From the Football Pitch to Three Stars

A childhood that didn’t look like this

Björn Frantzén was born in Solna, just north of Stockholm, in January 1977. His upbringing was, by his own description, ordinary — working class, suburban, nothing fancy. His father was a car mechanic. His mother sold construction timber. He was a bread-obsessive who barely ate anything else. By thirteen he had been admitted to AIK, one of the biggest football clubs in Scandinavia.

“At 13, we went to a small French brasserie in Stockholm. My friend and I had steak frites — grilled meat, béarnaise sauce, French fries. It was the flavour that changed everything.”

— Björn Frantzén

A heart condition and a career change

At nineteen, Frantzén was forced to abandon his football career due to a congenital heart condition — incompatible with professional sport without a pacemaker, which he didn’t want. He enrolled in culinary school, then cooked in the Swedish Army before working his way through some of Europe’s finest kitchens: Chez Nico’s at 90 Park Lane, Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, and Alain Passard’s L’Arpège in Paris.

Career timeline