The kitchen and professional development of chef Nathi Stupf
The Bernese Oberland, pure Switzerland
What do you do as a young family, you build a house. It’s almost like in Swabia, when building a house was instilled with mother’s milk. The fact that peace with one’s own clod is still a long way off and many a dear neighbor turns out to be a quarrelsome despot forces you to take special measures.
Man is so free and sells the pile of stones again and looks for peace somewhere else.
Rolf continues to work as a train driver and Nathi has decided to switch to community catering. A decision made out of love, otherwise they could have just as easily stayed across the pond given the contrasting working hours.
Anyone who has ever been involved in the life of a restaurateur knows that this type of person lives completely differently to a large part of the population. This is still a major problem today when it comes to generating young talent. Who wants to lose their social contacts at a young age and work when their best friends have free time?
Nathi's formative kitchen step into community catering
Nathi then decided to work in a retirement home and began her further development as a diet cook.
An exciting field that tries to celebrate the best for each guest, completely off the beaten track, while also focusing on medical aspects.
Nathi then put her newly acquired skills as a diet chef to good use at the hospital in Thun. During this time, she also successfully passed the professional examination for head chef and the higher professional examination for “Head of Community Gastronomy HF” and felt well equipped for further adventures.
Nathi is not the kind of character who stops setting herself new goals. Standing still means going backwards for her and as long as the fire of curiosity is burning, there are always new mountains to climb.
Senevita Dorfmatt, an organization of attractive and exclusive apartments for senior citizens, has developed a truly unique food and restaurant concept in its Münsingen branch. Nathi Stupf has been successfully managing the kitchen there since May 2022
Senevita Dorfmatt, the creative kitchen playground by Nathi Stupf
For those of us who are familiar with the sight of retirement homes in Germany, we are amazed at the dedication with which restoration is carried out in these Senevita homes.
A restaurant, not a dining room and not a combination of living space and mobile tables where the residents are taken to be fed.
On the contrary, we think the standard of the food concept and the resulting quality on the plate is excellent. Is the restaurant also open to guests from outside? Are there special offers and culinary highlights that inspire your residents and give them the feeling of a dignified and respected last stage of life?
Nathi Stupf does a really good job and also has a team that pulls together with her. That’s great and makes her proud to work with such colleagues and to be creative in the culinary sense.
Cooking is still about love, dedication and respect for the product and, above all, putting a smile on the guest’s face.
Nathi's secret love, her commitment to the next generation of chefs.
If there is one thing that is particularly close to her heart, it is to promote and properly train the next generation. The art of cooking is not a craft that can only be learned by reading about it in publications.
You really have to do it with full dedication and live it.
This is no different to craftsmen who work with naturally grown materials. You have to feel the development process in the food, smell it, taste it and experience it haptically. No book can convey all this.
People tend to forget that the tongue’s sensory system takes a long time to train. Today, computers can press a dish out of a machine with a standardized recipe, but a sensor will never be able to replace taste and creativity in the kitchen.
The Chef`s de Cuisine Association from the Canton of Berne. (Cercle des Chefs de Cuisine Berne - CCCB)
The CCCB is a venerable association of masters in their field.
Although these representative bodies have now died out in many professional sectors, great professions such as that of a cook are still very active. This is also related to the traditional view of lifestyle and cuisine, which really shouldn’t be underestimated.
A big part of a people’s identity is always what they bring to the table. An expression of quality of life and a reflection of lifestyle. People still remember the 1950s in England. A tormented post-war population with emergency care until the early 1960s. Switzerland was largely spared from this bloodletting of culinary delights. Not that there is always honey from the alpine floss there too.
The fact that in Switzerland, like everywhere else in Europe, the profession of food processing, whether a boucher, patissier or chef is on the decline, is extremely regrettable and to be lamented.
That’s also the reason why Nathi always tries to bring her love of cuisine to young people with passion. This makes you outstanding and is greatly appreciated for it.
