Anyone eaten in Norway lately?

[Christopher Haatuft]

FinnegårdsstueneIm curious if anyone has had a meal in Norway that they wish to tell about. Anyone been to Restaurant Oscarsgate lately? Chef Hellstrøm gives them praise in the not so updated newsletter on Bagatelles webpage. (Sorry, I think its only in norwegian). Also mayby someone has something to say about Annen Etage losing their one star in the recent edition of Guide Rouge? I have never had a meal at a good restaurant in Oslo, so Im out of the loop, but as Im an apprentice cook in Bergen, Id love to hear what people think of the food in our capital. Also I heard Guide Rouge where outside Oslo for this latest edition, but noone got a star. Does Mathuset Solvold deserve a star? At least Ive never heard about a norwegian chef been held in higher regard by other chefs than Solvold.

Here in Bergen theres little new. As far as I know, Lucullus and Finnegårdsstuene is still going strong, with Potetkjellerenkicking at their heels. I work at Smauet Mat og Vinhus, where we do our best at making good food. This august I start at Lucullus to finish my apprenticeship. After that.....mayby Oslo?

I dont expect much input on this thread, but every little bit will be highly appreciated.

[Culinista]

Hi Christopher,

I ate alone at Oscarsgate on June 1, right after doing the Hurtigruten trip. (The ship had surprisingly Norwegian, not international, food, including whale and seagull eggs and very smelly fermented cheese. ) Oscarsgate was very ambitious for such a young, not to mention tiny, kitchen. Very labor-intensive food competently prepared, nice presentations in a small but modern dining room. I liked the atmosphere of the restaurant quite a bit. I particularly remember some crisp miniature flatbreads and a collection of butters, some amuses that seemed to be inspired by French Laundry (cones of salmon tartare, etc), a well-proportioned mini salade nicoise. The risk that did not pay off was the pretty square of salmon scattered with enoki mushrooms under a blanket of transparent cucumber. The problem was the house-made soy sauce, which was hamfisted and overpowering. (Chef Bjorn Svensson, I discovered to my surprise, is ethnically Korean. He was adopted, and maybe he did not learn how soy sauce should be used while growing up in Scandinavia.) There was an eggplant ravioli with porcini, and skate wing with too much going on on the plate, rather overwhelmed by meat jus. Nice crispy lamb sweetbreads with rosemary, and a very beautiful spring chicken breast with a cylinder of orange-carrot puree that showed clear signs of an El Bulli stagiere. There was a huge chessboard of chocolates that came after the mango sorbet dessert--way too many for one person, or even four. Clearly there for effect. Had the usual faults of the ambitious new Scandinavian restaurant (overly international style, too much demiglace, too much salt, imported products of poor quality, and a heavy sense of imitating others), but for all that, a nice vibe and I'd go back.

In Bergen, I tried Potetkjelleren. Another lovely restaurant in terms of atmosphere, more provincial than Oscarsgate, of course, with a lower standard of execution. The standout was a huge veal chop with a mushroom that they called a "horse mushroom"--tasted like a cinnamon cap.

I went to Bagatelle in June 2004. Very good, second only to Bon LLoc in Scandinavia. Pontus, the sommelier, is wonderful. He gave us a good evening with some very original, bold pairings of weird wines I'd never drink on their own. Oro was just miserable, with the exception of a good asparagus with smoked salmon starter and a decent Kamchatka crab. In Bergen, I was miffed at Lucullus for promising to have Bergen fish soup and then reneging, so we cancelled dinner and went to get a mediocre snack at Pasqual's bistro downstairs. My most memorable meal that trip was peeling shrimp and drinking beer at Grassholmen on that island in the middle of the harbor in Oslo that is covered with wild rabbits. This was the only time that trip that I felt I was really eating in Norway.

PS: I tried to visit your restaurant (it looked sort of like a cafe for students), but it was closed.

