A dining room at Raest<\/p>\n
Klara Jacobsen<\/p>\n
A tiny wooden shed beside a fjord in the Faroe Islands is home to one of the most remarkable dining experiences anywhere. There, on these windswept islands between Iceland and Norway, guests sit on benches, atop sheepskin throws, while a Mexican-born, Michelin-starred chef prepares seafood that\u2019s been plucked from the North Atlantic only moments before. <\/p>\n
The shed, whose roof is covered with thick grass that matches the slopes on the far side of the fjord, is called Skerpi. That\u2019s short for the Faroese word skerpikj\u00f8t, which refers to the strongly flavored, final stage of fermented, wind-dried mutton. The proprietors\u2014the same ones who brought the Faroes to the attention<\/a> of the gastronomy world via their groundbreaking restaurant, KOKS\u2014are a bit circumspect about the meat preservation when they talk about Skerpi. <\/p>\n There\u2019s time for all that later. Here, now, within the shed\u2014a real fermentation shed that once belonged to co-owner Johannes Jensen\u2019s mother\u2014the focus is the fresh creatures from the water. \u201cThe idea is to eat food right at the source,\u201d says the Faroese restaurateur. \u201cNot in some restaurant in London.\u201d<\/p>\n Skerpi, which is marketed as a companion to the team\u2019s most ambitious restaurant at the moment, R\u00e6st,<\/a> is definitely not in London. Although it\u2019s on wheels to move around, it spends much of the season parked just outside the Faroe Islands\u2019 capital of T\u00f3rshavn (population: 14,000). Although it\u2019s warm and cozy inside, it\u2019s intimately connected to the cold water outside. <\/p>\n Lunch is casual, half a dozen dishes: impossibly sweet scallops served with pickled pine shoots, ancient mahogany clams with chervil granita, creamy just-opened sea urchin that diners spread on warm sourdough, and grilled horse mussels with butter and the roots of sugar kelp seaweed, which have been pickled like cornichons. <\/p>\n The langoustine taco at Raest<\/p>\n Young Mee Rim<\/p>\n There\u2019s a bit of complex creativity, but it\u2019s easy to enjoy. Especially when the slanted light glints off the water outside the windows, and when Karin Visth, the much-lauded founding sommelier of KOKS and restaurant manager for the group\u2019s ambitious new ventures, is pouring Champagne from an artisanal producer and a funky quince cider from France. <\/p>\n She\u2019s pulled the bottles from a crate that\u2019s been resting beside a small jetty near the shed. And she\u2019s lifted more crates\u2014covered in barnacles and seaweed\u2014that contain the shellfish that divers collect for R\u00e6st and the irreverent seafood bistro ROKS, next door. Neither restaurant keeps seafood in a walk-in. Instead, it\u2019s alive in the Atlantic 20 minutes before service begins. <\/p>\n That possibility is part of what distinguishes these restaurants on the global dining stage. Skerpi shows \u201cthe most important part of the experience,\u201d says Visth, which is saying a lot considering how many other first-of-its-kind superlatives can be draped over Jensen\u2019s various ventures. <\/p>\n Raest seen from outside<\/p>\n Klara Jacobsen<\/p>\n Two Faroese chefs signed the original New Nordic manifesto, some 20 years ago, he says. Soon after, they saw Noma catapult to global fame serving Faroe Islands seafood. They decided to use it themselves to compete on their own. Even now, their use of their native seafood\u2014and that lamb\u2014is a big part of what makes R\u00e6st so revelatory. <\/p>\n \u201cOur food is inspired by scarcity,\u201d says Jensen. \u201cWhen you\u2019re limited in resources, creativity increases.\u201d Their restaurants are \u201calso a bridge between old food traditions and new. It keeps the connection to the past. Maybe it\u2019s because of isolation. There\u2019s no supermarket tradition. People here know how to fillet a fish or butcher a sheep. Kids eat Faroese fermented food before they eat pizza.\u201d<\/p>\n Head sommelier and restaurant manager Karin Visth<\/p>\n Courtesy of Raest<\/p>\n But before KOKS, that fermented food was a tough sell. It may have gotten the islanders through their long, dark winters\u2014it was the only way they knew to preserve things\u2014but it looked and smelled bad. \u201cWe were not proud of our food 20 years ago,\u201d says Jensen. \u201cWe were embarrassed.\u201d Hotels were serving tourists Danish food like pork and red cabbage. <\/p>\n \u201cBut when we started KOKS in 2011, we used our own ingredients and traditions,\u201d he continues. What started as a hotel restaurant in Jensen\u2019s (very lovely) F\u00f8royar<\/a> grew in increasingly weird directions until it had established itself in a rustic old farmhouse in the remote countryside, won two Michelin stars and attracted all kinds of fame<\/a>. <\/p>\n Visth immigrated to become a founding partner, attracted by the idea of building something from scratch and doing things she never could have done in her native Switzerland, nor even Copenhagen. \u201cI think it takes a portion of stupidity to do some of the things we have done with success,\u201d she admits.