Reykjavík Grapevine - feb. 2022, Blaðsíða 29

Food 29The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 02— 2022
the year that was. “It is hard for
anyone to be living like this,” he says
softly, “when you don’t know how
the next week will be if there will be
even harsher restrictions. Even less
seating? It was bad for me as a busi-
ness owner but it’s hard for my staff
too. I mean, they don’t know what's
coming either.”
But January did turn out to be
alright, thanks to the return of the
tourists and relaxed restrictions.
There are already predictions that
Iceland will see at least a million
visitors this year—welcome news
for everyone in the travel and
hospitality sector. The aftermath
of a global pandemic, however,
are more than a ripple, with deep
undercurrents. I ask the chef how
they adapted over the course of the
year. “Menu wise, we had to make it
shorter as the opening hours were
shorter,” he pauses as he recollects.
“Then you have to make it cheaper
as well. At the same time, you cannot
change the amount of staff you have.
So it's like, the income is going down
but the costs are staying the same,”
he says wryly.
Echoing the angst of many
restauranteurs, big and small,
who’ve had to soldier on without
much aid, there have been loud
discussions asking the government
to step in like they did two years ago,
to help businesses tide over this
uncertain time by offering financial
aid.
Creativity in the time of
Covid
Fine dining, like all cooking, is
an intimate expression of labour
expressed as flavour and composi-
tion; a fleeting, ephemeral moment
that is only as good as a crafted
morsel, vanquished to memory
once the meal comes to an end. A
disease then that threatens to rob
you of your sense of taste and smell,
and therefore your livelihood and
passion, couldn’t be easy for chefs.
But creativity and running a
business, a Michelin-
starred restaurant
no less, is a daunt-
ing affair. “To be
creative is to have
the luxury of staff
and time,'' Gunnar
sums up eloquently.
One tends to take
things for granted
he says, and when
you realise that, it
changes things.
He is careful not
to box periods into a normal, not-
normal time zone. Instead, the focus
seems to be about gratitude and
opportunity. “When things were
rough, we went back to basics, to
things we knew how to do and do
well,” he explains. “When you don’t
have the staff, you cannot work on
new plates and be experimenting as
you’d like.”
“It’s not always exciting,” he
admits. “Because you want to be
working on new things, exploring.”
Sustainability
While Dill has always been ahead
of its time in terms of sustainabil-
ity, the pandemic seems to have
unleashed a whole new set of chal-
lenges. “The thing that nobody
thinks about is that to be less waste-
ful costs a lot,” Gunnar discloses.
“It's easier to throw something in
the bin, but to make something out
of it costs more. Not just to pick it,
process it, ferment it, etc, that's
not it though. You need someone
to do something with that, there is
creativity there, value there. To turn
waste into something useful isn’t
straightforward.”
A creative year
A kitchen that doesn’t throw away
any scraps — the intensely heady
broth at Dill made from kitchen
scraps is proof of the depth of
flavour that abounds in the bits
and bobs. “We’ve
even sold soups
to other restau-
rants!“ Gunnar
l a u g h s . “A l s o ,
things like pickles,
and other things,
we’ve managed to
sell or give to other
places.”
E v e n t h e
front of house
waste is on the
back of Gunnar’s mind.
Having collected two years worth of
candle stubs from the dining room,
he took them to the Fischersund
duo who will now reuse them with
oils and extracts to make signature
candles for the restaurant.
The chef is also a consulting chef
for The Edition Reykjavik, a project
that was in the pipelines for almost
a decade, now coming to fruition.
Besides the culinary jaunts, a
TV show with his friend Dóri DNA
where they travel across Iceland is
slated for an early summer release
on RÚV. “I am really looking forward
to it,” Gunnar grins. As I walk away, I
find myself touched by his optimism
and enthusiasm in these normal-
not-normal times and find that joy
is always waiting to be found in that
next bite.
“We’ve even
sold soups
to other
restaurants!“
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