Swedish-born Håkan Lundberg, executive chef at the Minneapolis Club, prides himself on pushing boundaries in the kitchen—he once crafted edible Rubik’s Cubes from melons. But his latest venture is perhaps his most ambitious: creating a new flavor. When brainstorming a gluten-free dessert, a sous chef suggested apples stuffed with raisins, caramel, and torched marshmallows, which Lundberg thought to enhance by adding a cylinder of “bonfire” ice cream on top. “I’m a sucker for having hot and cold on the same plate,” he explains. To find the perfect toasty flavor, Lundberg experimented with smoking the marshmallows and catching smoke under a globe before deciding to turn to nature. By burning pinecones, branches, hay, and leaves, and steeping them in an ice-cream base, Lundberg was able to replicate the essence of sitting around a warm fire on a cold night. “It’s an entirely new flavor, and it’s very seldom that you come up with a new flavor,” he says. “It’s very inspiring to come up with something completely on your own like that.”
Perfect Plate
Part 1: Chef Steven Brown of Tilia
Part 3: Chef Landon Schoenefeld of Nighthawks
Part 4: Chef Khanh Tran of The Bachelor Farmer