<\/p>\n Raest head chef Sebastian Jim\u00e9nez<\/p>\n Courtesy of Raest<\/p>\n But even great success doesn\u2019t guarantee permanence, and after a stint in Greenland, KOKS came (at least for now) to an end. But in the heart of T\u00f3rshavn, two restaurants from the KOKS family, in two of the oldest houses in town, are carrying forward those groundbreaking ideas. <\/p>\n Led by chef Sebastian Jim\u00e9nez, who worked in the kitchen at KOKS, R\u00e6st has a strong dedication to fermentation. The name is derived from one of the many Faroese words related to the process. Visth compiled a glossary of terms related to freshness and fermentation, which guests receive at the end of the meal. It contains about 70 words, some of which appear in the fermented lamb section of the 15-course meal. <\/p>\n These three courses can be somewhat challenging, with unusual textures, flavors and aromas. The first is the skerpikj\u00f8t, a fermented lamb\u2019s leg that\u2019s been aged for six months and is presented as if it were a haunch of jam\u00f3n Ib\u00e9rico. It\u2019s served as thin slices atop a beignet with smoked honey and lemon thyme; it\u2019s a one-bite affair, and not all that unlike a bite of jam\u00f3n. <\/p>\n A Faroe Islands landscape<\/p>\n Ann Abel<\/p>\n It\u2019s followed by a sliver of lamb heart that\u2019s bathed in a demiglace made of fermented lamb bones and preserved currant leaves from last year. Then comes the restaurant\u2019s namesake dish, r\u00e6st lamb, which has been aged for three months and is pungent and gray, then slow cooked until it takes on the texture of pulled pork. Jim\u00e9nez dials up the funk, adding fermented rhubarb, pickled green chili and fish dashi.<\/p>\n The beginning and end of the menu are easier. It starts with a parade of that seafood that was so very recently alive in the fjord. The products that get minimalist treatment in Skerpi go maximalist here. Those super-sweet scallops appear on tostadas with preserved scallop roe and seaweeds. Horse mussels are diced and tucked into a tartlet served with pickled vegetables and the last forget-me-nots of the year. And the first of the desserts is a highlight: A server spoons sea urchin tableside from its prickly shell and rests atop a sweet-tart mousse of sea buckthorn and monkey flower. <\/p>\n Jim\u00e9nez\u2019s Mexican roots take the stage\u2014then share it with local, often foraged ingredients. Those tostadas with the scallops aren\u2019t the traditional corn but Faroese rye. The pipian verde with the kombu-cured mackerel is made with gooseberries rather than tomatillos. The langoustine taco feels more Mexican; a server uses a stone molcajete\u2014which the chef brought from his native Puebla\u2014to prepare the pipian rojo with the crustaceans\u2019 heads and legs, chipotle and cilantro oil. It\u2019s tasty enough to spoon up on its own. (This collision of worlds<\/a> is not the only one making waves these days.)<\/p>\n Plates from casual tasting menu at ROKS<\/p>\n Young Mee Rim<\/p>\n Across a narrow alleyway from R\u00e6st is the group\u2019s other standout project. ROKS<\/a> bills itself as KOKS\u2019s informal, seafood-focused little sister. It\u2019s a lively bistro whose casual atmosphere, graffiti-style menu and whimsical illustrations of octopuses drinking wine belies serious technique from chef Carlos Alberto Andrade (also from Mexico) and his team. There\u2019s a demure six-course option, but the way to go is the \u201cTotally on the ROKS\u201d menu, which is 11 moments of oceanic delight. <\/p>\n Sometimes it\u2019s messy. The sea urchin toast can be eaten with the hands. The Greenlandic snow crab with burnt onion butter comes with tools for cracking and meat excavation. But the Faroe Islands are far, and they\u2019re foodie-famous for rewriting the rules. You didn\u2019t come here to stay clean or play it safe. <\/p>\n MORE FROM FORBES<\/p>\n ForbesBasque Cuisine Has A Japanese Soul At This Wildly Creative RestaurantBy Ann Abel<\/a>ForbesThis Wildly Creative Restaurant Turns Campfire Cooking Into Fine DiningBy Ann Abel<\/a>ForbesA Rotterdam Basement Is Home To Some Of Today\u2019s Most Inventive DiningBy Ann Abel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dining room at Raest Klara Jacobsen A tiny wooden shed beside a fjord in the Faroe Islands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,15990,43,16264,1306,14213,2617,1413],"class_list":["post-24769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-faroe-islands","tag-denmark","tag-dining","tag-faroe-islands","tag-fine-dining","tag-gastronomy","tag-luxury-travel","tag-restaurants","tag-travel"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}