in Japan. I went there because I wanted to pursue the level of perfection they’re known for. That worked out for me in plant-based cooking as Japanese cuisine doesn’t use animal fats to add flavour — it’s not like everything’s basted in butter or finished with cream. You’re thinking about umami, about fermentation.
Is running a vegan restaurant more challenging than a ‘regular’ restaurant?
Jason: It takes all these man hours, which, in Denmark, is super-expensive. Even for the restaurant, I have to find plant-based paint and chairs that don’t have [animal product-based] glue. We took a standpoint not to use avocados because of how bad they are for the planet and how much water they use. But it’s a normal restaurant doing plant-based food — a lot of people don’t realise that until they’re here.
How important is sustainability?
Brett: We try to be as sustainable as we can. I think we’re very good at using the whole product — there’s very little that goes in the bin. When I took over, we had six bins in the kitchen; that went down to one. We like to say it’s conscious dining. If everybody ate plant-based one day a week, it would have a massive knock-on effect in terms of the pressure on the farming industry and the environment.
Three to try: meat-free restaurants in Copenhagen
1. VeVe
Housed within a former bread factory in Østerbro, VeVe (its name an abbreviation of a Danish phrase meaning ‘vegetarian world cuisine’) serves up creative veggie and vegan dishes featuring a fusion of international flavours. The seasonally driven, six-course menu begins with light snacks, such as satay cassava chips and beetroot ‘cotton candy’, followed by delicate dishes like snow-fungus with carrots and satay sauce. Set menu DKK850 (£98).
2. Bistro Verde
This climate-conscious bistro offers a fully vegan menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a focus on open sandwiches, salads and pasta dishes. Try a tempting summer salad of strawberries and asparagus or tasty gnocchi puttanesca. Mains from DKK80 (£9).
3. Urten & Atlas Bar
This corner building in the Latin Quarter combines two vegan spots under one roof. Atlas Bar offers comforting classics including pasta and burgers, while upstairs, sister restaurant Urten focuses on a smaller, more sophisticated set menu, which changes monthly but might feature dishes like crispy cauliflower croquettes with chickpeas and tofu cream. Urten’s two-course set menu DKK305 (£35).
Published in Issue 21 (autumn 2023) of Food by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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