Gourmet Hotspots of the Nordic cool and New Nordic cuisine

Gourmet “ Hotspots of the Nordic cool and New Nordic cuisine

Basically, the Nordics have gone back to basics, using local and seasonal products “ and the New Nordic cuisine means discovering the forgotten ingredients the Vikings used with delight when feasting.

Would you have guessed that Copenhagen, Denmark, home to the happiest people in the world, is also the top of world gastronomy with 15 Michelin stars sprinkled among 13 restaurants, in 2013? What have they done, the rest of the world is now trying to replicate. It started in Copenhagen but the ripple effect of these gastronomic waves has spread to the whole Nordic area, including the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

Noma was voted the best restaurant in the world three years in a row.

Who started this revolution? Noma, run by Rene Redzepi, Danish chef and co-owner of the two-Michelin star restaurant was the first to reinvent age old Viking cooking by using natural sources for their cooking. This phenomenon was started as twelve elite Nordic chefs,  representing Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Norway and Finland, proposed a New Nordic cuisine to replace the Old Nordic cuisine which, lets face it, was famous for its blandness and pretty tasteless food. As Sorensen from the Faroe Islands explains,  this is a movement to use our own materials, to uncover locally sourced produce and experiment with herbs and plants growing outside our own windows. So they replaced good old frikadeller ( the infamous Swedish meat-balls ) and mass produced mashed potatoes with root vegetables, rapeseed oil, lots of berries and fish caught fresh from the ocean.

On Greenland, the cuisine has added auk bird intestines, Skyr from Iceland and so forth as the mission for Noma was to test out as many indigenous ingredients as possible.

Studies from the University of Eastern Finland support the use of berries, fish, game and rapeseed oil to reduce harmful cholesterol and lower the risk of heart disease, not to mention the improvement in the body’s ability to metabolise fat. Fish from the Atlantic Gulf Stream by Iceland is the preferred choice among the professionals.

So where do you start? Take on the capitals one by one? Or restaurant by restaurant, then country by country, no matter what city it is in? Why not take the journey to discover for yourself? We can help: just let us know where you would like to begin.

On Faroe Islands it is Restaurant Koks that hits the list.

In Iceland it is that is at the forefront according to Rene Redzepi , apparently alone worth the trip. Here the acceleration of New Nordic cuisine has gathered pace but is still to gain those elusive Michelin stars. It is surely only a matter of time before Iceland and Reykjavik appear on the Michelin star scale.

In Denmark, there is Noma, Studio, Kadeaua, Geranium, Kong Hans Kelder, Era Ora, Kokkeriet, , Kommandanten and so many more.

In Sweden, Stockholm has “Gastrologik”, Restaurant Franzen/Lindeberg, Mathias Dahlgren-Matbaren, Mathias Dahlgren-Matsalen and much more choice.

In Norway, Oslo can boast of Statholdergaarden, and Bagatelle with Michelin stars but Oslo also offers a huge amount of other fantastic restaurants.

Last but not least, in Finland, Helsinkis restaurants have been rewarded with Michelin stars, namely Demo, Chez Dominique, Postresa, Luomo and again a huge choice on top of that.

So where would you like to begin? Combine a Romantic break with lovely hotels, Spas, amazing food and time to explore the lovely cities we offer?

The journey starts here!