VEGETABLES CAN BE MORE FUN THAN MEAT
Natural and wild – that’s a good way to describe the project launched by Vojtěch Nemrava and his remarkable gastronomic team. Although their photographs ooze masculinity and meat roasted on an open fire, during the interview Vojta convinced me that courgettes need just as much TLC as a steak. In our interview, Vojta talks about his ZE MĚ project. The name is a pun in Czech: ze mě means “from inside me”, země means “earth”.
ZE MĚ Project has become a trailblazer on the Czech gastronomic scene. Their unique concept of catering for weddings, companies and culinary connoisseurs is now a hit both in the Czech Republic and abroad. They like to cook outdoors, on an open fire, with music playing. They enjoy making others happy and fulfilling their unusual wishes. In addition to these events, they also organise the ME ZE festival and concerts combined with exceptional dishes.
Vojtěch Nemrava is the founder of the ZE MĚ project. A lover of good food, he’s above all a normal, genuine person who hates pretension. He left the world of finance and the spreadsheets and charts of an investment company to plunge head first into the tough world of Czech and international gastronomy, and it soon became clear that he did the right thing. Today, his unconventional approach to food makes him and, most importantly, others very happy.
What exactly is the ZE MĚ project, Vojta?
We are a gastronomy group whose primary focus is on wedding and cor- porate catering and degustation experiences. We will go anywhere, cook anywhere and for any number of guests, but we always cook outdoors, whatever the weather. Our first wedding this year was in February. We talk to the guests a lot, and we usually welcome guests with our steamed rye bread with miso butter or fried potatoes with truffle mayonnaise and truffles. In our experience, it’s that human contact and sincerity that sets us apart from the competition.
How long has the project been running?
I’ve got a terrible sense of time – sometimes I say three years, someti-
mes five, sometimes six. (laughs) That’s because it all started as a pop-up project among friends who did it in their spare time. The first year we did maybe just two events. And then all of a sudden it started to snowball. And somehow it turned from a hobby into a full-time job.
Did it start with a plan you wanted to bring to fruition, or was it really just spontaneous?
It was very spontaneous. In the beginning, some graphic designers created a visual identity for us while we were still wondering how to go about things. We knew what we enjoyed doing, we knew about some trends in gastronomy, we knew what people liked and what we liked. And we liked a challenge. We were trying to do things other people wouldn’t do – like a degustation dinner in the woods where we’d never been before. And there we prepared food that we only knew from Michelin-starred restaurants. But it was a success. People loved it.
When was the visual identity created, and what ideas shaped it?
The principal ideas were that we were going to cook over a fire, outdoors, that it was going to be very natural, genuine and a bit wild.
How many people make up the core of the project?
There’s me; Adam Helma, who also makes our crockery; Jirka Voráč,
a gamekeeper; and Tomáš Urban, a baker. And Aneta Macolová, who helps hold everything together. She’s our project and office manager.
Are you planning to expand the group? How about pastry chefs?
We’d like to double or triple the team in size next year. We’re looking for our own permanent place where we could cook. And for that we need
a team. We’d like to take the same progressive approach to drinks as we do to food, so our main focus at the moment is looking for bartenders, baristas and all the rest.
And what about expansion into other countries?
We’ve been lucky enough to be able to take our work abroad this year: we did some catering in the Canary Islands, England and Spain. We’re also considering a smallish event in Portugal, where we went at the beginning of October to see the lie of the land. Although our biggest catering events recently were in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, that was for a foreign client.
Is it different working abroad?
You can read more from the interview HERE.
Text: Diana Rykrová | Photo: Nikol Štrosová
