On 22 March 2023, H.E. Mrs. Sirilak Niyom, Ambassador of Thailand to Denmark, and Miss Nitchaporn Varnapruk, Director of the Thai Trade Center Nordic in Copenhagen, granted Thai Select Award to Mr. Kenneth Heske, the CEO of Thai restaurant Wokshop which was chosen based on the Thai Select standards of the Ministry of Commerce, which include at least 80% of the restaurant’s menu is comprised of Thai cuisine, Thai standards cooking process, use of raw Thai materials and ingredients, good taste and high quality of food, as well as beautiful decoration and good service.
Her Excellency the Ambassador congratulated Mr. Heske and thanked him for helping promote good quality of Thai food. They also discussed about Thai restaurant business in Denmark. Mr. Heske said that he had frequently visited Thailand and found Thai cuisine to be the best in Asia. Therefore, he opened the first Wokshop Thai restaurant in Copenhagen 23 years ago. There are currently 11 branches of Wokshop restaurants in Denmark, including Hellerup, Amager, City, Frederiksberg, Lyngby, Lyngby 2, Odense, Osterbro, Roskilde, Rungsted Havn and Valby. There are plans to expand more branches of Wokshop as Thai food is very popular in Denmark and the business is operating well. All Wokshop restaurants employ a total of about 30 Thai chefs from Thailand in order to maintain authentic Thai flavors despite the high cost of employment and lengthy process of bringing chefs from Thailand, he said. The restaurants also use Thai ingredients and spices, as well as maintain the restaurant’s food standards which use the same menu and recipes, with random quality checks in different branches periodically.