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W
hoever wants to know something about
Sonja Frühsammer needs to speak to her
husband Peter – or observe her at work
in her kitchen. To watch how she calmly
and cautiously whisks the herb broth into a froth with such
concentration, looks at the carrots and then reaches for
the purple ones, peeling and cutting them into fine slices.
“Don’t they look pretty!” she says, adding: “But somehow
they also taste a bit boring.” She then drizzles a little oil
on top out of a marmalade glass with vanilla pods at the
bottom. “Yes, that’s vanilla oil, I just put some pods in a
neutral oil to make that,” she says succinctly.
When Sonja Frühsammer talks, everything seems easy,
done as a matter of course, without a trace of pretension.
For example, that she was born in Australia, went to school
in Berlin, studied mathematics and physical education
for a couple of semesters and then realised that she liked
cooking more. Also, that she trained in the company guest
restaurant at Siemens which had its own French chef in the
kitchen, was hired by the Berlin gourmet restaurant “Alt
Luxembourg” right after, had two children in her first
marriage, met Peter Frühsammer and is now one of the few
female chefs in Germany to have been awarded a Michelin
star. “It wasn’t my goal to become a star chef, I just wanted
to do what I enjoyed,” says Sonja Frühsammer. What’s her
secret? She lets out an embarrassed giggle and shrugs her
A kitchen full of
PROFESSIONALS
A R E C I P E F OR S UC C E S S BY S TA R CH E F S ON J A
F RÜH S AMME R : T R ANQU I L L I T Y, F R E S H I NGR E D I E N T S
AND A D I V E R S E R ANG E O F K I T CH E N GADG E T S .