With a single ingredient, artist Carsten Höller’s restaurant makes brutally delicious food

It ’s 13.00 at Brutalisten and while dinner service doesn’t start for hours, the kitchen is already in full swing. Entering the bar area of the unassuming Stockholm restaurant, I cavalierly touch one of the many jars of fermenting vegetables on the counter. “Don’t open that,” a woman says, with a kind expression, but a firm tone. “The smell is pungent, to say the least.” She gives me a wink.

Carsten Höller enters. This restaurant, Brutalisten, is his baby. It is based on a manifesto the Brussels-born, Stockholm-based artist composed several years ago, that included such passages as, “Brutalist kitchen is a dogma kitchen”, “One ingredient is often divided and cooked in different ways” and the slightly more biblical verse, “We are born as brutalist eaters, as mother’s milk is essentially brutalist.”

“I was worried I’d have to change my clothes, like for a photoshoot, I really don’t like doing those,” Höller says before we start the interview. “I’ve only done it once, with this musical artist Usher... do you know Usher?” Yes. I know who Usher is. “It was 2010 I think, and it was supposed to be with Rihanna... It was for Belvedere. It was for an auction, a charity, they bought an artwork and then Rihanna was supposed to perform, but Rihanna had made a commercial for a Cognac, so it didn’t work out, and I wound up with Usher.” I wonder if Usher knew he was a stand-in for Rihanna. “He was really nice, such a family man, mellow and soft,” Höller continues. “And I still got to meet Rihanna. My daughter and I went to see her in concert in New York.”

These sorts of stories are commonplace when speaking with Mr Höller. The fantastical becomes mundane, everyday fodder, and the ordinary and inconsequential can be excavated to previously undiscovered meaning. Nothing is unimportant, almost everything is – quite literally – on the table and up for discussion. “Nothing way too personal,” he says jokingly. As for his wardrobe, he’s wearing, as he does most days, a button-down shirt by his friend Miuccia Prada. The artist famously built one of his signature chutes, a large-scale metal playground slide, leading from her Milan office to the street below.

I’ve known Höller for quite some time, first through his work and later through mutual friends, but it wasn’t until recently that I became aware of his obsession with food. “I cook because I like to eat,” he tells me. “Not the other way around.” Situated in an inauspicious part of central Stockholm, Brualisten is a tiny restaurant housed in the mid-section of a 1920s granite tower. The building was erected to house a stair well connecting a large shopping street, Kungsgatan, with Regeringsgatan 71, the restaurant’s address.

Now, instead of a stairwell, there are two escalators connecting the two levels of the city. Frequented throughout the day by shoppers and businesspeople, the levelled passageway turns eerily quiet at night. The location adds to the very metropolitan feel of the restaurant. “You have to be a little in love with the space and read its mind,” Höller explains. There’s a huge, vibrant painting on the ceiling by emerging American artist Ana Benaroya. “I’ve never met her, but we had several Zoom calls. I wanted a boisterous dinner scene above,” he says, pointing to the colourful artwork overhead.

Related: 7 Scandinavian superfoods to know and eat

The dining room is empty but nevertheless noisy, with vendors zipping in and out of the front door with fresh produce. A colossal neon Dan Flavin sculpture hangs impressively on one wall. “Now it’s cosy, but at night when the Flavin sculpture is lit up it gives off a yellow sheen, and makes people look slightly ill,” he says. At a certain point during the night, they switch off the sculpture, allowing your eyes to relax slightly. “And that’s when we turn on music, only after service."

Born in Belgium to German parents, Höller started his career as an artist relatively late. “I hold a doctorate in agricultural science,” he says. “I was a scientist long before I was an artist.” His specialty is pests and diseases in plants, specifically aphids. Art, although an interest early on, came later, at the age of 34. “Actually, I could be considered an artist in the early stages of their career,” he muses. “...Or perhaps mid-career,” he amends, smiling.

Whatever stage he may be at, he has managed to straddle an infinite number of artistic forums without jeopardising his integrity. He has exhibited in some of the most prestigious institutions around the globe, from Tate Modern in London to The Guggenheim in New York, as well as in groundbreaking exhibitions including the 1998 Berlin Biennale, documenta X and the 2009 Venice Biennale. Known for a very specific aesthetic, Höller has acquired a cult following for his very pop-like but incredibly science-based artwork.

Fungi are featured regularly in all shapes and forms: such as the early Upside-Down Mushroom Room (2000), where humongous Amanita (known colloquially as Death Cap mushrooms) hang from the ceiling. Throughout the years mushroom sculptures in various sizes have made appearances else, where, including the small, white mushroom table lamps that now dot the Brutalisten interiors.

