The world's most isolated (and exclusive) gourmet restaurant

23 January 2015 - 18:13 By John O'Ceallaigh
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Faviken is based on a hunting estate in north Sweden
Faviken is based on a hunting estate in north Sweden
Image: faviken.com

John O'Ceallaigh dines at Faviken, a remote Swedish restaurant that serves up an epic, multiple-course set menu to just a dozen diner a night

Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson (below) has dedicated his life to cooking. As a child, he would hunt and forage in the forests that surrounded his grandparents' 20ha farm; at 16 he attended culinary school; by 19, he was working in Pascal Barbot's Michelin-starred restaurant l'Astrance in Paris. He remembers, in his mid-teens, writing a 20-year plan culminating in his running the world's best restaurant.

With a few years to go, some critics say the 31-year-old has achieved that aim already; a broader consensus is that his 12-cover premises, Faviken Magasinet, is the world's most isolated (and, as a result, most exclusive) gourmet restaurant.

 

Faviken stands on a 8 100ha hunting estate and nature reserve in Jamtland, a Swedish province on the same latitude as Iceland. Equal in size to the Benelux region (population 28 million), it is home to just 12 5000 people. In winter, the landscape is stark but serene: birch trees, stripped of leaves and coated in ice, glisten in the dewy twilight; forests of silver firs stand sentry by frozen lakes; and the only blots of warmth come from timber-framed cottages, vivid against the snow in yellow and burgundy. When I drove through the landscape last week, it felt like I'd arrived in the middle of nowhere, but locals say they are in the middle of nature.

Inhospitable as Jamtland is, its capital city Ostersund (population 60 000) is one of just five Unesco-designated cities of gastronomy worldwide. From moose to magical-sounding cloudberries, produce rarely found elsewhere abounds here; the extreme cold acts as a natural pesticide, meaning about 65% of arable land is farmed organically; and almost 200 artisan food businesses, from microbreweries to lingonberry jam-makers, are found in the province.

Having tired of life in Paris, Nilsson returned here and accepted a three-month contract at Faviken. At the time, the restaurant, housed in an 18th-century grain store, accommodated 120 diners and was frequented by hunting parties and corporate groups; moose-fondue parties were popular.

Nilsson changed tack. Instead of entertaining large groups, Faviken would serve a set menu to just a dozen diners a night. Ingredients would be sourced locally: apart from some seafood from Norway, everything was to be foraged, hunted or fished for in the unsullied land and lakes surrounding the restaurant.

Local methods of preparation would be used, from drying to salting, jellying, pickling and bottling, ensuring that the ingredients were as uniquely flavoursome as possible. Word soon spread about the newfangled Faviken, serving exceptional dishes that were impossible to find elsewhere. Reservations were suddenly hard to secure.

Foreign travellers who make the journey north - I flew from London to Åre Östersund airport via Stockholm and drove for an hour to reach Faviken, but it's possible to fly to Trondheim in Norway and drive there in about two hours - will need to stay in Faviken overnight. There are six squat and sparse twin bedrooms above the restaurant, all agreeably stylish in that restrained Scandinavian way, with shared showers and lavatories. After check-in we were shown to the sauna, offered a beer and told to be downstairs for dinner at 7pm. "Magnus likes things to start on time." We had heard stories of latecomers being refused access to the restaurant.

For gourmands more accustomed to the Continent's gold-plated, Michelin-starred restaurants, Faviken's interior must seem astonishing in its paucity. Apart from the addition of a zinc-topped bar, the building looks the same as it did when built in 1745. Each floorboard and pine beam (some still faintly showing handwritten records of grain stock levels) is original; chairs are draped in lamb skins; slabs of meat, atrophied fish and crisped bouquets of herbs and tobacco leaves hang from the walls and ceilings. One candle burns on each of the five pine tables.

 

Dinner is served

As soon as you have a drink in hand, food hits you like an assault. Our group was told to expect "a 20-course menu, 30 or so if you count the additional bits and pieces we serve before, during and after the main meal". As we chatted at the bar, snacks came fast: flaxseed and vinegar crisps with a salty mussel dip, then wild trout roe served in a crust of dried pig's blood; later deep-fried pig's head dipped in sourdough and salted herring that had been aged for three years.

We had a brief reprieve at 7.30pm, when we were escorted to our tables and poured a glass of Faviken's own mead; then the volley resumed, to continue unremittingly for hours. Cooked over burning juniper berries, scallops the size of burgers arrived swimming in their own juices; boiled trout came with an earthy lichen-lined "bog butter" that had been buried in peat; cockles injected with beer gushed flavour when chewed; a rare dud, blood bread, moose broth, backfat and onions was about as appetising as it sounds. Colostrum - which, Magnus explained, is the first milk a cow or other mammal produces after giving birth - was served with blueberries as a yoghurt. Later, an egg yolk preserved in sugar syrup arrived on a bed of pine-tree bark crumbs with spruce ice cream. It tasted like a mouthful of forest.

 

Finally finished, we were led to the bar for tea, homemade liqueurs and Faviken-style petit fours - think tar pastilles and beeswax-coated anise seeds rather than pralines. With time to reflect now and social restraint blunted by booze, our group dissected the experience. Even the most well-dined had experienced flavours, textures and methods that were unprecedented; for all their novelty and ingenuity, dishes were simple, unaffected and tasty.

For most of us, Faviken's confluence of setting, unique dishes and the romance of a chef who'd left the world behind only to have it follow him, elevated our dinner into "most memorable meal ever" territory. — © The Sunday Telegraph

PLAN YOUR TRIP

• Dinner at Faviken (faviken.com) costs £150 (R2 600) per person, with drinks pairings costing an additional £150; rooms cost £210 per night with breakfast.

• SAS (flysas.com) flies to Åre Östersund airport via Stockholm, with return fares costing from £230. Faviken can provide assistance with transfers once your booking is confirmed.

• See visitsweden.com for more information.

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