Aged Like Fine Wine
Date: 21/10/2025
Location: Cancún, Mexico
‘‘My best memories as a kid involved food. Eating a sloppy diner cheeseburger in the car on the way home from fishing with my uncle. Trying my first tuna melt in Scotland on a cold day. Eating at my favorite burger joint in my hometown with my friends. Trying Sonic in New York for the first time and seeing the rollerblading waiters in the drive-through. These memories and many more make up my childhood, and it’s the best I could’ve wished for.’’
When I was a kid, my dad took us to Scotland for summer vacation. It rained almost every day, we lived in a trailer that smelled like wet socks and instant coffee, and he beat me at Scrabble like it was a full-contact sport. But I remember the day he decided to teach me how to fish.
We stood on a gray coastline that looked like the world's edge. The wind cut straight through my jacket, and the water slapped against the rocks like it was laughing at us. Just me, him, and two fishing poles. The plan was simple: catch dinner, impress my mom.
Fishing demanded something I’ve never been good at: patience. You cast the line, wait, reel it in, throw it again. For a while, nothing happened. Then, finally, that tiny electric pull on the line, that first hit of adrenaline. Two hours later, our bucket was full of mackerel, still flicking their tails like they didn’t know they’d lost. We fried them in oil that night, sitting in the cramped trailer with the smell of salt and smoke in the air. The fish itself? Fine. But it was the act, the ritual of catching and cooking, that stuck with me. It was the first time I understood the satisfaction of making something real with my hands.
I think about that a lot now. How that small moment, just a kid catching fish with his dad, planted something in me. Cooking’s not so different. You wait. You mess up. You learn. You burn your fingers, cut yourself a few times, and try again until it tastes like something worth serving.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the chefs who make me want to keep chasing that feeling. The ones who remind me that cooking isn’t about plating flowers or going viral — it’s about fire, patience, and a bit of insanity. For me, that’s Niklas Ekstedt, Francis Mallmann, and Calum Franklin.
Ekstedt and Mallmann are both wild and romantic men, artists with soot on their hands. They cook with real fire. No fancy equipment, no gas stoves, just wood, smoke, and time. You watch them and realize that cooking started with a flame, and maybe it should’ve stayed that way. It’s primal, unpredictable, and brutally honest. Fire doesn’t lie to you; it either gives or it burns.
Then there’s Calum Franklin. Different animal entirely. He took the most mocked cuisine in Europe, British food, and made it something to respect again. I ate at The Holborn Dining Room in London with my dad almost seven years ago, and it hit me harder than I expected. Every dish looked like art. You could taste the care, the time, the repetition. It wasn’t about perfection; it was about pride.
That dinner made me realize something. Food can be more than comfort or necessity. It can be a story, a rebellion, a way to say, I was here, and this is what I made.
These three chefs, Ekstedt, Mallmann, and Franklin, they’re the reason I’m chasing the kitchen now. They cook the way I want to live: with patience, with fire, and with just enough chaos to keep things interesting.
