With a culinary project that has more to do with celebrating than with simply eating, the Fofo cooking studio, led by Martha Bohne, Lea Scherer and Lauritz Bohne – and many other collaborators – has quickly developed a transdisciplinary discourse aimed at captivating diners through an original dialogue between flavour, colour, and shape. Always surrounded by seasonal ingredients, in a charming farmhouse about 40 minutes from Barcelona, the work of this group of friends feels like an exclamation point in the crowded world of creative cuisine.
CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT FOTO, WHAT YOU DO, AND HOW YOU GOT TO THIS?
Fofo is a recently founded culinary studio that likes to explore and combine different scales connected to food. Whether working for a client or developing self-initiated projects, we apply the same rigorous attention to context (the where), processes (the how), and products (the what). With our background in design and architecture, we follow a transdisciplinary approach that translates into carefully crafted outcomes in the creation of tastes, table settings, culinary products, and experiences.
WHERE DOES THE NAME FOFO COME FROM?
The name was conceived long before our move to Barcelona, on a rainy day back in Germany. Motivated to bring spark and colors to our lives and the lives of others, we wanted to merge our passions: food on one hand, and forms on the other. Thus foodforms – or short fofo – was born. Understanding that food shapes bodies, communities, and landscapes, while vice versa forms dictate the production, appearance, taste, and consumption of food, fofo intersects these realms at and around the dining table – making it a platform for interaction and knowledge exchange. In the meantime, of course, we came to realize that ‘fofo’ in Spanish means chubby. We quite like that.
WHAT DOES FOOD MEAN TO YOU?
Food is about the scales it is affected by. If you taste a certain dish you may have an immediate reaction to it, you may find it good or bad. Yet what we like to provoke is a sense of wonder. With what we serve, in its taste and its appearance, we like to trigger questions and spirits of exploration to involve people in the process of their creation. This starts with carefully sourcing high-quality ingredients, processing them, combining them, and serving them in unconventional ways and settings. Food can provide us with a certain understanding of the world, its societies, and its industries, and can teach us how we may take a role in it by choosing what to eat, how, and why.
WHERE DO YOU GET INSPIRATION FOR YOU MENU FROM?
We never work with a fixed menu; instead, the soil and the season dictate the dishes. It’s what we find in our garden, in the woods or the vineyards next to where we live – there are so many unknown and unexpected tastes of nature that once having caught our attention are excessively explored, varied and combined. Colors definitely also play a big role in that, as we love to work with colors – and what goes together in color mostly goes together in taste.
WHAT INGREDIENTS ARE ALWAYS IN YOUR KITCHEN?
Butter and olive oil, pickled and fermented veggies like kimchi; lemons and fresh herbs from the garden.
WHAT IS YOUR SPACE LIKE, THE SPACE YOU LOVE?
For us, it’s not merely about the space itself. Any space can be beautiful and inspiring if you look at it from a certain perspective, if you imagine what could happen in it. We believe that culinary experiences have the ability to activate any space and transform it into something exciting as they bring people together. From very rudimentary or archaic to very extraordinary occasions, food has the power to shape encounters with people and with spaces.
