The first time I saw David Zilber he was a name, printed on the glossy front of the book The Noma Guide to Fermentation. The book, which he co-wrote with Noma co-owner René Redzepi, is part cookbook, part Bible, weighing in at over 500 pages. The subheading: “Including koji, kombuchas, shoyus, misos, vinegars, garums, lacto-ferments, and black fruits and vegetables.” At the time David Zilber was the director of fermentation at Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant regarded as a holy site of pilgrimage for diehard foodies. I purchased the book as a birthday present for my cousin, and as a “thank you” received a bag of lacto-fermented blueberries that unfortunately got flagged by the USPS as an illicit substance and was confiscated by the postal system, resulting in an empty box showing up at my doorstep.
In-person David Zilber is even more impressive—tall, handsome, and stylish, with a cutting intelligence and sense of humor. Currently, the Toronto native is a food scientist for bioscience company Novonesis, leading a lab toward building sustainable food systems using bacteria and fungi. In the downtime (“What downtime?” one wonders) he guest lectures at universities like Stanford and is a judge on Top Chef Canada.
Let’s take inventory: Besides being a NYT best-selling author (he’s finishing his second book about mankind’s relationship to microbes), fermentation wonderkind, and TV personality, Zilber is also a style aficionado, passionate about Dries Van Noten and Y/Project. I visited him at the Copenhagen apartment he shares with his partner and child—an airy haven filled with books, plants, and original photography—and got the once-in-a-lifetime chance to peek into his closet and ask all my burning questions about fermentation.
Nicolaia Rips: How did you get into fermentation?
David Zilber: I’ve dabbled in it throughout my cooking career, but at Noma where I started as a line cook … René realized I was a bit clever…more than the average bear, so they transferred me into the fermentation lab, and that’s where I spent like five out of my six years.
What’s something you’ve fermented that you’re most delighted by?
I’ve made a lot of tasty stuff. I once made a sparkling wine out of a rare Japanese fungus. It was pretty cool, it tasted like apple cider mixed with oyster mushrooms, mixed with grapefruit, but all it was was barley and mold. It’s really niche, but it was one of those moments where you’re like, “I think I’ve created something that has never existed on Earth before.” Those are the sorts of magic moments fermentation can yield, if you hang out with microbes long enough.
What do you wear to work?
Now I work for a bioscience company called Novoesis. It’s not pharmaceuticals. They do a little bit in human health, but like probiotics and bacteria, in that realm, for food production. So that’s where I fit in. I have a nice test kitchen. It’s not too industrial, it’s a little bit homey. I’ll wear something practical: these Lemaire jeans are like work horses for me. A sweater, a collared shirt. I definitely stand out the most at this corporate job, when I’m walking to the canteen in like pink JW Anderson pants and a tie-dye t-shirt or whatever. But that’s fun, I get to be the quirky guy there.
Did you feel that quirkiness when you were working on the line? That’s a pretty extreme uniform.
I mean, it’s not extreme, but there’s a uniform. Yeah, get your chef jacket. You get your pants. When I was promoted to Sous Chef and ran the lab at Noma, I got to bend as much as I could the status of the uniform, in a Jobsian way. Oh, there’s, Dave The Walking Wikipedia, doing science in the lab. I started wearing black turtlenecks and balloony pants. And that was as far as I could take it.
Have you always been interested in fashion?
I mean, growing up in Toronto in the ’80s and ’90s, you definitely weren’t exposed to it. There was this great television show called “Fashion Television” with an amazing host Jeanne Becker, and I used to watch it, but it made no sense, because you weren’t exposed to it in real life! It’s not like growing up in New York, where people are, like, loud and ostentatious. Even from a young age, I think I was always searching for ways to express myself. I remember stitching my own pants together as a teenager.. I ruined two pairs of pants to make a hybrid. I stitched, like, striped pants onto jeans to make them flared. It was strange.
Do you see parallels between cooking—creating something that’s never been made before—and building an outfit?
Yeah, absolutely. I think that is the core of it. I always say that ideas are the world’s only infinite resource, and, even now that the world has long been mapped, humans still have this desire to say things that haven’t been said before. For me, that expresses itself in food, when I try to come up with new techniques or explore new ways of creating food. It also extends to how you dress yourself. I have the good fortune of being partnered with an amazing designer—my girlfriend, Matilda Venczel—but to seek out the work of really incredible people and then combine it in your own way on your body, is an incredible form of self-expression.
What are your favorite designers?
Glen Martens. I loved his stuff at Y/Project. Sander Lak who was at Sies Marjan. It’s so hard to be so iconoclastic. But the way he works with cuts and colors; there are a few designers with such a decisive vision. Grace Whales Bonner. I love the blending of Afro-Diaspora into modern fashion.
How do you shop?
In-person is my preference. You’ll never get a sense of the feel, cut, fit, unless you’re there.
I feel like the human microbiome is really a hot topic right now.
People are starting to discover this big unknown. It’s an ecosystem, and we all walk around with one, and we only know like a fraction of everything it does to us, and for us, and how to influence it.
Do you have any morning routines that you do for your gut microbiome?
No. I drink a cup of coffee on an empty stomach. That’s not great. I know that I should be eating like a nice bowl of probiotic yogurt that I made myself and a muesli containing 5 to 20 different nuts and fibers and, you know, berries, and things like that. Like I know what to do, I just don’t often have time between rushing to work and getting my kid to daycare and getting diapers on, and a shower, and a shave…Over the rest of the day, yes. My fridge is stocked with kimchi, sauerkraut, pickles, and all sorts of concoctions that I throw into everything I cook.
How do you dress your kid? Is he dripped out?
I can’t do designer babywear. Today it took him five minutes before he was drawing on his shirt with markers.
He’s creative!
Yeah, he is. But then his whole life should just be a blank canvas. He’s got crazy secondhand stuff. Pink pants and a neon orange shirt and like a leopard sweater.
How would you describe your style philosophy?
Say as much as you can in as few words as possible.
