Open Kitchen

• Open Kitchen is an invitation—to a new meal, a new experience, a new Helsinki. We created a practical training programme for participants to learn the ins and outs of the food business in Finland: You bring the cooking skills, we teach you everything else.

  Chefs, restauranteurs, managers, suppliers, and other successful professionals around the city became the tutors. The team spent half their time learning from the best, and the other half testing their ideas and new knowledge by taking over a restaurant together.

  Open Kitchen was a tangible demonstration of a better way to support and foster entrepreneurs. By creating an intermediary option between popups and formal business, Open Kitchen lowers the barrier to entry for the food business.

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  OK logomark by Sanna Mander. Additional design work (including the portrait sketches below) by Mari Sollman and Inka Kosonen.

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• We launched Open Kitchen with this video inviting people to apply for the programme.

• Project details

• Partners

  Sitra, Marrot Oy, City of Helsinki, Paulig, Lapin Kulta, Helsinki World Design Capital

• Sitra/HDL's role

  We initiated this project, co-designed it with Marrot Oy and the City of Helsinki, and contributed approximately half of the funding.

• What's happening now?

  At the time of writing (June 2013) Haaga Helia, the main hospitality school in Helsinki, is exploring how they can offer Open Kitchen on an ongoing basis.

• Schedule

• Monday 3/12/2012

  Big picture overview

  Bryan Boyer

  Helsinki food perspective

  Ville Relander, City of Helsinki

  Global food perspective

  Cynthia Shanmugalingam, Kitchenette, London

  Food for Thought

  Antto Melasniemi

  Working dinner with Introductions & Orientation

• Tuesday 4/12/2012

   Buying a restaurant

  Ari Larnemaa

  Food safety & hygiene

  Elina Pahkala, City of Helsinki Environment Center

  Working dinner

  Topic: what can we cook together?

• Wednesday 5/12/2012

  Sustainable food, logistics, and supply chains

  Tuuli Kaskinen, Demos Helsinki

  Restaurant Finances

  Aimo Bonden

  Alcohol regulations

  Markku Yli-Suutala, AVI

  Wine planning

  Kim Moliis, Vindirekt

  Working dinner

• Thursday 6/12/2012

  Independance day !

• Friday 7/12/2012

  Thought starter: food concepts

  Antto Melasniemi

  Working dinner & group discussion

• Monday 10/12/2012

  Managing a restaurant

  Maija Ijäs

  Menu Planning

  Heikki Purhonen

  Making it in Finland

  Toshiaki Hoshi

  Working dinner

• Schedule

• Tuesday 11/12/2012

  Restaurant interiors

  Antto Melasniemi & Bryan Boyer

  Restaurant identities

  Sanna Mander

  Working dinner

• Wednesday 12/12/2012

  Coffee: everything you need to know

  Hosted by Paulig

  Kellohalli restaurant planning

• Thursday 13/12/2012-Saturday 15/12/2012

  Kellohalli restaurant prep

• Tuesday 18/12/2012—Saturday 22/12/2012

  Kellohalli restaurant open

• See a glimpse of the venue and hear from some of the participants why they joined Open Kitchen.

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• Background materials

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• A book about street food in Helsinki

  While we were scoping Open Kitchen, we wrote a book about casual and street food in Helsinki. It unpacks what's working and what isn't in Helsinki, and sketches out some trajectories as to where casual food could go next. 

  We see that the history of Helsinki's street food is inextricably tied to food in Finland in general, and so it is caught up in deep currents of regulation, politics, commerce, national identity and culture. As unlikely as it may seem, when viewed from this historical and cultural perspective, street food might be a powerful force for shaping everyday life.

  Helsinki Street Eats by Bryan Boyer and Dan Hill with contributions from Ville Tikka, Nuppu Gävert, Tea Tonnov, and Kaarle Hurtig.

  Get your copy here

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  Find more photos from Open Kitchen on our Flickr.

• More about the development of Open Kitchen in blog posts tagged 'Food'.