Tales of the Table · New chef · Harbour
From Rome to Reykjavík: Simone Severini takes over the kitchen at TIDES
The restaurant at The Reykjavík EDITION has a new executive chef, an Italian who has cooked his way through London, Venice and Japan and now wants to put Icelandic produce first.
TIDES, the restaurant at The Reykjavík EDITION hotel by the old harbour, has a new executive chef. Simone Severini, 35, had been living in Iceland for a little over a month when he spoke to mbl.is about his plans for the kitchen.
Severini was born in Rome and spent part of his childhood on the family's olive-oil estate in his father's home town. His grandfather was a chef, and he says the time he spent in the kitchen with his grandmothers is where his interest began. He started work at fourteen, washing dishes in a small restaurant, trained as a chef alongside the job and moved to London before he turned twenty.
From there his career took him to Amsterdam, to The St. Regis in Venice, to the opening team of Six Senses Rome and on to Japan – first on Okinawa and later as executive chef at Park Hyatt Niseko Hanazono.
At TIDES he wants to build on Icelandic ingredients – fish, lamb, seaweed and root vegetables – with his own take rather than traditional Icelandic dishes, and he is curious about old preserving methods such as pickling. His rule is simplicity: good produce, cooked well, without fifteen or twenty things on one plate.
TIDES is on our Eat & Drink map, overlooking the harbour at Austurbakki 2.
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