Nordic-inspired Freyja, (the golden teared goddess of Norse mythology) the glorious two-level restaurant on Collins Street was the last piece in Soren Trampedach’s puzzle to bring people together to work and play in his Work Club Global human eco-system. It also stands alone as a statement restaurant headed in the kitchen by Michelin star chef Jae Bang. For Jae, the Nordic approach to Australian cuisine that informs Freyja’s style isn’t just about the food, although he is using traditional and ancient culinary methods such as pickling, curing, smoking, preserving, and lacto-fermenting. For Bang, it is also about harnessing the Nordic approach to work-life balance. If you’re not sure what that might look like, we go into it in quite a lot of depth in the following conversation. I first met Jae when I wrote about Freyja in 2022 and then had an incredible degustation in the dining room with its heritage brick walls, vast Gothic cathedral windows and curvaceous slatted timber ceiling - a nod to the boats of Nordic maritime history. This time we went downstairs into one of the quieter meeting spaces and sat at a huge timber table made with the boards of an ancient Nordic ship. We talked work life balance, food, Jae’s absolutely peripatetic and adventurous formation years from Seoul to Osaka to New York to Catalonia to Stavanger and then Melbourne. We also talked about his upcoming 4 Hands dinner he and visiting French chef, Hugo Souchet will be cooking over three nights at Frejya. Hugo is chef de cuisine at Les Prés d’Eugénie, Michel Guerard’s restaurant which has retained its three Michelin stars since 1977. The pair will put up 6 courses as well as showcasing Sturia Caviar and French champagne, Pernet et Pernet. These dinners are next week on the 8th, 9th and 10th of February, so as soon as youhave listened to this episode, jump on the Freyja restaurant site and book your spot.