Comfort Food #2: Felix Schneider – Can a Regional Restaurant Be Packed Into a Shipping Box?
“To offer guests the best possible products from local producers, with whom we have been working together for many years – how do we achieve that if we can’t do it in the restaurant anymore?“
Felix Schneider – Restaurant Sosein , 03.04.20
Since the beginning of April, Sosein.Restaurant offers a weekly produce box with all the unique products the restaurant is known for: meat, fish, vegetables, handcrafted food from the restaurant’s regional suppliers, as well as Sosein’s signature homemade bread, preserves and ferments. Delivery will be available Germany-wide soon. To order your Sosein.Box, head this way.
As the second guest in our #comfortfoodtalk series on Instagram Live, our director Friederike Gaedke spoke with Felix Schneider from Restaurant Sosein in Heroldsberg near Nuremberg. Felix is the founder and head chef and we reached him in his garden, where he grows some of the ingredients for the nature-driven dishes of his restaurant. Because the sowing season cannot be held up, just like the many living ferments that can be found in the cellar of Sosein. “We have many processes that cannot simply be stopped. We have ham, miso pastes, soy sauces, vinegars and more that are maturing here – and they have to be cared for.” Cultivation plans also exist with producers and are already being implemented. How can these unique foods be delivered to guests, at a time where the gastronomy industry is experiencing a forced break? Since April 3rd, they can be ordered to guests’ homes in the form of a „Sosein.Box”. This allows to generated turnover despite the interruption of the restaurant, and to continue the collaborative work with the producers: on the fields, new products are still being researched, ideas developed. A valuable support for the producers.
To take away some of the customers’ apprehension to process these more demanding products at home, Felix and his team are shooting explanatory videos. In these videos, they share recipe ideas and explain the singularity of the food they send out. However, there will be no exact recipes: “You can find enough instructions on the Internet on how to make mayonnaise. We don’t necessarily have to explain that. The important thing is that we explain why we add a duck egg.”
Due to the new concept from Sosein and other restaurants to deliver food boxes, consumers now have access to food that often surpasses market standards. Ferments, regional vegetables and cuts of meat beyond the filet are integrated into everyday kitchen life and challenge us to understand them. A momentum that may perhaps lead to a heightened sensitivity for quality, taste and craftsmanship, even beyond the current crisis?
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