Cook The Mountain Tom Riby catches up with one of Italy’s freshest thinking and most innovative chefs, Norbert Niederkofler
Surely, only one man can stake the claim to have been awarded three Michelin stars using mostly natural ingredients sourced from an Italian mountainside? During the winter ski season in the heart of the Alto Adige, you can barely see a blade of grass beneath the waves of snow drifting across the landscape, let alone anything that looks barely edible. Yet, this is not how award-winning gourmet chef Norbert Niederkofler sees the mountain. Through his eyes, this is a veritable organic market of delicious, seasonal ingredients. Norbert was born in 1961 in Luttach, a small village right in the heart of the Dolomites. His parents owned and ran a hotel that hosted skiers in winter and climbers in summer. It was here, on the slopes of the South Tyrol, that the original culinary seed was planted in Norbert’s mind, but he had a strong desire to travel and experience new things. “I wanted to become a chef so I could travel the world,” he says. “As a young man, I was tired of looking at mountains all the time, so I left the first chance I got.” After finishing his studies at a culinary college in Tegernsee, Germany, Norbert worked his way around Europe gaining experience while based in London, Zurich and Milan, before arriving in Munich to work with Eckart Witzigmann, his greatest mentor. Eckart taught him how to respect nature and its produce to achieve culinary perfection. After seven years in Munich, he travelled to New York and learnt the secrets of gourmet
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innovations under restaurateur David Bouley. It was here that Norbert truly began to develop his own sense of cooking style. As time went by, he started to miss the mountains once more and the flavours of his hometown. In 1993, Norbert returned to his roots and was offered the chance to run the kitchen at Hotel Rosa Alpina in San Cassiano, at the base of the Dolomite mountains. This has, in fact, remained his foundation for over 20 years and he has established a world-renowned gourmet following as head chef of the Saint Hubertus restaurant at Hotel Rosa Alpina, which is owned by the Pizzinini family. During his time at St Hubertus the restaurant has evolved from a pizzeria to an Italian/French restaurant and eventually to a mecca for mountain cuisine where natural and foraged ingredients take centre stage. Following the birth of his first son Norbert became further inspired to take positive action and improve his personal and professional global footprints, championing sustainable business ethics. Having worked with both David Bouley and Eckart Witzigmann, Norbert has gained the core values of an inspiring chef: bundles of creativity, valuable experience, strong technical skills and endless energy. He has successfully drawn on these qualities in building a network of suppliers, farmers, growers and supporters who help make his kitchen and its dishes quite unique. In 2004 Norbert controversially removed foie gras from his menu, one of the most