Höller’s work is often best enjoyed in its totality. One of his more famous installations was Soma (2010). Modelled as a scientific experiment, the artist took over the entire Hamburger Bahnhof contemporary art museum in Berlin, filling it with 12 live castrated reindeer, 24 canaries, eight mice and two flies. There was even an elevated bed in the installation, where the public could pay to spend the night, sleeping above the animals.

He has also forayed into the world of fine dining before, having created dinner and dancing spot The Double Club in London in 2009, with the support of Prada. The dining experience, bar, and dance club was part Congolese and part ‘Western’. Both sections of the space were fully-equipped as two distinct restaurants, presenting a commentary on the distinct cultures and their influence on each other.

If The Double Club is a mouthful to explain, Brutalisten is more like a nibble. “The Brutalist manifesto can be summed up in one sentence,” Höller explains. “Instead of doing combination food, which means you take one ingredient and then another, and then some spices, you make one ingredient food. It’s as simple as that.” Or is it?

Related: How urban waste is being transformed into gourmet mushrooms

“Actually, ingredient is the wrong word, that word allows for variables, so let’s say product,” he continues. “You have a chicken, and there you have everything you need: there’s grease and fat, all different parts to make different things from...a salad is more complicated, but not impossible.” West coast mussels are served in their own stock, rapini from Skåne is pan-fried and served with a sauce of, well, more rapini. Dishes arrive exactly as described on the menu – just an ingredient or two, prepared multiple ways.

The Brutalist kitchen manifesto challenges the prevailing modern ideal of the chef as an alchemist in the kitchen. “It’s like the Middle Ages, the chef is trying to make gold by finding a special recipe,” Höller says. “I think that is disrespectful to the product.” His approach is all about lifting the product, giving it the full space it deserves. “To do this,” Höller says, “the products must be in season, locally sourced and then you have to prepare them in the best way.”

At Brutalisten, this usually means dividing one product into separate parts, preparing those parts differently, and then putting them back together again. One chicken provides a sauce made from the liver and skin, the breast and leg are cooked, the bones used for stock, the skin fried crispy to add texture. One soon comes to learn that the possibilities are seemingly endless.

This approach can result in “100 per cent protein dinners” – something Höller himself indulges in “often”. “I’ve been Brutalist before I even formalised the concept,” he says. “Sweden is a country bordering on two seas, we get interesting seafood. You don’t want to add mayonnaise to a beautiful langoustine. If it’s perfect you could even eat it raw.” He doesn’t condemn condiments altogether, but rather quips, “If everyone is doing something, why should we?”

Although the artist admits that he’s “not interested in decoration on the plate”, he’s also quick to dismiss the idea that Brutalism “reduces enjoyment” as a misconception. “The manifesto, the guidelines, enhance enjoyment,” Höller says. “I want this to be a beautiful experience, I want people to say ‘Wow, this ing redient is amazing’.” Not your typical foodie, he is wary of name-dropping other restaurants. “I’ve had some great meals. I’ve tried amazing ingredients in Japan, and not just sashimi. I ate game at El Bulli, a hare, it was very good, and I think almost Brutalist in preparation.”

Brutalisten isn’t a solo exhibition; Höller has teamed up with star chef Stefan Eriksson. They met at the latter’s cooking studio and restaurant Matstudio several years ago. “Stefan was almost doing Brutalist cooking before, and when I started speaking to him about it, he immediately understood what I meant,” says Höller. “Other chefs freeze when I started talking about Brutalist cooking. Stefan didn’t miss a beat.”

Related: A guide to Scandinavian superberries

Höller likens Brutalist cooking, which only allows the use of salt and water alongside the star ingredient, to dogma films. A movement started by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, dogma dictated that any unnecessary flourishes, “like a tripod or a camera,” be removed from the filmmaking process. By imposing restrictions, you create new avenues for things to happen, to evolve. “The films that came out under the dogma concept were quite wild,” says Höller. “Maybe the same will happen in a restaurant, we’ll see.”

He seems remarkably relaxed about the reception his unusual dining experience will get. An attitude he also displays throughout our interview. “No one is going to read this article. No one reads anymore, especially not magazines. We can talk about whatever we want,” he says, laughing. My gut reaction is to correct him, counter the statement with an obvious, “No, of course people will read this,” but I stop myself. That’s exactly what he wants me to do.

By creating a slight tension, almost like a tear in the conversation, he’s hitting upon a nerve, waiting to see what I’ll say next . This is the essence of Höller. Constantly pushing boundaries, whether in food or in art. Always interested in what lies beyond, or beneath what is presented, whether it’s an immersive installation or a sliced Skåne radish, salted and served in all its simplicity.