Edited May 10, 2006 by Culinista (log)

[Christopher Haatuft]

Thank you for your reply. I have since quit the restaurant (Spisestedet på Høyden) you tried visited. Hanne Frosta, the owner and head chef, was just named "Head Chef of the year". Shes the first woman ever to get this acclaim in Norway.

This quote "overly international style, too much demiglace, too much salt, imported products of poor quality, and a heavy sense of imitating others" is something that even with my lack of experience, I find all to common in Norway. We have some of the best chefs in the world but still it seems like everybody tries to be very trendy. As an examlple, we have one good food magazine here called "Apetitt". Yesterday I was reading it and it struck me that the focus on ingredients are steered by what the national seafood export agency (lack of better name, in norwegian its Eksportutvalget for Fisk) or the national meat information office (sounds really corny trying to translate it...) wants us to eat.

Hanne is the opposite of the abovementioned. She goes her own way and people should follow in her footsteps. The world would be a better place for it.

Edited May 10, 2006 by Christopher Haatuft (log)

[Christopher Haatuft]

btw, I read your article. Very nice, seemed like you had a great trip.

[Hector]

Thanks for the report Culinista! Very interesting. For me as a Swede I've never even think about eating at real fancy restaurants when I'm in Norway, hence compared to our Swedish prices, almost everything (not just the restaurants) is extremly overpriced.. so culinary experience restaurant is saved for other times/countries.

But what about whale meat... I'm very interested in that stuff. How is the colour and texture? How often is it eaten in Norway?

Edited May 12, 2006 by Hector (log)

[Christopher Haatuft]

colour is like very dark beef. Texture can remind you of lean and tender beef. It should be cooked no more that rare, as it has a lot of blood in it, and can very easily taste like liver/iron. Its sold smoked and as raw, frozen blocks all year raound, but is definately best fresh. I think the whaleing season is at springtime and that for me is the only time to eat it.

I got to add that I have limited experience with it, butI have had it on a menu and fried up quite a bit of it. I remember as a kid, the neighbur wife made us kids eat it raw. She gave us candy afterwards so it was ok

[Culinista]

I've had whale 3 times, and the air-dried, somewhat smoked whale I had in Norway was reminiscent of prosciutto. Probably not the best way to understand the quality of the meat, but it was tasty.

I had slices of fresh whale meat and blubber simmered in a broth in Japan. Delicate, but for me not worth killing a magnificent animal to eat.

I agree that restaurants in Norway, as well as the rest of the Nordic countries, are super expensive for their gastronomic proposition. I wish more Nordic chefs would stop importing tired Continental ingredients and culinary ideas strike out on their own. I'd love to see a professional chef doing something with wild foods from the forests.

I did find unique meals in the country by semiprofessional cooks. One of the best meals I had was in a farmhouse in Finland, outside Mikkeli. There was a wild nettle flan with an Arctic bird called kiiruna, and an intriguing custard made by gently heating the first milk given by a neighbor's cow that had just calved. I also had an amazing dinner on Lake Inari, by a woman who had learned to cook in France but serves foods hunted or foraged from the forest. We stayed in her cottage by the lake.

And don't get me started on Sweden

[Pontormo]

I believe cannibalism is illegal in Norway.

[Christopher Haatuft]

I believe cannibalism is illegal in Norway.

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I got it explained to me...

Edited May 15, 2006 by Christopher Haatuft (log)

[Culinista]

I believe cannibalism is illegal in Norway.

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I got it explained to me...

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Now explain it to ME.

[Pontormo]

The original post asks "Anyone eaten in Norway lately?"

The auxillary verb, "has," was ommitted.

Reading the question as it stands, another interpretation is more sinister.

I would hope no one has been eaten in Norway lately.

[Culinista]

The original post asks "Anyone eaten in Norway lately?"

The auxillary verb, "has," was ommitted.

Reading the question as it stands, another interpretation is more sinister.

I would hope no one has been eaten in Norway lately.

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Yikes, the grammar police and the punsters in a joint operation!

