"Food is Art & Art is Freedom"

Once upon a time

A lot of people are asking me 'Arne, what do you like most?'

Well, the answer is pretty simple - 'beauty'

There have always been two passions that dominated my life, architecture and cooking. And the link between the two is far more simple than you may think - creating beautiful things with top quality material that make people happy and put a lasting smile on their faces.

Most of you guys here in the Philippines know me from Poco Loco, but there's so much more I'd like to share with you; and so the idea of THE HIVE as a place where cultures mingle was born. 

It's best described as kind of a journey through my career, starting way back in mid-80's Berlin when I was staying with a bunch of Italian friends pretty much 24/7 for a couple of years. Those years and of course the vast amount of endless nights in Italian Restaurants made it sheer impossible not to learn how to cook a decent Pasta.

The 90's brought me back to the roots, enjoying Abuelita's favorites multiple times a week in one of Berlin's most famous Mexican places at the time, the name of which you can probably guess - Poco Loco!

In 1995, right after the birth of my first son, I moved to London, where a friend of mine forced me to apply with the BBC for their Masterchef series. After some hesitation I did, and to cut a long story short made it up to the Finals at BBC Masterchef 2000 UK home counties.

Living in the UK, which I did for some 10 years, means as well that at least twice or three times a week you're having a stir fry for dinner, which is of course mostly Asian influenced.

At the age of 35 I then went back to school (online) to study Nutritional Science. I was pretty safe at the craft of cooking but always wanted to know about the chemistry behind it. Food harmonies, why do certain foods go along lovely with each other while others just crash? Two years of night long studies I did never regret for a single second.

Back in Berlin I opened the kitchen club, the 1st event kitchen of its kind, combining cooking classes, fine dining and party until 2014. Ten unforgettable years, the memories of which follow me to the day.

Right before I came to the Philippines early 2016 I spent a couple of years in Buenos Aires, Argentina, running a fine dining restaurant. You wanna know anything and everything about Steak? Argentina has all the answers!

In 2017 I went to a language institute in Manila to obtain language skills in Tagalog, only to find myself being furnished with a contract to teach the German language to Filipino nurses. Working with them was an entire new experience for me which I loved to the extent that by 2021 I obtained all German rater and examiner licenses up to C2 level.

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And the beauty of it is that here at THE HIVE I'm able to combine language & food in a lovely setting and share my culinary highlights with you.

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