Draft:Eva Hurtigkarl

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Eva Hurtigkarl☢

Eva Hurtigkarl (born 1992) is a professional Danish chef, known for her colourful meals and for her position as Ganni’s canteen Head Chef. She is also the author of the cookbook Spis Med (translated to ‘Eat With’ in English) that has a publication date set for March 2025.

Biography

Childhood

Eva Hurtigkarl grew up in Copenhagen in the neighbourhood of Christianshavn in a family of chefs, with both her parents having worked in kitchens throughout her childhood. She recalls being involved in her family’s cooking life early on by baking with her mother, and making pasta dishes with her father. Her family loved food and she always had a close relationship with the act of cooking. In an interview with Hannah Tappin she states that: “My mother would give me a cup of parsley and a pair of scissors for me to cut in front of the television while she was cooking dinner,” and that she remembers chopping carrots even when not yet able to reach the countertop.

Growing up, her mother worked in a health market, and so Eva ate a lot of healthy foods, learning how to cook with mostly local and seasonal ingredients, as well as how to use leftovers and handle waste in a sustainable way. She says that in her household, they did not only eat traditional Danish foods but also a lot of tofu, soy, soy milk, brown rice, veggies, and smoked mackerel, which had a big impact on the kind of cooking she does now. One of her biggest inspirations to start cooking professionally has been her best friend Lulu, who started cooking school some years before she did.

Education and Early Career

Eva previously worked as a PR and Community Marketing Manager for Advertising agencies. She quit her job in 2015 as she wanted to travel and work in a job not only tied to language and limited to being behind a desktop. At first, she started deepening her love for cooking by organising big dinners, practicing recipes for friends, and learning with YouTube videos.

Her ambition to cook professionally was cemented by her best friend’s Lulu chef's career, and by a trip that she took to the US where she met chefs, and foodies alike, and subsequently realised cooking school was free in Denmark.

Cooking School

Eva Hurtigkarl started cooking school at 25 years old at Copenhagen’s Hospitality College (Hotel og Restaurantskolen) in Valby where she graduated in 2019 with a Culinary Arts degree. The school’s model of education is based on practical working experience and internships of various lengths in different restaurants. During her schooling at HRS, Eva did several internships including two weeks in a small 20 seat upscale restaurant in Ibiza that had a set menu of 5 or 6 dishes and worked primarily with local products and seafood. She then went on to do a 4 months seasonal internship in Tuscany, Italy at Villa Lena. There the chefs were from New York and Eva learned how to cook beans, tomato sauce, and American-Italian cuisine. During her stay at Villa Lena, Eva went truffle hunting, which she says was a hard but rewarding experience.

She then worked at Radio, a fine dining establishment in Copenhagen that specialises in New Nordic style food, where she experimented with the science of food; using simple ingredients and whatever is available and using different techniques to treat and process the products used in innovative ways. Her last internship took place at Kafeteria, the National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst) restaurant’s, she joined the SMK’s team as a student and graduated while still working there. The working environment there was less intense, and more easy to follow than her other internships, and the Chef there (Frederik Bille Brahe) taught her a lot about cooking vegetables, how to use big industrial ovens, and the ways in which to cook easy recipes in large quantities for work in cafeterias, which will become the backbone of her later work.

Career

First Jobs and Early Career at Ganni

At the age of 29 years old, and after graduating from cooking school and ending her internship at the SMK, Eva Hurtigkarl travelled to Japan for vacation, where she was planning to stay three months to discover and sample the local cuisine. She travelled in Tokyo and Osaka, where she discovered Okonomiyaki. Hurtigkarl went to Northern Japan in Asahikawa and was surprised by their consistent Ramen recipes using burnt pork fat on soup; on the contrary in Okinawa in southern Japan, she was able to sample rare exotic fruits, grape seaweed, and was exposed to very different savours with fishy broth, and limy and citrusy flavors. In 2020, Hurtigkarl was forced to cut her travel short after two months due to the early Covid outbreak in Japan.

After her return to Copenhagen and due to the Covid crisis, it was challenging to find a job, "The Danish measures in the beginning of the crisis were swift. People could not gather and many free trade professions were mandatorily closed down. Most of them included premises at which clients are offered services involving close physical contact such as restaurants and nightlife, retail shops, social activities and private parties." In, turn, she ended up working in the island of Møn in Southern Denmark, a popular and eclectic tourist destination where a lot of hotels and restaurants were still open and operating as normal. When life returned more to normal, Eva Hurtigkarl worked as a caterer for brands and galleries events, and she also worked with Saks Potts for two years, a Copenhagen-based fashion brand. Evolving in the world of art and fashion, Hurtigkarl had been booked by Ganni to cook for them at the 2020 Fashion Summit; this opportunity fell through due to the Covid epidemic, but she stayed in contact with Ganni’s founders Ditte and Nicolaj, cooking and organising private dinners at their home. In 2021, the brand wanted to move away from wasteful catering for their Headquarters, and wanted an in-house chef to align with their company values and sustainability goals. They offered the job to Hurtigkarl who quickly accepted and in August 2021, after renovation work, Ganni’s new kitchen opened with Eva as their main chef.