[Hector]

I've had whale 3 times, and the air-dried, somewhat smoked whale I had in Norway was reminiscent of prosciutto. Probably not the best way to understand the quality of the meat, but it was tasty.

I had slices of fresh whale meat and blubber simmered in a broth in Japan. Delicate, but for me not worth killing a magnificent animal to eat.

I agree that restaurants in Norway, as well as the rest of the Nordic countries, are super expensive for their gastronomic proposition. I wish more Nordic chefs would stop importing tired Continental ingredients and culinary ideas strike out on their own. I'd love to see a professional chef doing something with  wild foods from the forests.

Yes I totally agree.. Part of the problem is that scandinavia is overly priced overall and that international ingridients are seen as "the cool", the local cuisine is more of a everyday-thing and not for fine dining. All this while local produce is getting more and more processed and overlooked by authorities.

Norway and Finland seems much better though than Sweden and Denmark with making more high quality local farm products for cooking.

There are proffessional cooks who only use local produce, even though they are few and sometimes hard to find and still expensive.

I did find unique meals in the country by semiprofessional cooks. One of the best meals I had was in a farmhouse in Finland, outside Mikkeli. There was a wild nettle flan with an Arctic bird called kiiruna, and an intriguing custard made by gently heating the first milk given by a neighbor's cow that had just calved. I also had an amazing dinner on Lake Inari, by a woman who had learned to cook in France but serves foods hunted or foraged from the forest. We stayed in her cottage by the lake.

Wonderful!

The best finnish cooking is definitley cooking of the forest..mushrooms and berries, rye bread, Fresh or smoked fish and high quality roe from the lakes. etcetra.

And don't get me started on Sweden

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Please get started!

[Culinista]

And don't get me started on Sweden

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Please get started!

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But I've already hijacked this thread once to discuss Finland!

I LOVED semla, those Easter cream puffs I sneaked some in the pastry shop at the entrance of the Sture gallery, before having a nice fish lunch at Sturehoff. Swedish belon oysters were an interesting novelty. Fried sardines were nicely done, as was the fish soup.

Bon LLoc was really good (if blindingly expensive!) even for the fussy standards of my Spanish-Venezuelan husband. Maybe one of the best meals we've had in Scandinavia. Too bad it's not Scandinavian food.

Fred 12 was OK but boring for lunch, but their dinner menu looked far more interesting. The yellow plastic on the windows made judging the color of wine rather tricky in the daytime. They also served foods far out of season, like crayfish and cloudberries in April. I suppose that's inevitable when the growing season is so short, but still. Isn't there some way to work around this?

Paul and Norbert was old school, but we had a very good time there--very quiet, intimate, calm. Everything about it tends to the classics, including the wine list, but in a good way. They do have a little trick of dipping the sweetbreads into a Worcestershire bath before cooking and enhancing even peas with demi-glace, for that sneaky little umami boost. Since they do it in trace amounts, the results are good, but cooking purists might turn up their noses.The cured lamb tongue was awesome, and the capercaille (the reason we went) extremely good. Not quite as good as becada, but right up there.

Ulla Winblad was almost campy, but it was a nice place to spend Sunday afternoon over a plate of unreformed Swedish meatballs. I imagine it's a tourist spot in summer, but then it was full of families celebrating birthdays, etc.

[Hector]

But I've already hijacked this thread once to discuss Finland!

I LOVED semla, those Easter cream puffs  I sneaked some in the pastry shop at the entrance of the Sture gallery, before having a nice fish lunch at Sturehoff. Swedish belon oysters were an interesting novelty. Fried sardines were nicely done, as was the fish soup.

Bon LLoc was really good (if blindingly expensive!) even for the fussy standards of my Spanish-Venezuelan husband. Maybe one of the best meals we've had in Scandinavia. Too bad it's not Scandinavian food.

Fred 12 was OK but boring for lunch, but their dinner menu looked far more interesting. The yellow plastic on the windows made judging the color of wine rather tricky in the daytime. They also served foods far out of season, like crayfish and cloudberries in April. I suppose that's inevitable when the growing season is so short, but still. Isn't there some way to work around this?

