Mikko Kosonen was days from his restaurant’s first anniversary when I sat down with him back in April 2019 for the 118th dinner interview. He was already exhausted – 170-person weddings, embassy dinners, a World Bank sit-down, all in the same week. “I almost lost my belief in the whole thing,” he told me.
He’d spent 16 years as resident chef to Finland’s ambassador before opening a Nordic restaurant in Dupont Circle, betting DC was ready for herring without the mushy cream-sauce reputation. Over fish soup, pea soup, short ribs, and seared cod, he explained his five-ingredient rule, his obsession with smoking everything from salmon to apples, and the Aquavit cocktail people were still asking for a year after his opening party.