This post highlights some of the topics discussed with chef and restaurateur Robert von Bell in our Tasty Atelier podcast ep. 1.

For all the juiciest bits please listen to the interview with this great storyteller. You can find the list of links to the restaurants and personalities mentioned in the podcast at the end of this article. Enjoy!

Robert von Bell has had a varied career in many different types of restaurants. From his grandmother’s nakkimetsä (weiners and mashed potatoes) to Michelin-star restaurants, Robert has always been on the lookout for new tastes and new ways of cooking. “I get bored easily”, he claims as to the reason for his wide range of skills. 

Childhood and early career

Robert grew up in a rural village with working parents and his grandmother’s home cooking. Food wasn’t a special interest until he had to choose between vocational and academic studies. After that, his path led from cookery school to cutting-edge restaurants. 

His first significant employer was the restaurant Via on Ludwiginkatu in Helsinki. “I was 20 when I started there and I’d only done short stints in different restaurants and catering. I was so scared in the beginning because it was à la carte and I’d never done that. But it was a really nice place. Ahead of its time with shared portions and mixed vegetarian, Italian and Asian cuisine.” 

Working in different restaurants quickly builds a network of contacts. Through his colleague from Via, Robert found out that the Finnish sous chef Mikko Kataja at the legendary Mirabelle restaurant in London was looking for cooks. That meant classic French cuisine. Robert contacted him: “Yeah, I have a room for you, come to work. You’re getting shitty paid and you’re going to work your ass off. But come on over.” And off he went.

The London years

What was it like to work under celebrity owners like Marco Pierre White and Anthony Demetre in the high-pressure world of top London restaurants? “People always ask is Gordon Ramsay doing a theatre thing? Is he acting? Well, I’d say no. That was how it is. I’ve been thrown at with fish and stuff like that.” 

London was the hotspot of the culinary world in the late 2000s. Work was always available for a skilled cook. Everyone got a chance to show their mettle. But if you couldn’t cut it you got sacked quickly. And there was always someone else waiting to take your place.   

“Cooking is like music, an artistic form of work”

Mikko’s promise of bad pay and long hours turned out to be true. But with the downside of working 16-17 hours a day came the upside of making do with the money you got. There was hardly any time to spend your earnings, other than sampling new restaurants and relaxing after a hard day in the kitchens. “Everybody says that London is expensive. I’d say it’s not. You could go out to eat in a Michelin star restaurant for lunch and pay £25. And a beer at a pub costs £2.” 

But the hard work and its counterbalance, hard-partying took its toll. Two years in London was enough.

New starts and new flavours

Missing his friends and sleep-deprived, Robert decided to pack his knives and move back to Finland by the end of 2008. Right on time for the new boom of innovative Helsinki restaurants. 

“I remember working in restaurant Juuri in Helsinki after I came back from London. I kept walking past restaurant Gaijin on my way to the bus and I was like, that looks really interesting! They’re doing this Japanese, Chinese mix of Korean. It was so different from what I’d done so far. I applied and got to work there with two of the probably greatest chef-owners in Helsinki in my lifetime. So yeah, new ideas.”

While working in the trendy restaurant Pastor Robert found a new passion for the Peruvian-Japanese Nikkei cuisine. “I really enjoyed the whole idea that the Japanese highly regard their raw materials. You don’t want to mess around with it too much. So that is why I enjoy Nikkei food. It’s all exotic. I’m not into Finnish or New Nordic. I mean, I like eating it but that’s not my thing. I rather do soy and miso and stuff because they’re new. I’ve had my fair share of pike-perch and sausages.”

The BBQ cookbook and finding inspiration

Balancing out the exotic Nikkei is Robert’s love for rural American cooking, smoked meats, and BBQ. Robert von Bell released his first cookbook Grilli Tulessa, together with the Whiskey Ambassador Jarkko Nikkanen, in 2021. The idea was to give the reader a hands-on guide on recipes and equipment. And also to give tips on what rubs, sauces, etc. you can get ready-made as well as how to do them yourself. 

“If you look at proper barbecue books from the States, there are thousands of them. Nobody’s done anything original in 50-60 years. The basics are all the same in barbecue. But you just do it differently. We chose recipes that work and then paired them with whiskeys. We wanted to have the highlights but we tried to keep it quite simple.” 

What are some of the cookbooks and food storytellers that have inspired Robert on his way?

“One place that I really want to go still is Sean Brock. He has many restaurants in the States. He’s been heavily influenced by rural Appalachian mountain cooking. He has two books and they’re really good. He’s bringing back the stories, bringing back why cooking in South Carolina or Nashville and these places is the food it is. It’s got a lot to do with roots. African food mixed with French cooking. I fell in love with it because, again, it was something different, it was something new.”

The one book Robert keeps returning to is The Flavour Bible by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. It’s not a traditional cookbook with recipes but rather a glossary of food pairings. You can look up different foodstuffs and see which ingredients or flavours pair well with them. “I use it for inspiration when planning new menus.”

How do you see the future of cookbooks? “I think I have 400 cookbooks at home. Now I’m just using my phone, I don’t use books anymore because I just Google ‘cacio e pepe’ or ‘pesto’ or something and get ten different pesto recipes.” Many cookbooks are still published but what will happen in ten years? TikTok and Instagram have loads of recipes and cooking videos. “There’s some really good stuff there and there’s some horrible stuff, but I think that’s the future. I think that recipes are a better option.” 

Of owning your own restaurant

At the time of the interview, Robert worked as the head chef of the Töölö restaurant Trattoria Sogno. He was eagerly awaiting the May Day opening of his own summer restaurant Ranta-Aitta in the riverside barns in Old Town Porvoo. “It’s the fourth summer so we know exactly what we’re doing and preparations are ahead of schedule. I even remembered to order the pay terminals, which I usually forget.”

Robert is grateful for some really good staff coming back for the summer: “That means I’ve done something right.” Running a summer restaurant is like opening a new restaurant every spring. “It’s always horrifying with all the worries of getting the staff and the workload of getting the framework up and running. But it always works out. It’s still my own place and my baby, my first restaurant. So, yeah, I’m excited about it.” 

What would his dream restaurant be like if money were no object? Listen to the podcast and find out more about his food adventures, thoughts on the future of the restaurant business, and what drives Robert von Bell towards his next culinary exploration.