Meet Andreas Viestad

Andreas was born in Oslo, Norway. Since then, he has traveled extensively throughout the world and lived in many different places including Zimbabwe, Zanzibar and Boston, Massachusetts in the United States.

What do you do when you are not in the kitchen?

I love to read, but apart from that, most of what I do is about food. I like to travel because I want to experience new cultures, meet new people and sample new flavors. I tend to travel where my appetite leads me.

You have traveled a lot. What are your favorite places so far?

My favorite places in the world are the big cities like New York, Paris, Seattle, San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro. Sicily is also one of my favorites. But it always feels good to come back to my summer residence in southern Norway and enjoy some lazy summer days.

How did you become so interested in food?

I learned to make food from my mother and my father. My parents were divorced and in my mother’s household there were only two of us. My mother was a restless cook who always liked to experiment and she hardly ever made the same meal twice.

Who taught you to cook?

In my father’s household, my father did almost all the cooking, as did my grandfather. I learned that it was only natural for men to cook. Ever since I was an adolescent, I have cooked more for others than I have been cooked for. And that is the way I like it.

What are your ambitions and plans for the future?

New Scandinavian Cooking has been a great way to learn more about my own background. Now I want to travel to exotic places -- perhaps somewhere further south. I can see myself sitting on a sandy beach in mid-January. I would like that.