Iceland review - 2016, Page 41

ICELAND REVIEW 39
It tastes just like oyster. The larger the leaf, the saltier it
is. Go ahead, try it,” chef Gísli Matthías Auðunsson says,
handing the photographer and I a couple of leaves of the
oyster leaf plant as he forages for seaweed and wild plants along
the beach. Gísli is taking us on a tour of his favorite spots to
collect seaweed, herbs and other wild plants on Heimaey island,
Vestmannaeyjar, his home turf, just south of the Icelandic
mainland. He’s right: the leaves taste remarkably like oyster.
He uses them and the rest of his harvest at his restaurant
Slippurinn (‘The Ship Yard’), down where the old shipyard
used to be at the local harbor. Together with chef Fanney Dóra
Sigurjónsdóttir, the newest addition to the Slippurinn team, we
pick sea truffles and sea purslane (which are pickled or steamed
and served with the fish of the day), angelica (the stems are
fermented and used in gin and brennivín schnapps, and the
seeds are dried and used to cure meat), and sheep sorrel (used
to flavor various dishes like the granita dessert).
FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY
Though he now spends most of the year in Reykjavík, Gísli
was born on Heimaey (population 4,300). He lived on the
island until age six when his parents decided to move to the
capital, returning each summer to visit family. Gísli’s parents
moved back to Vestmannaeyjar in 2010, and in 2011 the fam-
ily started discussing the idea of opening a restaurant. Gísli
completed his schooling in hotel and food studies in Iceland
in 2011 and went on to open Slippurinn with his family in
2012 in an old industrial building down by the harbor.
The machine workshop in the building had closed 30 years
earlier. When Gísli and his family started renting the old
workshop from a relative, it was being used as storage for
fishing boat equipment. There was no electricity and a huge
cleanup job lay ahead. But with help from Gísli’s parents
and grandfather, the building underwent a major renovation
FOOD
Opposite page: Gísli Matthías Auðunsson, chef and co-owner
of Slippurinn and his sister, manager Indíana Auðunsdóttir.
Above: Guillemot eggs in burnt butter with crispy rye bread,
grated cured guillemot eggs, lovage and pickled onion.