Current Activity

Eva Hurtigkarl working at Ganni's Headquarters

Eva Hurtigkarl has been working at Ganni’s Headquarters as their Canteen Head Chef since 2021 where she cooks mostly vegetarian food from Monday to Friday, as well as catering the brand’s Fashion week dinners. Hurtigkarl mostly works by herself with her colleague Mia Verson and the menu everyday has a small selection of choices for increased manageability, efficiency, and a more effective waste management and limitation.

Of her cooking for Ganni at events, Eva Hurtigkarl says that she cooks according to taste but also to the different colours and textures of each of their collection and pieces, as well as cooking that is representative of  Denmark’s and Copenhagen’s culture and identity, with an emphasis on sustainable cooking. In an interview with the food magazine Plates, she states that she likes to make dishes that already exist; “I have no need to invent something completely new. There are so many good dishes in the world already.” In her daily cooking for Ganni, Hurtigkarl puts an emphasis on easy, simple and tasty cuisine and meals that would be accessible to be cooked by any employees, food that they would recognise from their own daily lives, “You shouldn’t belittle ordinary food. Few people want to eat a five-course meal for lunch”

Outside of her commitments to Ganni, Hurtigkarl organises long table dinners with brands, Fashion week dinners, and does a lot of Monochrome colour dinner collaborations with other chefs and food artists.

Work Ethics and Values

Sustainability and Recycling

Eva Hurtigkarl expressly runs her kitchen at Ganni with sustainability at the forefront of her mission. In a 2022 interview with Ganni, Hurtigkarl explains, “I like to use fresh organic vegetables, from producers that are nearby instead of flying things halfway around the globe. I don’t want to serve anything that has been plastic wrapped for weeks.” Her mindful practices extend from sourcing ingredients to the cooking processes, where she frequently employs no-waste techniques such as reusing vegetable scraps for stock, or lentil eau-de-cuisson (cooking water) for soups. It is customary that the kitchen serves leftovers from the week on Friday in reimagined ways.

Eva Hurtigkarl’s efforts to run as sustainable and ethical a kitchen as possible as seen through her work at Ganni is part of a much wider movement to reduce the impact of food production and consumption on environmental issues. Her approach is part of a wider shift in the food industry, where chefs, restaurateurs, and consumers increasingly recognise the need for ethical and sustainable choices. This aligns with the growing popularity of plant-based dishes, which Hurtigkarl aims to serve as much as possible. By integrating these principles into her work, Hurtikgkarl contributes to Ganni’s sustainability goals while inspiring change within the wider culinary industry to adopt more responsible and forward-thinking culinary practices. Sustainable cooking technologies are shown to support socio-economic development by improving health, reducing food waste, and protecting the environment.

Sustainability and Gender

Foods cooked by Eva

Eva Hurtigkarl’s approach to cooking challenges the traditional, masculine-dominated structures of professional kitchens by embracing a more intuitive, adaptable, and sustainability-driven model. Her career path, shaped by international experiences and a deep respect for seasonal, locally available ingredients, reflects a shift away from rigid hierarchies toward a kitchen culture that prioritizes collaboration, balance, and resourcefulness. Instead of the high-pressure environments that have long defined fine dining, Hurtigkarl has cultivated a space where efficiency and creativity coexist, demonstrating that leadership in the kitchen can be transformational rather than authoritarian. By integrating sustainability into her cooking—minimizing waste, repurposing ingredients, and maintaining a thoughtful, seasonal approach—she not only aligns with broader cultural shifts but also redefines what it means to run a professional kitchen. Her work illustrates how female chefs are shaping new culinary spaces that challenge long-standing industry norms, proving that success does not have to come at the expense of well-being, inclusivity, or ethical responsibility. Hurtigkarl accredits a significant amount of her inspiration to pursue such sustainable methods to her upbringing. In conversation with Hannah Tappin she recounts, “I grew up eating very sustainably before it was even fashionable. My mother always served leftovers, cared about whether the food was organic and we ate many legumes, tofu and vegetables. We always had home cooked food - never take-away.”

Gender and Cooking

Hurtigkarl’s role as a female chef is also significant in her sustainability-focused approach. Women play a vital role in promoting technologies and practices in alignment with sustainable cooking, as they are often the primary users, advocates, and educators within their communities, driving awareness, adoption, and demand for eco-friendly and efficient solutions. In fact, women-headed households are more likely than men-headed ones to adopt sustainable cooking due to community networks and increased awareness. However, their efforts are often limited by a lack of decision-making power and financial control within households, where men typically oversee expenditures. This aligns with research showing that women-headed households are more likely than men-headed ones to adopt sustainable cooking due to strong community networks and heightened awareness . However, as seen in broader societal trends, women’s efforts are often constrained by a lack of decision-making power and financial control within households, where men typically oversee expenditures. Hurtigkarl’s work challenges these limitations by using her platform to highlight the importance of sustainability in the food industry, advocating for systemic change and empowering others to embrace sustainable culinary practices, particularly through her outspoken approach.