The (Wild) Story Behind La Cocina Bonita

La Cocina Bonita was created in late 2025 by Flora and Flemming, two Danish chefs, entrepreneurs, writers and visionaries.

Since the early 2000s, we have created farm-to-table restaurants and other food concepts together, written cookbooks, worked with natural wines, permaculture, urban gardening, foraging and been at the forefront of genuine sustainability – long before it became fashionable.

Scandinavia's nature, traditions and way of life have always been close to our hearts, and over the years, our restaurants and other projects have received widespread recognition in the international press.

Until it all came to a very abrupt end.

Our U-Turn

It began with the realization that despite our deep love for Scandinavia’s nature and ingredients, we could no longer see a future for ourselves there. In addition to some private reasons, we no longer felt we could stay true to our values or continue working towards a greener planet within a system that seemed designed to produce the very opposite of what we were trying to achieve.

So, together with three of our four children, we set off for Guatemala to explore what else was possible. Our oldest daughter stayed in Sweden to finish school, she was 17 at the time.

Then followed the bankruptcy of our life's work – Scandinavia's first and probably still only off-grid permaculture resort - in the winter of 2025.

The Media Storm

To make things much, much worse this devastating loss was followed by a brutal and deeply personal attack in the mainstream media. Within weeks, false and evil stories about us had spread around the world like a wildfire. Almost overnight, every bridge back to our old lives had been burned – including our own desire to return to Scandinavia.

Somewhere in the chaos, we found ourselves on the shores of Lake Atitlán, at rock bottom and deeply shaken - but still standing. And with an unexpected opportunity to take over a little hotel at a place we had never thought we would end up: San Pedro La Laguna. That hotel would eventually, become La Cocina Bonita.

Today, we're doing what we've always loved: creating beautiful food, bringing people together and exploring what it means to live well.

We will not lie: It was a hell of a ride. But rock bottom turned out to be a solid foundation for starting over on our terms. And San Pedro is an even better place to be for people like us than we would have ever imagined possible.

The Book About Our Journey

In response to the media storm, we wrote a book about our journey – and all the beauty and chaos that came with it: Nature Knows – The True Story Behind the Headlines.

But the book is about much more than setting the record straight. It's also the story of our lives and our vision for the future of our planet – a vision we've spent decades trying to turn into reality, and one we have no intention of giving up on. Because despite everything it has cost us, our relentless pursuit of this vision has given us even more.

See more on www.nature-knows.org