The food? Chef's kiss

The world's best chef is beating his own records. Bjorn Frantzen now holds three Michelin stars each in Stockholm, Dubai and Singapore. How does he do it?

- VIR SANGHVI

And according to Michelin, the world’s best restaurant (and consequently, the world’s best chef) is called Restaurant Frantzen and is in Stockholm in Sweden.

The chef is a former football player called Bjorn Frantzen, who looks a little like James Bond might have if he had been born and brought up in Scandinavia. The reason you haven't heard of him is because he refuses to play the influencer game.

But here are the facts: Frantzen in Stockholm has three Michelin stars, the first restaurant in Sweden to win the highest ranking possible. Some years ago, Frantzen opened Zen in Singapore, a market that is as different from Stockholm as is possible to imagine. Zen won three stars too, putting Frantzen in that tiny club that only a few chefs — like Alain Ducasse and Thomas Keller— have been in. Then Frantzen was invited by Dubai’s Atlantis to open another Frantzen there last year.

I first met him then and thought this was a bit of a high-risk venture for him. He called the restaurant FZN and I went soon after it opened. I thought the food was differently focused from Singapore’s Zen but very good.

The big question, of course, was: What would Michelin think? No restaurant has ever won three stars for at least a couple of years after opening.