How Hong Kong helped Finnish chef Jaakko Sorsa appreciate his homeland
- The executive chef at Shore Hospitality, which includes The Salted Pig and Cull ’n Pistol restaurants, Jaakko Sorsa, talks about catering to Hong Kong tastes
- His overseas career involved a stint as a UN peacekeeper in Lebanon before Hong Kong called
Tell us about your childhood. “I was born in Helsinki. My mother is from Kuopio, in the middle of Finland, in a region called Lakeland. We spent our summers on an island where there is no electricity. We fished, then my grandpa smoked the fish, and my grandma made soup for lunch.
“My grandma would also get my older brother and me to catch 100 small perch to make a fish pie called kalakukko. She made the crust out of rye flour, and inside there was pork and all the perch without heads, and then she covered it with pastry. It was good to eat hot or cold. It is still my happy place.”
How did you get interested in cooking? “It was through my grandma – I wondered how she made such good food and why it tasted better than other people’s even though it had the same ingredients. I went to observe her and found she did things differently, like sautéing things a bit longer. I learned later that if you sauté them longer, beef and vegetables take on more flavour because of caramelisation.”
What was your first restaurant job? “When I was 15 years old, in school, we had a work placement for two weeks. I wanted to work in a burger restaurant; I certainly didn’t want to work in an office. I really liked the atmosphere. I continued working there on weekends because it was good pay.
“After I finished my one year mandatory army service, at the age of 18, I came back to the burger restaurant as a manager in Helsinki city centre. I learned a lot about people management and food costs. In 1992, we didn’t have computers in the restaurant, so I had to do inventory twice a day with a calculator.”
