Kristen Kish rose to the international scene about a decade ago after winning “Top Chef” season 10. In the years since, Kish, who was born in Korea, has opened her own restaurant in Austin and co-hosted other food TV shows like Netflix’s “Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend” and The Travel Channel’s “36 Hours.” Now her new TV series from National Geographic, “Restaurants at the End of the World,” takes viewers to eateries in some of the planet’s most remote corners, including a cloud forest in Panama.
Kish says that for the longest time, traveling never felt like an option due to limited time and resources, but now a new world has opened thanks to this new series, which is streaming on Disney+.
“When life started to shift and it showed me … work and travel could coexist together … I feel like I'm making up for lost time,” Kish tells KCRW.
One episode is set in the Arctic Circle, at a hotel and restaurant called Isfjord Radio. Summer temperatures there can still hover in the 30s Fahrenheit, and it’s the farthest Kish says she’s ever been from civilization. Patrons must travel two hours by boat (or by dog sled in the winter) to reach Isfjord Radio. Kish describes it as a rest and refuel point for travelers on an adventure trek.
When Kish arrived, a woman with a gun greeted her. The firearm was to protect visitors from polar bears, which roam the area even in broad daylight. (Prior to their trip, one such bear broke into the restaurant’s dry storage.)
Due to the risk, Kish says they weren’t allowed to go outside without a guard accompanying them: “They were very adamant and serious about it. So once we got done filming, most of the time, I just sat in my room. Because to have to organize a guard to go outside — it just sounded exhausting.”
At Isfjord Radio, Kish teamed up with Chef Rogier Jansen, who uses both fresh and preserved ingredients in his dishes — essentially, whatever he can get his hands on.
Local hunters help acquire the meat, and Jansen uses all parts of the animals. That includes a bird called ptarmigan, similar to a squad. Jansen even used the contents of the bird’s feeding sack to make a gin-based cocktail.
“It was the feeding sack that he decided to use in a cocktail. And I am, again, all for using all parts of the animal. But was that part necessary? That part was for fun. He could have just put that back into the land.”
Instead of regular ice from the freezer, the cocktail is poured over glacial ice — which takes a 30-minute boat ride to acquire — and is topped off with tonic water.
“It wasn't awful. I didn't spit it out. However, I did not drink a full cocktail. So one sip was enough. I'm glad I did it. I crave some of his other adventurous dishes that he made, but certainly, I don't crave that one. However, I was most impressed by that one.”
Kish admits that journeys to Isfjord Radio can be out of reach for people, but the dishes themselves aren’t extreme.
“At the end of the day, he served a fermented berry sauce — because he fermented berries that he had gathered over the summertime — and Arctic char he got out of the water, and celery root on one of them. That to me doesn't scream pretentious food. It's fish, sauce and a vegetable.”
Each adventurous locale has offered new lessons for Kish as a chef.
“Everybody and everyone offers something very different to learn. But the commonality that all four of them carry is this sense of cooking without fear of judgment, or at least that's what it was perceived to be. … At the end of the day, we're human beings cooking food, there are going to be mistakes made, period,” she says. “But for them … this menu that feels so genuine … they all did it with such pride and without fear of someone not liking it.”
She adds, “We as the restaurant people have a responsibility to our diners, but our diners also have a responsibility to us. And I hope that diners come excited, ready to experience somebody else's food story, and allow us to take them on that journey without such unattainable expectations.”