Californian Matt Orlando is head chef and owner of Amass, one of the most talked about contemporary restaurants in Copenhagen. Working in professional kitchens since the age of just 15, Orlando has some of the finest establishments in the world on his CV including Le Bernardin, Aureole and Per Se in New York, and the Fat Duck and Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in England. He is also the former head chef of Rene Redzepi’s ground breaking restaurant Noma. Amass opened in the summer of 2013 in a converted warehouse on a one-acre site in the former Burmeister and Wain shipyards overlooking Copenhagen’s old docks (and with views of Copenhagen’s famous Little Mermaid sculpture) just outside the city centre. Bon Appetit magazine described Amass as Orlando’s ‘grand and bracingly challenging experiment’ while the New York Times said it was ‘a magnet for diners in the know’ and quoted Rene Redzepi as saying that ‘it is probably my favourite restaurant in Copenhagen’. The surroundings may be industrial – think concrete walls decorated with graffiti and furniture made from reclaimed wood and metal – but sustainability is at the heart of the restaurant. Orlando calls his 900 square meter urban garden the ‘soul’ of Amass and where he grows about 80 different types of vegetables, berries, herbs and flowers (virtually all the produce used at the restaurant is organic) that appear on the daily changing tasting menus that might include fava beans, blackcurrants, lamb’s heart and horseradish. The restaurant’s fermentation room also plays an important part of the food at Amass and is where they transform leftover wine into vinegar, lemon skins into miso and make their own soy sauce. It’s also home to a starter of fermented potatoes used to make the restaurant’s signature bread that never leaves the menu and that might be served with spiced celeriac butter. Orlando has become a leading voice in hospitality on the subject of sustainability, reducing waste in his own kitchen by 75 per cent and laying out principles and practices for others to follow in order to achieve similar results.