Paul Cunningham

Henne Kirkeby Kro

Strandvejen, 234
6854 - Henne
Danimarca
+45 75 255400

 

An Englishman in Copenhagen. Paul Cunningham is a chef from Essex who, a few years ago, decided to move to Denmark and open a restaurant, The Paul, where he would offer one of the most original food experiences in the whole of Northern Europe, a journey through brilliant pairings and postmodern cuisine. Everything is illuminated, in The Paul’s menu. Class of 1969, he never gets flustered and presents each dish with seraphic irony.

 

His career began decades ago at the Fleur de Lys, a small pub in Widdington, and from here it went on at the court of some important chefs, like Marco Pierre White (at the time of the three Michelin stars), Egon Ronay and Pierre Chevillard, as well as at the tasty The Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham. In 1994 came this life choice (as usual, a woman is involved) and the move to Denmark, where he first debuted at the Søllerød Kro in Holte. He acquired some experience in the most significant restaurants of the capital and, in 2003, he opened The Paul. He didn’t have to wait long for the Michelin star. Only seven months.

Paul’s gastronomic culture is nourished initially with the products he discovered during his trips to Dorset, Devon and the oleographic Cornwall: berries, Cornish pasties, sour cream and all the raw materials that could be bought from the small farms in the sleepy English countryside. Freshly laid eggs, homemade jams, bread and seasonal vegetables are the memories you can still find on the table, if you visit The Paul. In the first two years of his stay in the land of the Little Mermaid, Cunningham enriched his background with new ingredients, discovering the great Nordic fish, the cheeses and berries that ennoble the gastronomic essence of this country.

After all this study, the result is a cuisine that has many vectors intertwined: classic French cuisine, English tradition, references to the tastes of the North and attention to Latin culture, mostly from Spain and Italy. The genius and renewal element, instead, is totally his own work. And it is also the mixer that blends together different suggestions, hidden in the brain of Cunningham, who is also a book fanatic... in the sense that he loves to publish recipe books, and books on culinary philosophy: his latest one, Paul Food, published in November 2010, is an enjoyable read. So is the time spent at the Henne Kirkeby Kro, an adventure he began in the spring of 2012 in the Danish countryside.

 

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Roberta Corradin

For over a decade Roberta Corradin has been covering travel and food for Italian Marie Claire, L'Espresso, La Repubblica, illywords and others. She is a contributor for Food Arts. Her Italian rendition of Spices, History of a Temptation by Jack Turner was awarded with Premio Costa d'Amalfi. She edited the English version of Nonna Genia's Classic Langhe Cookbook. Her fiction works are published in German, French, and Spanish. Her last book Le cuoche che volevo diventare focuses on women and cooking, and was published in Italy by Einaudi in 2008.