Paul and Norbert was old school, but we had a very good time there--very quiet, intimate, calm. Everything about it tends to the classics, including the wine list, but in a good way. They do have a little trick of dipping the sweetbreads into a Worcestershire bath before cooking and enhancing even peas with demi-glace, for that sneaky little umami boost. Since they do it in trace amounts, the results are good, but cooking purists might turn up their noses.The cured lamb tongue was awesome, and the capercaille (the reason we went) extremely good. Not quite as good as becada, but right up there.

Ulla Winblad was almost campy, but it was a nice place to spend Sunday afternoon over a plate of unreformed Swedish meatballs. I imagine it's a tourist spot in summer, but then it was full of families celebrating birthdays, etc.

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Wow! you got the best of Stockholm really! Very nice.

I'm not such frequent in Stockholm hence (I'm from the other part of the country; Scania, where we have more danish-german influenced cooking), but I like the many classic swedish places in the city, aswell as Bon Lloc (sadly it's closed I think).

Ulla Winblad is campy, but a classic spot.. Not my favourite.

Seasonal ingridients like crayfish out of season is exotic to us. . and

we've started to eat semla all across the winter/spring season and not just on Mardi Gras. I'll guess Sweden is out of season.

Edited May 24, 2006 by Hector (log)

[robyn]

I have only been to Norway once for a couple of weeks. And it has been a while. But the impression I got about food is that Norwegian thinking about food was very much defined by WWII. In WWII - as a result of blockades and the like - food was very scarce. And Norwegians decided they would never be dependent on food imports again - they would be self-sufficient. So they favor their local food producers through taxes and tariffs and the like - even though it is very expensive to produce most food in Norway (lack of agricultural land, short growing seasons, etc.). Of course - if the local food is expensive - the imported food is even more expensive. I cannot say this is an irrational national policy. At a minimum - it means that there are very few Norwegians who are overweight - who can afford enough food to get fat!

By the way - we thought perhaps that food was only expensive at restaurants - but we went to supermarkets - and food was really expensive there too - one chicken breast for $4). And the only thing that is more expensive than food in Norway is "sin stuff" (alcohol - cigarettes - and the like).

Perhaps someone who understands Norway better than I do - someone who lives there? - will correct me if my impressions are incorrect. Robyn

[Grub]

Perhaps someone who understands Norway better than I do - someone who lives there? - will correct me if my impressions are incorrect.  Robyn

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Your impressions are mostly correct, with a few caveats. The desire to be self-sufficient is not universal. The country has consistently had one of the world's highest living standards in the world for many decades now, but it used to be one of Europe's poorest. Many families existed as tiny, self-sufficient farm units with a similar living standard to the rest of the population, whereas today they need subsidies in order to do so. The WWII self-sufficiency argument is considered mostly a marginalized scare tactic today (obviously, it carried more weight just after the war). Norway is a very mountainous region with only about a 4% arable landmass, so there are many who argue that the country should focus on its natural strengths, rather than weaknesses. There is also the argument that these small farms represent a cultural heritage.

The funny thing about this is that the worse certain harvests are, the more they can buy of the cheap, foreign stuff instead. So for the state, crop failures are like "whoa, we're making bank this year!"

There is definitely a social engineering thing going on there, with bad things being taxed, and good things being subsidized (anyone who's done any amount of travelling -- business in particular -- learns to always stock up on your quote of tax-free booze and tobacco, whether you drink or smoke, or not). This in turn lead to a culture of binge drinking, as well as moon-shining (which seems particularly odd for a society with such a high living standard) as well as alcohol smuggling . Oddly enough, since wine (and spirits) are sold by a state monopoly chain (you can imagine the negotiating power you have, as a buyer who represents an entire country) they have a really excellent range of wine, at (comparatibly speaking) very low prices -- since the social engineer types want to move people onto wine, ala the French model. This lead to a rise in popularity of boxed wines since they stay "fresh" a little longer. You can imagine the "We know what's best for you"-bureaucrats tearing their hair out, trying to change the beer-and-moonshine-swilling Scandihoovians into suave Frenchmen, only to end up with them falling in love with boxed-wine instead.

