Luna Hjerming

This series offers quiet glimpses into the people and stories that inspire me. From friends and makers to thinkers and creators, each shares their unique perspective on life, craft, and the values that shape them. It’s a space to reflect, connect, and discover what drives us.

Some people have a way of touching the world around them - with honesty, care, and endless curiosity. Luna is one of those people. Her love for food is inseparable from her love for people - creating meals that make others feel seen and cared for. She works with food the way I try to work with jewelry: guided by curiosity, created with her hands, and shaped by a respect for craft over convention.

Craft, Curiosity, and People First

Luna runs the canteen at The Lab in Copenhagen, a large photo studio where creatives and brands gather to produce campaigns and visuals. But what she does is far more than just cooking for hungry people. She creates moments. Meals that connect, that ground, that make people feel at home in the middle of a buzzing creative space.

Her journey into food wasn’t planned. At 18, she thought she might become a nurse or a photographer. But her first full-time job at a restaurant changed everything. Within three months she had gone from server to bar manager to restaurant manager - falling head over heels for the energy of hospitality: the rhythm of service, the after-hours togetherness, the lists and structure that keep the chaos in balance. She wanted to be the best, to know every answer, to push herself to be braver.

Years followed in restaurants like Famo 1.th, Cicchetti and Bar'Vin, where she worked in fine dining, often stepping in as a consultant - refining both the kitchen and the service, helping restaurants rediscover what true hospitality meant. “It’s often the hosting I’ve been brought in for,” she says. “How do we welcome people, guide them through an evening, make them feel safe and seen? That’s what matters to me.”

It was in this work that journalist and podcast host Lærke Kløvedal first noticed Luna. Without ever meeting her, she sensed her influence in the rooms of Copenhagen restaurants - places that felt somehow incomplete, until Luna had been there. Later, when Lærke asked her to cook on Det Sidste Måltid (“The Last Supper”), Luna protested: “I’m not a chef. I don’t know how to do it ‘right’.”
But as Lærke highlighted: Luna’s good with food, good with wine, good with people. That was enough to begin.

Today, Luna carries the title with humbleness. She isn’t classically trained, but she’s deeply schooled by life, driven by curiosity and care. She reads, she experiments, she learns with her hands. Her background in wine sharpened her senses, but her cooking is less about ego and more about joy: “I want to create meals that make people happy. That’s enough.”

At The Lab, she’s found a place where food meets creativity on a different stage. Nobody books the space for the food, yet the meals matter deeply to those who spend long days there. “It’s not about the location, it’s about the people and what happens between us.”

In the bar where guests order, an old ceramic sugar bowl sits quietly. A gift from her mother, now a part of the canteen. Small traces of home woven into her work. “Home and work blend together,” she admits, “but sometimes I’d rather be here. This is my second home. My colleagues aren’t just in the restaurant, I’m close with my colleagues across all departments at The Lab, such as booking, set building, and production, and we also have all the people who come here to work on shoots. - they’re the photographers, the stylists, the entire house. It feels safe, it feels right.”

When asked if she has a guiding principle, Luna’s answer is simple: “Umage.” The Danish word for effort, care, diligence. “That’s my compass. With stubbornness and humility. If you do your best, you don’t forget the salt. You taste twice. You care.”

Luna’s craft is food, but her gift is people. She approaches her work with honesty, curiosity, and an instinctive respect for craft - always with people first. She reminds me that it’s not about following a rulebook, but about daring to create with your own hands - experimenting, refining, intuition, and staying curious. In that way, we create something extraordinary. That’s also what TOURELL is about.

/ Tine