Niklas Ekstedt on Swedish cuisine, his biggest cookery confession and IKEA meatballs
Michelin-starred Swedish chef Niklas Ekstedt shares his cooking philosophy, from the three ingredients he never uses to why he preserves almost anything
The Good Food podcast
In this episode, we sit down with Michelin-starred chef Niklas, who takes us on a journey from his childhood in rural northern Sweden — raised near the country's largest ski resort on the Norwegian border — to running a fire-only restaurant in Stockholm.
Niklas shares how growing up among the Sami indigenous community shaped his cooking philosophy, why he refuses to use chocolate, lemon, or olive oil in his Stockholm kitchen and how his mother's approach to buying 50 kilos of plums at the right price still influences his restaurant today. We dig into the art of Swedish preservation – pickling, fermenting, and jamming everything from asparagus to cloudberries — and why Niklas believes our obsession with "fresh at all costs" is a little bit mad.
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Bonus episode
Listen to the bonus cook-along episode.
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