‘I wish 12-year-old Paul could see me now’: British chef Paul Proffitt on Michelin success in Denmark
“Surreal”, “crazy” and “magical”.
It is hard to sum up the whirlwind few months Paul Proffitt has had, but those three words give a pretty good indication of what life has been like for the chef.
Brit Paul left his homeland behind a decade ago to move to Denmark, with the goal of achieving a better work-life balance.
He found it, thriving in the kitchen of fellow countryman Paul Cunningham’s Henne Kirkeby Kro, which has held two Michelin stars for more than eight years.
Paul Proffitt has long thought about setting up on his own and earlier this year took the plunge, opening up in the south of Denmark, near the German border.
It is a very personal project, named Pearl by Paul Proffitt, with nods to his past and his family throughout the beautiful century-old building.
Work is still ongoing to get the restaurant looking exactly how Paul wants it to, which is understandable given it has only been open for 14 weeks.
But there will soon be another, unexpected, addition to find a place for – a Michelin plaque.
Paul Proffitt: From Birmingham to Michelin in Denmark
Paul’s restaurant has set records, incredibly winning a Michelin star at this month’s Nordic ceremony, just 89 days after opening.
He picks up the story from there.
“I can't say it was completely out of the blue, because we got the invitation two or three weeks before,” Paul tells The Staff Canteen.
“We had the suspicion that Michelin had been by.
“Without my wife Jules, none of this happens at all. She's incredible and she's been by my side through everything.
“She called me in tears. She was so upset I thought one of the children had hurt themselves. I said what's going on? She said, ‘we got the invitation’.
“I'm welling up talking about it now. It's just the wildest thing, because I've opened restaurants for other people and I've been involved in a lot of different projects over my years as a chef, but this has just been a different beast.
“I'm so personally invested in it. It is me in every kind of conceivable way.”
He continues: “The invite lands and then I had to go through two or three weeks which were just absolutely unbearable, working out why have they sent me the invite? Some restaurants get invited for a special award, a green star or Bib Gourmand. So it's not 100 per cent that you’re going to get a star.
“I have a level of confidence and think we've opened the restaurant at a high level. It certainly exceeded my expectations from the start, but in 89 days, we’re still a long way away from where we feel we would like to be. There's still plenty of work to be done.
“But you’re thinking, could this be it? And then on the day, I was just a mess. We sat down in the hall, the show starts and I was shaking. My wife was trying to calm me down. I remember just being so hot inside of this room.
“They get through the Bib Gourmands and they do them in alphabetical order, so once it got past P, I knew we weren’t a Bib Gourmand.
“It's just a magical moment. To hear your name called out, I can’t hide the emotion. It just means so much.
“To be there with my wife, it's always been a dream of mine to do it together. Did I think it was possible in 89 days? No, if I'm honest. That took me by surprise.
“We broke some records. We were the fastest one to get a star in this part of the country, in Jutland, and the first one in the county that we're in.
“What’s been really nice is you can really feel what this means for the people of Southern Jutland, the local area, how proud they are to have this in their county, their area of Denmark.
“It's a moment you dream about. My whole career I've thought about standing on that stage and then I get up there and I felt like my legs weren’t working.
“I couldn’t get my words out. It just fills you with a really overwhelming sense of gratitude.”
Paul adds: “It’s very validating. Anyone who works in the industry at this level knows what it takes.
“So it almost makes it all worth it, all the late nights that many times I've kissed my kids goodbye in the morning, then kissed them goodnight, when they're sleeping both times. All that kind of stuff and the sacrifices that we make.
“There's so much about this that is so special for me.
“The outpour of support has just been incredible. We got literally thousands of messages.”
Why Paul Proffitt moved to Denmark
Paul knew he wanted to be a chef from a very young age. From cooking with his nan to getting a weekend job in his neighbour’s café as a 12-year-old, Paul went on to train at Birmingham College of Food.
He then got jobs at some high-end restaurants relatively local to him, namely Simpsons and Purnell’s, as well as some time working at Michelin-star level in the Alps.
Upon returning to England, Paul worked at Swinfen Hall, an all-encompassing job which he said “was just driving me into the ground”.
So having enjoyed his trips to Denmark to visit his in-laws, Paul opted to make the move, in 2015.
“At the time, the new Nordic explosion was going off, with Noma,” he explains.
“So the timeline was just perfect. One of my chefs in the UK said if you're going to Denmark, you need to speak to Paul Cunningham, because he made this move 10 to 15 years before.
“I went over to see him at Henne, in the middle of nowhere on the west coast, but it just gave me a real incredible gut feeling.