Now, the last thing, re. obesity -- that's definitely not due to the cost of food! Supermarket prices vary a great deal -- if you do your grocery shopping Oslo's city center, you'll be paying completely different prices compared to other locations. Norwegians have a very active lifestyle, and like most Europeans, tend to walk most everywhere. You don't need a car to live there (in fact, cars are very expensive). Compare that to California, where having no car practically means you're homeless and destitute -- that's a helluva lot of calories burnt off just in a regular day of living...

[robyn]

Grub - Thanks for your insights. We were only in Norway once - for a couple of weeks - but we enjoyed the country a lot. Robyn

[Christopher Haatuft]

no new meals?

[Kropotkin]

I spent three days in and around Narvik in the Arctic North in August. The scenery, driving and walking were all stunning, however the restaurant choices were not inspiring. We survived on standard pizzas and pastas at generic chain restaurants etc, but the local food and dishes seemed to be scarce on the ground. We'd like to return, but is there a useful and fair guide to restaurants and eating places in the country? Our general travel guide simply explained that Narvik was a culinary desert - which didnt really help!

[Christopher Haatuft]

I spent three days in and around Narvik in the Arctic North in August.  The scenery, driving and walking were all stunning, however the restaurant choices were not inspiring.  We survived on standard pizzas and pastas at generic chain restaurants etc, but the local food and dishes seemed to be scarce on the ground.  We'd like to return, but is there a useful and fair guide to restaurants and eating places in the country?  Our general travel guide simply explained that Narvik was a culinary desert - which didnt really help!

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I know that there are some good restaurants in the north of Norway, but Ive never heard of anything in Narvik. Theres no guidebook that concentrates on food, but if youre in one of the major cities you should have someone translate Dagens Næringsliv on saturdays for you or check www.dn.no. Its in norwegian, though. Other than that I can help with the little I know. Anyone going to Norway can drop me a PM and Ill give my recomandations.

[Kropotkin]

Thanks very much for the information and the kind offer of help, when needed, Christopher - much appreciated. I'll let you know when I'm heading to Norway again.

[Hanne Frosta]

I've had whale 3 times, and the air-dried, somewhat smoked whale I had in Norway was reminiscent of prosciutto. Probably not the best way to understand the quality of the meat, but it was tasty.

I had slices of fresh whale meat and blubber simmered in a broth in Japan. Delicate, but for me not worth killing a magnificent animal to eat.

I agree that restaurants in Norway, as well as the rest of the Nordic countries, are super expensive for their gastronomic proposition. I wish more Nordic chefs would stop importing tired Continental ingredients and culinary ideas strike out on their own. I'd love to see a professional chef doing something with  wild foods from the forests.

I did find unique meals in the country by semiprofessional cooks. One of the best meals I had was in a farmhouse in Finland, outside Mikkeli. There was a wild nettle flan with an Arctic bird called kiiruna, and an intriguing custard made by gently heating the first milk given by a neighbor's cow that had just calved. I also had an amazing dinner on Lake Inari, by a woman who had learned to cook in France but serves foods hunted or foraged from the forest. We stayed in her cottage by the lake.

And don't get me started on Sweden 

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Hi

I think that Norwegan restaurants will cook food from their ovn country, when they

are thierd to use "olive and sun dried tomatoes".

Im my restaurant i use ongly Norwegian ingrediens. and the chefs bring plants, and herbs from the forrest back to the chitchen. We are now preserving food like chefs did 50 years ago. We are having great fun doing this. And we are proud to

bring back old tradison, and use ingredians /meat / ore spesial made products form local farms.

We are also using mostly organic ingridiens.

I thing this is the future.

Hanne