Who is Niklas Ekstedt?
Chef, Restaurateur, Author and Television Presenter
Niklas Ekstedt grew up in Järpen, a little village in Jämtland, northern Sweden. After training at culinary school in Åre, Sweden, he worked at restaurants in the United States, including the famous Chicago restaurant, Charlie Trotter’s.
Aged 21, he opened first restaurant, in the harbour town of Helsingborg, Sweden. In 2003, his cooking show, ‘Mat’ began airing on Swedish national television.
Aged 33, he wanted to return to his roots and put his own stamp on New Nordic cuisine. The idea of a new kind of fine-dining restaurant began to take shape, a place where everything was cooked over a fire, ‘just like in the old days’. He decided that his restaurant would be an homage to that time, but also to his childhood and his heritage. Ekstedt opened in November 2011 in central Stockholm, with a fire pit, a wood fired oven and a wood stove.
In 2018, Niklas opened another Stockholm-based restaurant, Hillenburg, where ‘Southern European food flirts with Scandinavian influences’. In 2022, he opened Ekstedt at The Yard, London, where the focus is on ‘Scandinavian cooking techniques using the very best seasonal British ingredients’.
