User:Jafdip/Mogens Bay Esbensen

Mogens Bay Esbensen new article content ... Mogens Bay Esbensen (born 1930) is a prominent Danish born chef and author widely credited with introducing Thai cuisine and Thai ingredients to Australia, and is considered a pioneer of Modern Australian Cuisine. He operated La Causerie, Pavillion on the Park and Butler's and The Old Bank restuarants in Sydney and Nautilus in Cairns. He now lives on the island of Læsø halfway between Sweden and Denmark.

Career

Esbensen was born on a farm 60km south of Copenhagen in 1930. He started cooking at age 4, and at age 15 trained as a chef under Ejler Jørgensen, a famous Copenhagen chef and restaurateur. At age 22 he was executive chef at the Hotel de France. In order to travel he joined Scandanavian Airline System (SAS) as a flight steward where he cooked in flight meals. In 1959 he was posted to Bangkok, Thailand, returning to Denmark t the end of his one year posting.

He returned to Bangkok to take up a position of food and beverage manager at the Rama Hotel, attempted to set up a floating hotel in Hong Kong, and later was involved in setting up an international resort at Pattaya. In 1965 he opened his first restaurant called Two Vikings. In 1972 Esbensen sold his interest in the restaurant to his business partner and developed a small orchid farm near Pattaya, but the venture failed and he lost his life savings. Two years later he returned to the food industry as a consultant to the Bangkok Hyatt Hotel. While on a promotional trip to the Hyatt Kingsgate he discovered Sydney and operated La Causerie before becoming head chef of Pavilion on the Park in 1976. The restaurant, which he ran with Damian Pignolet, became very popular and was a financial succes, netting nearly $1 million in one year.

Esbensen began by cooking French cuisine, but later introduced Thai dishes based on his 17 years living in Thailand</ref>. He purchased Butler's in 1979 where he introduced an international menu, although the restaurant was predominantly known as a French Restaurant. He demanded then unknown Thai fish sauce, lemon grass, gingers, eggplants, and fruits of Sydney suppliers, and eventually these became available.

While on holiday in Port Douglas, Far North Queensland, in the early 1980's, Esbensen purchased the Nautilus restaurant and ran this at the same time as Butler's. It was at Nautilus that he became famous for his Thai cuisine. In 1986 he wrote the influential Thai Cuisine, and in 1988 A Taste of the Tropics: the Delights of Australian Tropical Fruit. By 1989 Enensen had sold Nautilus and returned to Sydney to concentrate on Butler's..

Later life

Esbensen was initially very successful as an owner chef and in the 1990's built a luxurious house on 7 acres of rainforest near Cardwell in Far North Queensland. However by 1990 a combination of financial difficulties associated with Butler's and a chronic illness which prevented him from working caused his financial collapse. Successful surgery came too late to prevent his losing everything, and he left Australia disheartened in 1992.

Curious about Esbensen's fate, prominent Australian food critic Stephen Downes set out to find him in 2001. Downes tracked Esbensen down to the remote island of Læsø where he conducted a series of interviews which were later included in a book titled Advanced Australian Fare published by Allen & Unwin in 2002. Esbensen is believed to be still residing on the island.

External links

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