By Silje Kolaas Photo: Wil Lee-Wright and Silje Kolaas

- I have fond memories of us all gathering around the dinner table and having food together. I was responsible for making dinner once a week. When I look back on it now it was a bit tricky making dinner on a Thursday, because I didn't know what to make. My dad loved pancakes and it was something that was easy and fun to make. Dinner was supposed to be ready around 4-5pm. We were four siblings, so there were a lot of pancakes. I became a whiz at pancakes, says Christopher Davidsen with a smile.

Davidsen is Head Chef at Speilsalen, a restaurant that has been awarded Norway's best restaurant. In February of 2020 they got their first Michelin star after having been open only for ten months. In 2015 Davidsen became World Champion Chef. In the two subsequent years after that he won silver in the European Chef Championship and in 2017 he achieved silver in Bocuse d´Or in Lyon. This year's Trondelag Food Festival chef is a true master and one of the world's best chefs. But it didn't always look like it would turn out that way. 

The contrast between family pancake dinners and a Michelin star restaurant on one side to the first six years of Davidsen's life on the other side, is big. The start of his life saw the presence of alcoholism, short term foster homes and child welfare services. He moved 19 times before finally finding his permanent foster home outside of Stavanger. To this day they are his family.