Fredrik Berselius was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, but followed in the footsteps of his sister Michaela by moving to London. It was she who introduced him to the world of fine dining and it was in London that in the early 2000s, after failing to be accepted to study art at Central Saint Martins, he “fell into cooking”.
Hungry for something new, he moved to New York City. After studying nutrition at the Natural Gourmet Institute, he worked in a series of NYC restaurants, culminating in the renowned Per Se.
In 2012, Berselius opened a pop-up restaurant in Brooklyn called Frej which was followed in the same location by the original Aska. In its first year, Aska earned a Michelin star, which then became two stars, after Aska reopened in larger premises in 2016.
When he’s not in the kitchen evolving his celebrated take on New Nordic cuisine, Berselius likes to be out and about, surrounded by nature. He has competed at a high level in various sports, from snowboarding to cycling, and enjoys combing the countryside for interesting ingredients while pedaling in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York.
Restaurants
In 2012, before launching the restaurant that would go on to make his name in the world of fine dining, Berselius and partner Richard Kuo opened Frej, a pop-up restaurant serving affordable Scandinavian cuisine Located in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, Frej turned out to be a short-lived venture, but from its ashes rose the first incarnation of Aska, appropriately meaning ‘ashes’ in Swedish. Here, the carefully curated tasting menu combines Scandinavian influences with thoughtfully sourced ingredients from local producers in the northeast US.
Within a year, Aska had earned its first Michelin star, a recognition of its innovative bridging of the gap between the culinary heritage of the chef’s birthplace and the resources available near his Brooklyn home. Encouraged by the restaurant’s success, Berselius decided to move it to a more expansive location by the Williamsburg Bridge, where the restaurant reopened in 2016.
After just a few months, Aska gained a second Michelin star, becoming one of only a handful of restaurants in New York to achieve this honor. A three-star review in The New York Times soon followed, and it was also named one of the 10 Best New Restaurants in America by Bon Appetit magazine.
Recipes and dishes
Berselius describes Aska as having a “New-York driven menu” which, however, features flavors largely taken from the Swedish tradition of his childhood. While it may seem paradoxical, the chef sees similarities between these two parts of the world in terms of the landscape, the produce and more.
He is a believer in local, often foraged ingredients, and a perfectionist when developing his menus—a single recipe with only three ingredients apparently took him two years to develop—but the results speak for themselves. The richness and complexity of flavor he conjures from seemingly simple ingredients is breathtaking, his signature bladderwrack or sea oak served with an emulsion of blue mussels being a case in point.
The techniques he and his team use to achieve this culinary magic include fermenting, pickling, curing and smoking—all staples of Nordic cuisine, all employed to add Berselius’ twist to his ingredients.
In 2018, Berselius published his first cookbook, Aska, with Phaidon, in which he shares not only 85 recipes but also some of the secrets of his approach and celebrates the heritage of both his Swedish upbringing and his adopted US home.
