Jyrki Tsutsunen

Cooking & Culture

Official Ambassador for Saimaa, European Region of Gastronomy awarded 2024

“I think that eating is a multi-sensory and multi-dimensional experience where not only tasting but also listening, smelling, looking and feeling different textures are brought to the foreground and bound together. I want to shake people up and bring them with us on a journey of all senses. The Saimaa region is unique with all the berries, mushrooms, game meat and wild herbs. It is a pleasure to open our inspiring world to larger audiences.”

 

Jyrki Tsutsunen is a culture chef and a passionate forager. Creating new flavour experiences by using ingredients that have been collected from the Finnish forests. Often Jyrki works hand in hand with different artists, DJs and performers, building cultural mashups. Jyrki constantly strives to surprise, teach and compose something new. Food is life and wild food is a passion! Jyrki has cooked food in many of Helsinki’s top restaurants and worked at the Consulate General in St. Petersburg, creating many different food events and concepts for example in Madrid, Frankfurt, Berlin and Plovdivid. In the end, his heart is always willing to come back to the childhood roots and Saimaa’s serene nature.

Jyrki Tsutsunen, Cultural Chef and Forager