The love of competitions, a showcase of good taste.
Measuring your own performance as a lone wolf, but also creating something together as a team and pushing the boundaries of what is possible. You particularly like this and it also looks like a confirmation of your skills.
What you like best is pushing the limits of your physical and mental performance in a competition.
What particularly appeals to them is the fact that special character traits develop under high levels of stress. Positive or negative and when the balance is right, a new milestone is reached.
The Swiss Culinary Cup, one of the most prestigious competitions of the white Swiss guild.
The fact that Nathi takes part in the Swiss Culinary Cup is not a question of honor, but rather an inner obligation to compete with the best. This is your driving force and claim. Nathi wants to know where she stands.
Mostly interspersed with men who can survive the harsh everyday life of a star kitchen, both as self-flagellating zombies who can live with little daylight and with the necessary pinch of masochism.
The fact that you then of course want to see in a competition whether you are one of the best and whether all the effort was worth it is something that you don’t find in many characters.
The fact that a concentrated horde of testosterone-ridden male white jackets doesn’t instill fear in her is a great strength of hers. The young zodiac sign Gemini in a herd of Taurus knows how to take advantage of his opportunities and counters with the sensitivity of a woman.
There were chefs who had already celebrated their skills at all the international championships. But that only impressed you peripherally.
Everyone has the same skills, working their way to an excellent second place in the final against the extremely strong competition is a great honor for a chef who actually only masters her everyday cooking in an, albeit exclusive, senior citizens’ residence.
Because of love as we already reported in the first blog.
The will and insight to move forward had a strong influence on her. Of course, she was speechless at first on stage when she was offered the honor of receiving one of the most prestigious prizes for Swiss chefs in 2021. A very special honor for your self-confidence.
There were also colleagues there who already had experience in major competitions. Nathi didn’t want to be the first to be eliminated. Man or woman, everyone has the same requirements, she says. In the final elimination there were five boys and one woman out of many participants who asserted themselves against strong masculinity. As a small home cook from Senevita, she prevailed against the pack of bulls. Madness, as she still says today.
She had cut her finger badly in the first few minutes because of sheer stage fright.
The fact that she reached second place was really great and raised her self-confidence to new heights. Not off the hook, but with the right compass. Nathi doesn’t want to be a fixed star that burns out and shines brightly in the sky for a short time and then disappears.
We are excited about what will follow.
What the future holds is not only revealed by the stars
If you don’t set yourself ambitious goals, you won’t even reach mediocrity. Her goal is to become a well-known and good chef from Switzerland. She says she has until she dies. Sounds presumptuous, arrogant and crazy at the same time, but that is exactly her point of no return. I was quite impressed by this statement and the fervor with which she said it in the interview. It doesn’t make me doubt in the slightest that she will only stop when she has reached this milestone for herself personally. Nathi is anything but extroverted, on the contrary. She embodies the quietly modest and yet extremely ambitious, which would suit some of the stallions of the white guild who dominate the public eye very well. No harsh tones in the kitchen, more the love of the art of cooking combined with the warmth of a family, that’s what she wants to convey to young people in particular and, as far as we have found out, she does an excellent job of it.
Your personal dream of owning your own restaurant.
One of the great ladies of the culinary profession, Tanja Grandis has shaped you like no other.
This special person has left a significant place in your memory.
She had the honor of spending a day with her and she had not forgotten something outstanding, the reserved calmness with which Tanja Grandis runs the Restaurant Stucki.
Valais is Nathi’s home and that is exactly what she wants to embody.
Your own restaurant must be a Valais stone house, or another small restaurant with a lot of charm, an old rustic house, no precious wood, but appropriate architecture.
She wants to spend time with the guests. For this, there must be no more than 25-30 seats.
It should be a Zhaos, a living room where she can receive her friends. She wants to celebrate the highest art of hospitality there.
We at TYPEMYKNIFE® are absolutely convinced that you will achieve this goal one day and wish you all the best and success on your future journey.
