Chef Matt Orlando’s Amass Restaurant in Copenhagen is a fine dining establishment located in a sprawling industrial warehouse covered in graffiti that proudly blasts obscure and sometimes aggressive hip hop. His Shift List includes Bay Area hip hop legends Hieroglyphics, plenty of Wu Tang Clan, and Scottish reggae music to round it all out.
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Matt Orlando is the head chef and founder of Amass restaurant in Copenhagen’s Refshalevej neighborhood, a somewhat secluded post industrial part of the city that you can choose to arrive to by public ferry.
Orlando opened Amass in 2013, which is a relatively short distance from both locations of Noma, where Orlando previously worked.
It turns out he actually spent two periods at Noma. His first post was sous chef in the mid 2000s, but he departed briefly for New York with his wife – who’s Danish – to take an opportunity as Sous Chef at Thomas Keller’s Per Se. Longing to return to Denmark, he got a call from Rene Redzepi after a couple of years in New York asking him to serve as NOMA’s first executive chef, a post he accepted and kept for three years prior to leaving to start his own restaurant down the street, an endeavor Redzepi was characteristically enthusiastic and encouraging of.
The result was Amass, a fine dining establishment located in a sprawling industrial warehouse covered in curated grafiti and proudly blasting often obscure and sometimes aggressive hip hop.
The juxtaposed restaurant is an extension of the chef himself, a San Diego native who grew up skateboarding and skiing amidst the graffiti’d culture of bay area hip hop legends Hieroglyphics before taking up a distinguished career in fine dining.
Chef Matt’s Shift List
Hieroglyphics – “You Never Knew”
A$AP Mob Feat. Wiz Khalifa – “Molly”
GZA – “When The Fat Lady Sings (Madlib Remix)”
Mungo’s Hi-Fi – “Scrub a Dub Style (Prince Fatty Mix)
Gentlemen’s Dub Club – “High Grade”
Tool – “Sober”
Chef Matt’s Shit List
Rasmus Seebach – “Lidt I Fem”
Arcade Fire – “Wake Up”
Amass Restaurant: http://amassrestaurant.com
Amass Restaurant’s Spotify Playlists: https://spoti.fi/2Pa8q9w
Theme Song: Jamie Drake – “Wonder”
