Tore Wretman

Tore Fredrik Wretman (7 May 1916 – 13 February 2003) was a Swedish chef and restaurateur. Wretman is perhaps best known for helping to popularize cooking to men in Sweden, and his work as a restaurateur founding several of Stockholm's most popular restaurants. He is also known for creating Toast Skagen.

Biography

Early years

Wretman was born in Stockholm to writer Harald Wretman and Helga Nordström. He was the nephew of writer Tora Nordström-Bonnier. His parents divorced when Wretman was very young, and he spent part of his childhood at a children's home. This was revealed in the documentary Tore Wretman – kökspojken broadcast on Sweden's national public television broadcaster SVT in 2015.

Apprenticeships and Second World War

Wretman did not succeed in school, and at the age of sixteen he began apprenticing in the kitchen at the Hotel Continental in Stockholm. A year later he started working as a waiter at Operabaren in Operakällaren. There he met wine importer Fredrik König, who subsequently got him a job at Maxim's in Paris, in 1933. At Maxim's he learned the basics in the kitchen and was an apprentice under chef Louis Barth and restaurant owner Albert Baser. He worked as commis saucier and poissonnier.

In 1937, Wretman worked as head of the bar at the restaurant Soleil de Minuit in the Swedish pavilion at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. There he became acquainted with Sara Reuterskiöld, who was about to open the restaurant Regnbågen; she hired Wretman as head chef. He got the opportunity to introduce French cuisine on the menu. His position at Regnbågen was short-lived as in 1937 he was drafted into the Svea Life Guards infantry regiment.