Avant-Garde and Unique: Local Cuisine of Faroe Islands Engages People Around the World

The Faroe Islands are becoming more famous due to the status of the new Nordic food movement’s capital. One of its culinary highlights, for example, is rest mutton: sheep meat, fermented in the sea air and semi-dried. Arriving at the Faroe Islands, you can stay at Hotel Føroyar, located in the capital. Nestled on the hillside, it boasts a picturesque view. Stroll along the shore and enjoy the blue and white colors of the sea. And if a simple stroll is not enough, set out to the fjord to find some langoustines and savor their ocean-like meat. This is a very popular local dish, and this fact relates to local cuisine with modern Danish and Spanish ones. Another interesting culinary finding is a dried cod’s spine, which plays the rack for fried cod skin – a crispy and interesting snack. 

Tórshavn, the capital of the archipelago, is where a famous local restaurant Áarstova is situated. It is a cozy place, slightly reminiscent of a hobbit house. Dinner in this turf-roofed cottage-like restaurant will cost you around fifty-five pounds. Here you will also find yet another sheep carcass. This is not uncommon here, and it is not considered horrendous. For example, another local tradition, grindadráp, is a kind of summer festival, though a quite specific one. The main event is a pilot whale slaughter, even though whales’ meat is not recommended to eat, as it is highly contaminated with mercury. 

In Áarstova, one can get acquainted with a dør schnapps, which is also a local thing. This is a welcoming glass of schnapps for newcomers. Don’t hesitate to try some mutton combined with amontillado sherry, the local mix of unique flavors. 

Visit Restaurant Koks (the word itself means a flirt in the Faroese language) if you want to enjoy some famous New Nordic dishes. There you will find all the necessary elements, such as driftwood plates, foraged herbs, powdered seaweed, and many more. Every product here has a local origin: it was either caught or harvested here on the Faroe Islands. The story of Leif Sørensen, a local cook, is very interesting. He used to work in Michelin-starred kitchens in Copenhagen, but decided to return to the islands. The main reason for this was his desire to discover new horizons of the local cuisine. Before he established Koks, there was no restaurant culture on the islands. Moreover, in the early 1990s, it was still illegal to serve alcohol in restaurants. 

But today new places are regularly opening. One of such places is Etika, a sushi restaurant, in which only local products are used. A meal there will cost you around twenty-five pounds. Another local place is Okkara, a local artisanal brewery. Also worth visiting is a restaurant at the Hotel Hafnia, where a three-course meal will be around fifty pounds. The number of events, connected with food culture, is also increasing. Every March, there is an annual catch of Faroe Bank Cod, the species that is otherwise protected. The cod is cooked and served at Áarstova.

However, at first local people were not very enthusiastic about Sørensen’s idea. For example, they disliked the idea that foreigners will be savoring the local dishes. Today locals are approximately half of the visitors to Koks restaurant. The rest are from abroad: not just from Scandinavian countries, but from all over the world. 

If you will ever have a chance of visiting Koks, taste dishes with blueberries (which are amazingly flavorful here), deep-sea mussels, and dried shrimps, the flavor of which you won’t forget.  

Still, you should keep in mind that however exhilarating or fascinating this may sound, running such a ting-edge restaurant on the edge of the world is immensely hard work. And ensuring supply chains is only a simple fraction of much bigger issues. But however difficult it may be, it is still a unique experience. As well as visiting Faroe Islands’ acclaimed and notable restaurants, which you should do.