The
driving force behind the ‘To Nobody’ Restaurant is a jovial
German, Joerg Eisenschmidt. However, he is a man who has had to
struggle against political problems and personal stigma to get
to where he is in life. He is also a man who has done much more
than just running a restaurant, but he remains committed to the
culture of the kitchen, saying, “The future is in the
connection of cuisines, and Thai herbs have such
possibilities.”
He was born in the previous East Germany in
Naumberg, during the Communist regime. His father was a small
shopkeeper, but he was notable in the fact that the business he
ran was a family business, not a state run enterprise. This made
him, in the eyes of many East Germans, a ‘capitalist’. It
also brought derision on the young Joerg. He became used to
hearing, “This is the child of a capitalist!” “I became
strong,” said Joerg.
As Joerg came to the end of his schooling he
decided there was no future in the little family shop. His
maternal grandfather had been a chef and this interested him, so
he went to cooking school for the next three years. He enjoyed
the combination of theory and practice and after completion of
his course he had the opportunity given to him to put the theory
into effect - he was drafted for National Service for the next
18 months, in the kitchens. “I never even saw a gun,” said
Joerg.
By now he knew he was in the right
profession, but he also knew he needed further study. There was
more to cooking than dumping mashed potatoes in a tin Dixie! He
was very lucky and scored one of the 50 places a year in
Leipzig, offering a bachelor’s degree, from where he emerged
three years later with his qualifications.
It was now time to enter the restaurant
world, but once again he had to overcome bias against him. He
was not a “Party member” so he could only go to small
hotels. The larger establishments were reserved for the Party
faithful. He began as a sous-chef, but very quickly moved to
executive chef and from there to become the general manager.
That took 18 months!
But Joerg had his sights on something better
and managed to get the job as the F&B manager in a larger
hotel in Bansin on the Baltic Sea. “This was a new education
for me,” said Joerg. “We smoked all our own fish and cooked
wild game.” The restaurant also became very popular, with
400-500 covers a day.
He had been there for three years when the
(in)famous Berlin Wall came down, and Joerg began to receive
customers from the previous West Germany, and was still enjoying
the Baltic, but his father begged him to come home. “Germany
is free now,” said his father, “come back and run the family
business.”
This was very hard for Joerg. The family
business dated back to 1893. How could he refuse? So he returned
and renovated the little shop, but soon realized that it was too
small, so he enlarged it and incorporated a butchery and a
patisserie. Very quickly it became a supermarket and he took a
supermarket franchise for the next 10 years.
On a rare day off he visited Munich and
decided to try a Thai restaurant there. He met a young Thai girl
and they dated and in 1993 they married. That is Sunisa, his
wife whom you can see every day in the ‘To Nobody’
Restaurant in Chiang Mai.
However, back in Naumberg, dating a girl from
a restaurant brought out his own need to work in a restaurant
again. He made a little restaurant in the supermarket and did
catering at the weekends. “I had never lost my love of the
kitchen. I was working 15-16 hours a day, seven days a week, but
it was my life.” He also began to see that he was only working
in the supermarket for the money, not for personal enjoyment. It
was time for a change.
He suggested to Sunisa that they should come
to Thailand to live and work. “I had no real plan. I looked
around Thailand. I rejected Phuket and Pattaya and thought about
Chiang Mai and Sukhothai. In Chiang Mai I found a house and
opened up my restaurant. I called it ‘To Nobody’ because I
was ‘nobody’ when I came here!”
History will show that despite the odd name,
‘To Nobody’ was an instant success. One of his first
customers was Prince Bhisadej who suggested that Joerg put his
Royal Project trout on the menu. “I suggested we could smoke
the trout, and now we’ve been doing it for three years.”
Joerg’s royal connection has become such that he was invited
to cook for the Royal Family while they were in Chiang Mai, an
honour that Joerg holds very dear.
Joerg is very much a ‘one man show’ and
feels that that situation will continue. “Cooks will only stay
for a year and then want to open up their own restaurants.” So
he is destined to remain in the kitchens, but I got the feeling
that Joerg really doesn’t mind that. His heart is in his
kitchen. “I have had seven years of training. You need this
time (to learn). Every day I learn something. You learn the
processes, that’s how I can make new dishes. Connecting
European styles and Thai and Indian styles. The future is in the
best connected cuisines,” said Joerg.
By this stage, getting close to the end of
the interview, but talking about cooking, Joerg’s favourite
subject, he became more and more enthusiastic, the arms waving
as he began to think aloud about using Thai herbs in his
kitchen.
It is not often that you meet someone who is exactly in the
right niche. However, I can assure you that Joerg Eisenschmidt
of ‘To Nobody’ is in the right place. In his own kitchen!