“I remember my wife came to pick me up and I sat in the car and she looked at me and she said you're going to come and work here aren’t you? I said yeah, I’m going to try.
“I called him every day for two months at four o’clock, when I had my break at Swinfen. I’d go outside and call and I kept getting through to reception, who said 'Paul isn’t here'.
“It was New Year's Day he called me and said alright, we’ll give it a chance.
“Then I started at Henne and that was a whirlwind. I felt like my feet never touched the ground from the moment we landed.
“Very quickly we got the first star and then second star the year after and that was just a wild ride. That's led me right up to Pearl.”
Cooking with Heart: Family, Legacy and Authenticity
Paul still keeps in touch with many chef friends back in the UK, namely Michelin-starred Tom Shepherd, who Paul served as best man for at his wedding in 2022.
But Paul cannot see himself ever returning to the UK, with Denmark, where he speaks the language fluently, and the way of life there very much his new home.
Asked why he decided now was the time to open up his own restaurant, Paul explains: “It’s always been on the cards. Moving over to Denmark wiped me out financially so we had to start from scratch.
“I've always felt like I was capable of achieving this, given the right set-up and the right environment.
“What working at Henne with Paul really taught me was about just how important authenticity is. Henne is as good as it is. I’ve never seen a restaurant like it.
“They just do things in their own way. I’m super proud to have contributed. It was the first two Michelin star restaurant in this part of Denmark.
“What it really taught me was if you ever want to achieve anything, particularly at this level, you just need to be yourself. And I think this is what I'm really trying to encapsulate with Pearl.
“All of the nuances and the little touches and the attention to detail, all the small things that mean something to me. They're all reflected in Pearl.”
Among those personal touches are the name of the restaurant. As a reminder of first falling in love with cooking with his nan Shirley, Paul chose the English spelling of Pearl, in reference to a necklace she used to wear.
Also, the private dining space adjacent to the kitchen is called 'The Doris'.
“My mum passed away last year, so this is the only restaurant I’ve ever worked in in my whole career that she never saw or never ate in,” Paul explains.
“So we named the chef’s table just off the kitchen ‘The Doris’, in her honour. So now she’s there every day. That’s what I had in my head.”
Opening Pearl: A Dream Project in Southern Jutland
Paul’s goal now is to continue spreading the word of his new home.
“I didn't really know too much about this part of the country," he admits.
"I had to Google where it was on the map before I went down there!
“I remember vividly the moment I walked into the restaurant. It's a beautiful building built in the early 1900s for a shipping merchant from Hamburg. There's potential in the whole building, the character is has.
“I fell in love with it from the moment I stepped in the front door. These old double doors open up into the main restaurant room and it's got five bay windows looking out over the Flensborg Fjord. I thought, why did I not know about this place? Why don’t more people know about this place?
“So the goal was definitely I wanted to take it from a local restaurant, to a nationally recognised and then an internationally recognised restaurant, that was the plan.”
And Paul’s goal could be achieved even sooner than hoped, with bookings spiking following the news of the Michelin star.
“In the first 24 hours we had something like 440 reservations,” he says.
“It’s wild. It can't be understated, just the impact that this can have on a business of our size particularly. It's a game-changer.
“Now we’re regrouping. We were like an unknown entity before Michelin, to a degree, although I've come with my pedigree from previous restaurants.
“Now it's like people are coming with a certain expectation.
"I don’t want to pigeonhole myself with the food that we that we cook at Pearl. People talk about food styles and all this kind of stuff - is it a French restaurant? Is it this restaurant, that restaurant? I always describe the food at Pearl as delicious.
"That’s what we go for. Everything else is not really that important."
He continues: “There is still a long way to go to get to where we want to be and Michelin are turning around to us and saying we feel that level is worthy of a Michelin star.
“It can only go up from here, because we still have a lot of stuff we feel like we can improve on yet.”
support from Michelin-starred chefs
In his corner in the quest to keep improving are Tina and Eric Kragh Vildgaard, of three-Michelin-starred Jordnær.
“When Henne was closed a few years ago, he got his first Michelin star. I went and spent two weeks in the kitchen, just to see what he was doing and help him out, because they were short,” Paul says.
“He's never forgotten that. He's one of my dearest chef friends over here.
“It’s just a bit surreal for me that he called to wish me a happy birthday and to be on the phone to probably the most in-demand chef in the world right now, three Michelin stars.
“I wish that 12-year-old Paul could see me now. It’s pretty crazy. I’ve grafted for it. Nothing has come for free.”
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