It's 1pm. We're on a coach in northern Norway. Kjartan Kjetland (aka KK) is on the phone. "We're going to be late - about 3pm. We lost an hour because we missed the ferry."
Kjetland, 35, is a chef - as is business partner Paul Rhodes, formerly head chef at London's Chez Nico at Ninety - and the duo are ferrying a group of 12 diners up to a glacier - the Folgefonna in Norway's Hardanger region, to be exact - where they will be cooking and serving a three-course lunch.
It's just one example of the type of extreme venue that their outside catering company, Paul & K, set up in May 2002, specialises in. You'd think the greatest problem in serving lunch on top of a mountain would be physically cooking the food in the middle of a load of compacted ice. Wrong. The greatest challenge is to get your guests to pitch up for the ferry on time, because in this part of the world, if you miss the ferry, you have to hang around for another hour as they don't just roll up every 10 minutes.
"It's frustrating, but at least we can phone the two guys setting up at the glacier and tell them to adjust timings," admits 34-year-old Rhodes with a grin. The "guys" are Paul & K chefs Eirik Aase, 23, and Gaylor Frémy, 22, who are usually based in Haugesund, where Rhodes and Kjetland have an exclusive private dining room for corporate entertaining. But they've been sent on ahead to get things underway. That includes fashioning seating and an ice-table as well as getting an open barbecue going.
The menu is straightforward, although Rhodes maintains that there are no limitations on what they can produce and tailors each trip according to what his diners want and are prepared to pay. At the moment, all-in prices - from London - start at about £1,500 a person. It's common sense, though, not to try anything too fancy as, theoretically, more could go wrong.
Good options would be soups, like lobster bisque or a fish chowder, or dishes like halibut with nut and dried fruit butter. Seafood dishes, of course, form the backbone of Norwegian cuisine and Paul & K tries to reflect this - as it does in desserts, where fruits like the sweet Norwegian strawberry feature prominently in dishes like rhubarb soup with strawberries and sweet croûtons.
And obviously a cold starter makes perfect sense when you're eating at 1,600m above sea level. So when Kjetland and Rhodes finally welcome their guests to their upturned igloo on the Folgefonna with a glass of bubbly, the tians of crab that kick off the lunch are well on the way to being produced. Actually, most of the elements in the tian - the crab, avocado, tomato, and capelin (a type of local salmon) roe - had been prepped the day before by Kjetland, Aase and Frémy, so it's just a case of assembling them à la minute. However, that can be tricky when your hands are numb.
The trickiest moment of the day comes with the pud, a raspberry crème brûlée. With the base cooked the day before, it should be a cinch to simply caramelise the top with a blowtorch. That's the theory, but an inconsiderate breeze makes an appearance bang on cue as Kjetland and Rhodes attempt to light the torch. Result: a bit of spluttering, lots of hissing gas, no flame. "We'll have to bring the salamander next time, chef," says a grinning Kjetland. Eventually the blowtorch is coaxed into life, the production line gets going, a crisis is avoided. And while the guests are tucking into their dessert at a leisurely pace, the boys get moving on the clearing-up.
Surprisingly, Kjetland and Rhodes don't need a licence to hold the event. But they're required to clear up properly. No rubbish must be left behind.
But let's rewind momentarily. How did the duo come up with the concept of extreme dining? While Rhodes was still executive head chef at Chez Nico, he and Kjetland, whom he met when Kjetland did a stage at the London restaurant in 1997, sometimes took on outside catering jobs. On one occasion they were challenged by a wealthy Norwegian shipping magnate to create a meal for him on a glacier. They took on the challenge and the rest, as they say, is history.
The duo staged a total of five glacier dinners in 2003, catering for between five and 40 guests. On one occasion, when they were catering for the president of Korean electrical giant Samsung, the weather was so dodgy they had to put up a tent for shelter.
But Paul & K doesn't do only extreme venues. The chefs have also set up two private dining rooms targeting the corporate market, one in Haugesund, one at Surrey Quays, London, where they can cook the sophisticated and technically accomplished tasting menus they're more used to. Or simply stage tailor-made cookery courses for companies wanting a different spin on team-building days. "Professionals with money to burn - or their companies - are definitely who we're aiming for," Rhodes confirms. It's all a far cry from a hot and airless restaurant kitchen. "I've done that and I was ready to do something different", he confesses.
Glacier catering is certainly that. What's more, Kjetland reveals, plans are afoot to take the concept a stage further. "We're looking at staging a dinner in a glacier crevasse, but we need to sort out the insurance first [it currently costs them around £60 a head] because we'll have to have ropes, spiked boots and all that," he says. Rock on 2004.
LONDON RHODES
There's more to Paul Rhodes than Paul & K. Last year he also launched a bakery business near his home in south-east London. Called Dupond's Bakery ("Dupond is the French equivalent of Smith", he says) it occupies 1,000sq ft in Surrey Quays and is already supplying some of the capital's top restaurants, including L'Escargot, Drones, Chez Max and Embassy.
Tel: 020 7237 5577
E-mail: post@dupondsbakery.com
the menu
- Tian of crab with capelin roe
- Demi-salmon fillet, pomme pur‚e, beurre blanc, cucumber salad
- Raspberry crème brûléec
Wines
- Champagne: Nicolas Feuillatte
- Trulli Chardonnay 2000, Puglia, Salento
- Tifon Pineau des Charantes