Video summary
The video begins with Emilie Qvist reflecting on her journey within the culinary industry and addressing the stark geographical divide in Denmark, often referred to as the "rotten banana." This region, encompassing areas like Hanstholm, has historically been undervalued by city dwellers from Copenhagen and Aarhus, who view it as a place where birds turn around and young people flee to study. However, Emilie highlights a significant shift occurring in these rural communities, noting that many families, couples, and individuals are now choosing to move back or stay, driven by a desire for something different and sustainable. Her own relocation to the remote island of Læsø and subsequently to Hanstholm serves as a personal testament to this changing landscape, moving away from the urban center toward a life rooted in the countryside.
Her path to opening a restaurant was unexpectedly triggered by the second lockdown in December 2020, which sent her back to her parents' home on Læsø instead of her apartment in Copenhagen. After feeling isolated and bored in the quiet island setting, she reached out to a friend who is the tourist manager for the Thy region. This friend took her on a tour of the area, revealing numerous empty restaurants and eventually leading her to an old grill bar in Hanstholm, a small town of 2,000 people located at Denmark's largest fish auction. It was here, amidst the raw industrial harbor where fresh fish from across Europe is landed, that Emilie felt a profound sense of purpose and a "call from the universe" to start her own venture, realizing that no one else was utilizing the abundant local resources in this specific way.
Motivated by this feeling, Emilie decided to launch her project in January 2021, dedicating herself entirely to understanding the local community and the fish market. She spent considerable time at the auction floor, engaging with the predominantly male workforce of fishermen who are often difficult to approach. Despite initial apprehensions about cultural differences between a city dweller from Jutland and the coastal fishing population, she found them genuinely curious and interested in her vision. Her core argument is that these locals possess beautiful, fresh fish that deserve respect and proper service, yet they lacked someone to bridge the gap between the industrial landing of the catch and the dining table. She felt a unique responsibility to step into this void, serving the high-quality local produce as it deserves and proving that rural areas can be built to last through community-focused initiatives.
Read the full video transcript
[applause]
>> Thank you, Mads. It's uh
I'm still very young in this industry,
so it's a very big honor. First of all,
of course, to be here, but also to have
such a presentation from a guy which I
really admire a lot. So, thank you for
that.
Uh I'm Emily and
I want to start with a small uh
introduction of you guys. So, please
help me raise your hand. I'll see if I
can see anything.
But, raise your hand if you live
outside the city, in a village, in a
small town, at the countryside, maybe
not even a city. Please raise your hand.
Yeah. And then, please raise your hand
if you live in a big city.
Okay.
>> [laughter]
>> I hope you all see this.
There is a quite a big difference. And
then, again, the ones who raised your
hand for living in the big city, who of
you have ever thought or considered
leaving the city?
Luckily for me, there was quite a few
hands as well. So,
this is what we're going to talk about.
This is uh
Denmark, and the first part is going to
be a bit of a geography lesson.
Um because in Denmark, even though we
are very small country, we do have um
a saying called
the rotten banana.
And the rotten banana um
is where all the people, mostly from the
big cities, like Copenhagen and Aarhus
and Aalborg, they have this idea about
this part of Denmark not really being
worth anything. Like this pa- part of
Denmark out here is where the houses are
the cheapest, where there's more pigs
than people. There all the youngsters,
they are moving away to the bigger
cities to go study. And we also have a
saying that out there, the birds are
turning around.
So, literally, this is just the worst of
the worst place you can ever be in
Denmark. But,
it's changing.
A lot of people, especially young
people, is starting to move back. It's
families, it's friends, it's couples,
and me as well.
So, I moved
out there
in Hanstholm.
It's a very
rural place. It's very far from
Copenhagen. It's actually
as far as you can come.
And
what I see out there is that there is a
movement of someone who wants to do
something else and who wants to do
something different.
And
it all started
and the reason why I tell why I'm going
to tell you this story about why I moved
out there, I like you don't care at all,
but the reason why I did it and why I
want to tell this story is that I think
there might be a lesson in this idea of
moving outside that
kind of reminds me about sustainability,
but in another way, but also how we can
be built to last.
