Restaurant Koch recently said goodbye to co-founder Jesper Koch who is now pursuing his own projects and welcomed the 2015 Danish Chef of the Year winner Lasse Starup Petersen formerly at the gourmet restaurant Ten Steps Down in Fredericia. His recruitment is aimed at taking Restaurant Koch in Aarhus Harbour to the highest level.

Following his appointment as Executive Chef, Lasse commented "Restaurant Koch is a super cool place, and the brothers Koch are very good at both making great food and a thriving business. I think that we will work well together and learn from each other. Aarhus is a great city where I am looking to serve a lot of good food!”

Lasse’s food style focuses on taste not origin. His inspiration is French, Scandinavian, Spanish, Italian, molecular and Danish.

Despite only being 25-years old, Maître Rôtisseur Lasse has accumulated much experience particularly through his participation in numerous competitions. He finished his training at Restaurant Fakkelgaarden in 2011, immediately qualified as a member of the Danish National Culinary Team and became a permanent member since 2012.

In 2013, he was selected as one of ten participants for the 21-week ICEX Training Programme in Spanish Gastronomy. He worked under Chefs Marcos and Pedro Morán from Restaurant Casa Gerardo in Asturia, Spain. Lasse has also worked at Molskroen and Tree Top in Denmark and at Maaemo in Norway.

The annual Danish Chef of the Year competition attracts the most talented chefs in the country. It is a hands-on televised competition for the prestigious title which Lasse won in 2015. To develop his talent and improve his skills, during the competition he worked as Sous Chef at Ten Steps Down learning from its Head Chef and restaurateur Mette Hvarre Gassner who was the 2011 Chef of the Year.

Bailli Délégué Jørgen Krenk commented “In the Bailliage of Denmark, we are naturally delighted to have Lasse as a Professional member. He is one of several young Danish chefs who are using their natural talents and finely tuned skill sets to good effect in exciting their customers with food that tastes really good. It was twist and edge to this fine taste which undoubtedly proved the winning combination for Lasse in the Chef’s competition!”