“I went to Berlin without any experience in gastronomy. I sent my resumes to various places until I heard from one of the cafes. I made two hundred avocado toasts a day in a tiny kitchen there,” the 31-year-old cook describes her beginnings. Her story opens a series on Aktuálně.cz about notable Czech cooks.
In addition to working in a cafe, she and her friends also ran a catering company focused on so-called pop-up experiential gastronomy in Berlin. However, the business ended after a year and a half when each of them decided to go in a different direction.
After returning from Berlin, Kateřina Jakusová spent five years at the famous Prague restaurant Eska, where she worked her way up to the position of sous chef, i.e. assistant chef. “I went from ordinary meals to cooking of a higher standard, which was quite difficult at the beginning. I jumped out of my comfort zone and wanted to move on,” she recalls of the first months at the restaurant from the Ambiente portfolio.
In the award-winning establishment, she tried various positions, from line cook to special kitchen segments to the already mentioned assistant chef. “Eska has been one of my most important gastrostations so far,” he admits.
Three months free in Noma
At the same time, she also completed a three-month unpaid internship at the best restaurant in the world – Copenhagen’s Noma. “That was the other extreme. A three-month internship is really hard if you give it your all. There were people who didn’t come to work every day because they worked for free. But the permanent employees lived off nothing but Noma. They were in it six days a week from morning until night, and when they had time off, they spent time with people from work, too,” Kateřina recalls of 2018.
“On an internship in such restaurants, you get food and valuable experience. In addition, I received a voucher for a tasting dinner with drink pairings. My savings for three months in Copenhagen fell, I wanted to try the best I could. Noma was, is and will be a phenomenon, people hear a lot about it,” he says.
The three-Michelin-starred restaurant, led by René Redzepi, opened in 2003 and is known for its reinvention of Nordic cuisine. Despite all the awards it has collected over 20 years, its owners decided to close Noma next year and continue only in a pop-up format and special projects.
Kateřina Jakusová admits that the experience in a prestigious company is challenging but rewarding. “It also depends on what you expect from the internship at Noma, but it will teach you a lot,” says Kateřina, who praises that she started to think about food in a new way in Copenhagen and also adopted a stimulating approach to work. “Everything can be solved somehow and nothing is the end of the world,” he says.
From fine dining to pizza
After her experience with experiential gastronomy, two years ago she decided to make a drastic change and threw herself into baking. “In Esca, I got everything I wanted and wanted, so I decided to try something new again,” she says. A year and a half later, she baked goodies in the Vinohrady bakery Another piece.
Some time ago, however, she moved to the Alf & Bet company in Liben, where she produces all kinds of pastries. In addition, he has been working on his pop-up pizzeria Slice Slice Baby for almost a year.
“In my business I connect two worlds – baking and cooking,” he says. “Everyone likes pizza, I personally love it and I don’t think there are that many people in the world who don’t like it. You can put absolutely anything on it and it’s usually good, there are a huge number of types of pizza. And it’s a food that people share things together, which I like,” Kateřina describes.
She considers herself an ambassador for Hawaiian pizza. “In Italy, for example, I saw pizza with sausage and fries. And Italians buy it and eat it,” she says. “So far, salami pizza has proven to be the most popular at our pop-ups, people can go crazy for it,” he admits.
“At the end of it all, there’s ‘just’ a plate of food”
Starting in March, Kateřina plans to organize at least one gastro event per month. One day, she would like to open her own permanent bistro, but she has no idea when and where that will be. “I don’t want to rush it, but I would like my own business. Pop-ups are great, but it’s a nomadic life, I still have to carry everything with me, unpack, pack. I promised myself that I had already put in thousands of hours for others and wanted I would rather give my best to something of my own,” he says.
She enjoys the diversity of the craft in gastronomy. “There are so many types of cuisine and types of food preparation that there is always something to learn. I don’t feel that learning in gastronomy is ever exhausted,” explains Kateřina.
“I like the way people think in the gastro and the ‘drive’ they have. Even though at the end of it all there is ‘just’ a plate of food. It’s interesting what people are able to do for that plate,” he says .
According to Kateřina Jakusová, the lack of female chefs is mainly due to the fact that work in haute gastronomy is demanding. “You work an insane amount of hours a week, especially if you get into a leadership position. Women also maybe prioritize their personal lives more, they want families, they don’t risk their careers as much,” she muses.
“You can’t tell from the plate whether a woman or a man cooked”
So far, she has not encountered prejudices against the fact that she is a woman during her career years. “I believe it’s more a question of individual interpersonal relationships than a question of gender. When someone doesn’t sit well with you and you don’t know how to talk to someone, it doesn’t matter if they’re a man, a woman or a Martian. I don’t want to deny that such gender problems do not exist and that there are no prejudices against women, but I haven’t experienced anything like that. Probably also thanks to the fact that I started in Berlin, where gender is absolutely not an issue. Society there is very tolerant of everything,” she thinks.
“In addition, when you gain self-confidence and show it, no one will allow anything to happen to you. In Esca, I got into a team where there were already several girls, and sometimes someone could make a remark, but he wasn’t fixated on you and didn’t mean it in a sexist way, ” he adds.
Kateřina Jakusová does not even favor restaurants run by women or female chefs. “I always rather follow the idea and work of a particular chef or cook and the company. You can’t tell from the plate whether a woman or a man cooked,” he convinces.
In addition to baking, her favorite gastrodisciplines include fermentation. He prefers seasonal ingredients in his fridge at work and in regular shopping. “It doesn’t make sense to process something that doesn’t grow here in the given period and was flown in from the other side of the world,” he explains.
“Maybe the avocado I worked with in my early days, I still can’t eat because it makes me sick. Also, the phenomenon of avocados in the Western world seems quite depraved in some ways, considering how much it costs and how many resources it consumes. Yes, even “I sometimes buy exotic fruits and vegetables, but avocados are among the worst ecologically. It’s like the Czechs exporting parsley to Mexico,” concludes the cook.
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