So, it all started
with COVID.
I think it really shook up a lot of
people's life.
But, in
COVID in December 2020, we had
the second lockdown in Denmark and as
Mads just told you, I just started
working at Amass as a student. They
didn't took students normally, but I was
really like I wanted to work there, so I
convinced the entire team of hiring me
and they did. And then we were just
started and then the second lockdown
hit, so we were all sent back home.
And instead of going back home to my
apartment in Copenhagen, I moved back
home to my parents.
They live up there. It's a small island
called Life Island. At all names, there
is only nine people living there, but my
family is six of them. So,
and I'm going to tell you way more about
that in another presentation, but this
is Life Island, and I moved up there,
and even though it's a beautiful place,
then after a couple of weeks, I really
started to get bored.
So, I called one of my friends, and she
is the tourist manager of Thy, which is
up here. So, this is a part of Denmark
called Thy.
And I texted her because I was super
bored. Like, I really just had to do
something, and I didn't knew what to do.
Uh so, I was like, "Hey, can you maybe
show me around this area? It's a part of
Denmark I've never seen before, so maybe
that would be fun."
And she would.
She said, "Yes."
But she had a bigger plan.
So, what she ended up doing was to bring
me all around the area, showing me all
the empty restaurants.
And there is a lot, I can tell.
So, she showed me all of these different
places,
one after one.
And the last place we went, at this very
weird
rural, raw harbor in Hanstholm, which is
almost like the Wild West,
was where I fell in love.
So, this is an old grill bar.
It's in the middle of
nowhere. There is It's a small town.
There live 2,000 people, but it's at
Denmark's
biggest fish auction.
So, all the fish we eat in Denmark, in a
lot and in a lot of the southern
countries in Europe, because we ship all
the fish away from here,
is being landed here in Hanstholm.
But what they served at this grill bar
was this famous dish called a shooting
star, which is a deep-fried fish, and
no one really knows where it comes from.
Basically, it it can be any kind of
fish, and
I wouldn't say that this fish was from
Hanstholm, but it was super popular, and
all the German tourists came happily to
eat at this place. But, now the couple
who owned it, they decided to sell.
And I was there at the right time, at
the right moment, and I
had never dreamed about being a
restaurateur.
I never dreamed about having my own
restaurant in Hanstholm. I was I had
never been there before. It was my first
time I was there at all.
But, something in this place really
talked to me, and I I don't know if it's
a saying in English, but I really felt a
call from the universe.
Like, I really felt that, okay, here is
a place serving this [ __ ] I'm sorry,
but this
and you're in the middle
of an industrial harbor. You're in the
middle of where all the produces are.
So, why don't you start serving some of
this fresh fish fish, which is
landed and sold here at the narrow?
And this is where the cafe was. Like,
why? It didn't make sense for me.
So, basically, the reason why I was keen
in this place was that I felt no one
else have done this. Like, no one else
is here. I was alone. No one else were
there. There were no
rush about this place in Denmark. So,
I kind of felt a need to do this.
So,
I
It all went very fast. This was in
January '21, and I started spending all
my time in this city.
I talked to the people. I talked to the
locals, but I especially spend a lot of
time being at the fish auction and
talking to the
mostly men
only men down there.
And really like trying to ask them,
okay, what is this place like? I'm from
I'm not from Copenhagen. I lived here,
but I'm I am from Jutland, that big part
of Denmark, which makes a diff big
difference when you just enter a room
like that to a lot of old fishermen from
the coast. So, I was really like trying
to move move carefully, but also asking
them Hey, you have all of this beautiful
fresh fish which is just coming right
in. Shouldn't we serve it as it
deserves? Like, shouldn't we pay it all
the respect that we need
or that we can?
And they were actually
super curious about it. Like, they were
kind of It's difficult to get something
positive out of them, but it's
they were as much as I could
tell, they were quite interested.