The chef of the year had
dropped the dream of
to be a chef, but then his body stopped
“I couldn't even
choose which pants
I had to put on weight.”
Unrest in private life and a bankruptcy came close to breaking the chef's dream to pieces for Bjarke Jeppesen, who went down with the flag when he left the industry. His comeback to the cooking profession culminated when he won the Chef of the Year award this year.
If the smiles at the Treetop restaurant in Vejle are a little wider than usual these days, it's understandable. The gold has been raining down on the restaurant lately.
In March, the restaurant's head chef, Bjarke Jeppesen, won the title of Chef of the Year, and on the same occasion Andreas Kobs Laursen won the Waiter of the Year award - later in the month he was also named the Nordics' Best Waiter. Magnus Lund also won the award for Best Chef Apprentice.
It is the first time that a restaurant can boast that:
"We are insanely proud of that, and we can also feel that extra tables are being booked at the moment. It makes going to work a little more fun," explains Bjarke Jeppesen.
Gave up the dream
Bjarke Jeppesen estimates that he has spent well over two hundred hours preparing for this year's chef competition, but the title of Chef of the Year is not just recognition of extremely hard work and talent.
It is also the culmination of a comeback to the industry, which he said goodbye to in 2010. An employer's bankruptcy and turmoil in his private life led to this year's gold winner leaving the industry and choosing instead to take an Hf exam and start studying to become a physiotherapist.
"It was actually perfectly fine, and I was happy with the study, but one day my body simply stopped when I had to leave. I could do nothing but lie on the sofa and stare into the air. I couldn't even choose which pants to wear.”
Bjarke Jeppesen quickly realized that something was terribly wrong and therefore sought help from a psychotherapist. After some intense conversations, they found the reason together:
“I had tried to change myself to adapt to other people's wishes, and my body could not handle that. It wanted me to do what I love, which is to be a chef.”
