Marko Gajski

The Path

Formal systems training and market-side work sit unusually close to the kitchen discipline that later defined Marko Gajski’s career. At the Faculty of Organization and Informatics in Varaždin, he built a base in structure and process before moving into the Croatian stock market in Croatia, where he worked until 2010. That background reads less like a detour than a different kind of training: one shaped by precision, pace, and pressure, all of which carry into professional cooking. The current posts — executive chef of LD Restaurant and chef of La Table de l'Ours — mark the point where that earlier discipline was converted into kitchen leadership. In Gajski’s case, the titles reflect years spent working into the role rather than arriving at it by the usual route.

The Work Today

Mentorship sits clearly inside Marko Gajski’s understanding of craft. When he names Tom Gretić as “my culinary idol who I still call my mentor,” the line points to a working lineage: standards inherited, tested, and then carried forward in another kitchen. His other refrain, “Inspiration is all around us,” places the same logic on the creative side of the job. The work is not framed as rarefied; it is built from attention, from noticing what is already there.

In Their Words “After the show, accidentally, because I was willing to work anything, literally anything, I ended up in the kitchen. It seemed like the worst choice at the time, but it turned out to be my dream job and I'm still here.” This is a plain account of entry by chance, followed by retention through practice. It describes the common kitchen truth that many careers begin in places no one planned, then stay because the work proves durable. A direct self-identification, with origin stated without ornament. The line places Nova Gradiška alongside the name as part of the record.

Acclaim

A MICHELIN Guide Croatia star places Marko Gajski’s work in the language of formal recognition. For a chef whose route into the kitchen began outside it, the award reads as confirmation of a career built on discipline and persistence rather than convention.