meet Kristiane Kegelmann from Pars
Known for the most aesthetic chocolate in Berlin and beyond, Kristiane Kegelmann now also owns her own restaurant in Charlottenburg. At pars restaurant, you can find a carefully crafted selection of seasonal and regional fine dining dishes as well as an extensive wine menu. At the same time, your senses will be delighted by the artsy atmosphere of this place. But who is the person behind this unique concept?
"Eating, to me, means getting comfort and experiencing new things. It gives the opportunity to dive into someone's world of ingredients, character, and passion."
Who are you?
My name is Kristiane Kegelmann, I am a sculptor and a master pâtissière as well as the owner and host at pars Restaurant.
When did you discover your passion for cooking, how did you know you wanted to take this path?
I discovered my love for food when I was a teenager. After breaking off school (wouldn’t suggest doing that though), I decided to do something with my hands and where taste plays a role. So I went into pâtisserie and pastry back then. After my apprenticeship, I worked at numerous pâtisseries like Demel in Vienna and then decided to change my direction completely. After my learnings were learned and not much more to learn I felt a strong craving to create instead of produce. What it would be, I didn't know at the beginning, but the more I talked to friends from design and fine art contexts, the more I knew, this is the direction. I moved to Berlin and started with artistic projects and experiments. In that process of finding my art practice, I was working quite a lot with food as well and our fine chocolate pars Pralinen came out of that. By pure chance, former sculptures became these special culinary objects. The objects did not visually reveal what they contained, so the viewer had to get involved and grasp, taste, and internalize them. It was always about the vessel, i.e. the hollow body that was a body and the content that this vessel contained. The viewer became a participant and experienced this with all their senses. So pars chocolates were created purely by chance and have become a unique product ;) My artistic path went past the edible component, but the chocolates stayed. One day a few years later after the pandemic, I decided to open a restaurant. For me, this place is a beautiful sculpture and a vessel as well. A vessel that (can) contain a lot. Mood, warm-heartedness, respect, enjoyment, conviviality, care, well-being. People who enjoy, the moods of our guests and of the team, great moods or sometimes also more quiet moods. Every person has their part in this performance of a restaurant night. I love it. And I love that it is combined with amazing food that honors the best ingredients of small, mostly local producers. I love to dine here as well. I could only do this whole project when I love it and have respect for all the people and the taste and the quality. It's honest and it's honest luxury, honest indulging.
What does cooking mean to you?
After I am not the chef here, I can talk about eating. Eating, to me, means getting comfort and experiencing new things. It gives the opportunity to dive into someone's world of ingredients, character, and passion. I learn something every time and I love to watch the interaction of teams in restaurants, I love to see what the chef focuses on and to understand what's important there. So I’d always spend the bit of money I have on great food. I work closely with our head chef Alina Jakobsmeier and I believe her cooking means to transport a feeling. and she loves to use all different parts of an ingredient. Her dishes are so pure and so elegant, so fine.
The following questions are now answered by my head chef Alina Jakobsmeier:
What has been the most transformative experience in her journey as a chef?
When I was invited to become a head chef - from being a master pâtissère. Kristiane asked me if I could imagine being head chef and I jumped in.
Which inspirations do you use for new dishes, does it happen naturally or do you have any specific activities that help you with getting creative?
Taking a bath helps me. When I am relaxed everything comes to my mind naturally.
How would you describe your cuisine?
Very pure and product-based, the dishes have mostly to do with my memories of food and taste. Not imitating things I tasted but recreating things I was eating in my childhood. Recreating it way finer and very focused and soft and embracing.
Apart from cooking and creating dishes, what does this job mean to you?
It has been my life now for quite some time, so it means the world to me ;) I feel very connected with the job.
Now back to Kristiane answering:
How do you incorporate sustainable practices into your work and vision for the future?
It never ends, there is always something more you can work on in the face of sustainability. We try to do everything to produce as little waste as possible, to work with farmers, who take back their transport boxes and bottles. To pay a fair wage to the staff and have little over-hours to let them have a life besides work. To show transparency to the team and to the outside. To work with producers who focus on respectful work as well. Using mostly very regional produce.
How do you see the food scene evolving, and what exciting developments are you noticing?
It is exciting how more and more restaurants are opening in Berlin, even though it is a hard time for the culinary scene here. More and more restaurants work closer to nature, sustainability, and fairness for the employees. That is a great change that’s happening.
What challenges and opportunities do you face, and how do you envision the future for women in gastronomy?
I notice, that ever since the pandemic, so many people left or are leaving gastronomy. This is a huge challenge. People found out what it means to work normal hours, to not be overworked all the time, and not be well-paid at the same time. They want more work-life balance and fairness. Which is good and important. But it is still gastronomy. So no matter how fair you try to be to your employees, you can’t change the system completely, because the guests wouldn’t pay what it would need to cost… There won't be wages like in other professions if the whole system doesn’t get support. Right now you need to really love it! Luckily I have some of those great passionate people here at pars! It is also great to see that in a small team like ours we are so connected and supporting each other. Regarding the future of women, the same thing or even more challenging. It’s still a long way I’d say. Still, there are so few women as head chefs. It is alarming. To get to the point, where it is normal to have both family and work in the kitchen as a woman, is still far. To reach as easy a high position as the male colleagues. It's so deep in the system of many female socialized people, to be humble, or obsequious, worse at standing in for themselves. And the world is still full of so confident men who enjoy telling you how it's running or how we should do it and feeling generous when so. The roles are still so old. But it helps to open up and try to find solutions. Stubbornness helps me a lot. Working constantly on my deeply infused pattern of acting humble and apologizing for about everything. We have to use the strengths that come with the deficits.
This would be a long conversation, just a few thoughts on that.
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