Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.06.2017, Qupperneq 54

It’s been over a decade now since
René Redzepi and the crew sat
down to dish out the Manifesto
for the New Nordic Cuisine. A lot
of words were thrown on the table
during that meeting: accessibility,
sustainability, seasonality. Their
initial meeting was more than just
a makeover of the region’s culi-
nary reputation (a reputation built
on killing everything that moves
and preserving the shit out of it). It
was also a catalyst for government-
sponsored food programmes, con-
ferences, festivals, and a handful
of really, really heavy cookbooks.
In a single push, their
2004 meeting simul-
taneously invented
“New Nordic Cuisine,”
and put it on the map.
“We don’t have a
long cooking tradition
in Iceland,” says Sævar
Karl, the head chef at
the restaurant at the
new Fosshotel Gla-
cier Lagoon. “When
I think about tradi-
tional food I think
about Sunday roast:
an overcooked leg of
lamb with canned
vegetables, potatoes
in caramelized sugar,
brown sauce—brown
because we use food colouring—
and jam.” For Sævar it is precisely
Iceland’s lack of tradition that
makes him most interested in the
“New Nordic” concept. “We can fo-
cus on the ingredients without hav-
ing too much tradition holding us
back,” he says.
I’d seen the terms and condi-
tions of New Nordic cuisine tossed
around, but I never expected to
make contact with it in any formal
way. I’m not one to hit the hotel bar
and I’m pretty fine with plokkfiskur
just the way it is. So while the foodie
movement of New Nordic devel-
oped schizophrenically around the
region, I was complacent about Ice-
land’s generally quiet (with a few
exceptions) involvement.
Sit down and shut up
The Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon is
as loud as it gets. Driving through
the south of Iceland, one is lulled
by an increasing sense of vast-
ness. Turn after rolling turn we
encounter snowfields so pure they
erase the horizon and glaciers older
than history itself. Each hour on
the road elicits another opportu-
nity to breathe deeply and bend
car-stiffened knees at the crest of
some glacially charged waterfall,
or to sip cocoa on a cliff at the edge
of the world. The awe itself is vast
on this stretch of road, and one is
rocked into a scenery-induced stu-
por. Then, all of a sudden, we round
another bend and there it is: Fos-
shotel Glacier Lagoon. Our stay for
the night. Sharp as
the taste of petri-
fied shark, black as
basalt.
“A hexagon is
the polygon closest
to a circle that can
completely cover
an area by tessella-
tion,” I had copied
from a sign about
the esoteric geom-
etry of basalt col-
umns. It was clear
that the Fosshotel
we had encountered
was inspired by the
i mpressive col-
umns of Svartifoss
just twenty min-
utes down the road, but it appeared
on the landscape more like a tumor
than a tessellation. Once inside,
though, the view from the break-
fast room was stunning enough to
shut up any critic, by stuffing her
mouth full of freshly baked breads,
smoked fish and smjör galore.
Rye bread ice cream
The nearest place to get food is a
snack bar thirty minutes up the
road, so without much hesitation
we stop to check out the hotel’s
restaurant menu on the way to our
room. As I read through the plates,
select points of the Manifesto start
to fall and splatter across the menu:
#3: To base cooking on ingre-
dients and produce whose charac-
teristics are particularly excellent
in Nordic climates, landscapes and
waters.
Langoustine soup, Arctic char, salt-
ed cod…
#5: To promote Nordic products
and the variety of Nordic produc-
ers—and to spread the word about
their underlying cultures.
Smoked lamb from Skaftafell, dried
beef from Húsavík, Icelandic soft cow’s
milk cheese…
#7: To develop potentially new
applications of Nordic food prod-
ucts.
Blueberry gel, green apple puree,
rye bread ice cream…
Rye bread ice cream? We read it
again, aloud: Salt baked beets with
beet meringue, pickled crowber-
ries, and rye bread ice cream. Rye
bread ice cream.
Unsure of whether the dish was
a creative infusion or an insulting
infliction on the Icelandic culinary
tradition (or, as Sævar noted before,
lack thereof), we continue to haul
our luggage to our room, swiftly log
into the hotel’s internet connection
(this will definitely be social media-
worthy), and hastily make our way
back to the restaurant for an obliga-
tory helping of beets and rye bread
ice cream.
Lagoons and
langoustines
“Our restaurant is based in a hotel,”
Sævar would later tell me when I
asked him about the oddities of the
menu. “I have a responsibility to
feed the customers, but at the same
time I want them to experience a
memorable Icelandic meal. When
it comes to the plate itself, it’s all
about the balance between flavors
and the wow factor… that can be how
the plate looks, the flavor, the texture,
or putting ice cream on a starter. Just
something that stands out.”
Most people traveling the south
coast of Iceland have some idea of
the sights they want to stop and see.
For those taking their time along
this road, Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon
is a perfectly logical place to stay. It
lies two hours beyond the stopover
town of Vík and about an hour and a
half shy of Höfn, and is convenient-
ly situated between Skaftafell Na-
tional Park and the roadside Glacier
Lagoon, Jökulsárlón.
But fewer known about the ex-
pressive food movement happen-
ing in Sævar’s kitchen every single
day. “I don’t think that people come
to Iceland because of the food, but it
is our job as chefs to make them go
home thinking about it,” he says. Just
like the initiators of the New Nordic
cuisine thirteen years prior, Sævar is
in the act of simultaneously creating
an experience and putting it on the
map for future visitors.
And for those wondering, rye
bread ice cream tastes just like it
sounds it will. Like rye bread. A
cold, creamy spoonful of rye bread.

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A New Tradition
Fine dining on the floodplains of south Iceland
Distance from
Reykjavík
343 km
How to get there
Take Route One South
54 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 09 — 2017
Accommodation provided by
fosshotel.is
Sipping coca at the end of the world—aka Dýrhólaey
Words: Parker Yamasaki
Photos: Art Bicnick & Fosshotel
“I don’t think
that people
come to Ice-
land because
of the food,
but it's our job
as chefs to
make them go
home thinking
about it.”
The restaurant at Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon