Faroe Business Report — The International Review of Faroe Islands Industry and Trade - Faroe Business Report — The International Review of Faroe Islands Industry and Trade

Meanwhile, at least potentially, there’s this inherent feature that grows even more powerful when it comes to the smaller, offbeat places in the Nordic region.

We’ll get back to that in a moment.

First, a look at the wider context. Whatever Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and the other crime novelists wrote to create the ‘Nordic noir’ phenomenon in the bestseller lists, here’s another astonishing feat from the north that is attracting major international attention.

It’s called New Nordic Food and right now it’s the coolest concept in the world of fine cuisine, with Copenhagen’s Noma for two consecutive years earning the top spot on the prestigious San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, and Copenhagen chef Rasmus Kofoed winning the biennial Bocuse d’Or culinary world championship for this year (2011), trailed by other Scandinavians.

But while these competitions have been dominated by Nordic restaurants and chefs in the last few years, that was surely not the case before 2005. How come?

The simple answer is that 2005 was the year when the New Nordic Food manifesto was formulated by a group of leading chefs from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands.

“It was a decisive moment,” says Leif Sørensen, who represented the North Atlantic archipelago at that Copenhagen symposium. “Since then everything has changed,” he adds.

“We knew that trying to market any single Nordic country’s cuisine as a serious contender to French or Italian was never going to work. Instead, we had this vision of a common platform that could provide the resources and the background to build a more compelling case.

“So we articulated this policy and took care to leave ample space for the individual countries to place their mark on, and of course for the individual chefs to work their magic.

“We believe strongly in the idea of combining this regional culture with the more specific domestic heritage of each place while keeping international standards.”


‘Fascinating’: The New Nordic Food manifesto features a list of 10 principles of fine cuisine with one of the tenets concerning local sourcing, for example.

Mr. Sørensen: “Local sourcing is a significant aspect to the whole concept and it fits perfectly with the other principles we adhere to, such as always using top quality raw materials and considering the environmental impact of what we do.”

As New Nordic Food started to take the world of fine dining by storm over the next very few years, Mr. Sørensen continued to work on developing his own Faroese version while spreading the message of cultural authenticity and genuineness as essential elements of gourmet cooking. He quickly became the most renowned Faroese chef and is now working to develop Hotel Føroyar’s new gourmet restaurant Koks, scheduled to open in late April (just as this publication went to press).

“The Faroese universe of fermented food is unique and offers great opportunities for creating something exciting and truly original,” Mr. Sørensen says. “We use fermented fish as a key ingredient in a very popular fish soup, for example; and we use fermented lamb to add this piquant flavor to a foamy sauce, which is very popular, too. Also we’re going to introduce a dish that includes both fermented and fresh lamb meat.

“There’s so much more to Faroese cuisine than people seem to realize, more local ingredients than you might imagine. Each of these ingredients has its own story to tell and I find that fascinating.”


‘Essentially spiritual’: From culinary expressions to a very different, but no less powerful, language through which Faroese culture is being presented convincingly to a growing audience: popular music. Spanning genres ranging from folk and pop through heavy metal and industrial, Faroese music has won international acclaim in recent years.

A highly successful artist, singer-songwriter Teitur has a loyal and growing following across the Atlantic. Catapulted by a record contract signed with Universal in 2004, Teitur later switched to an independent label, insisting on his creative freedom and his original style.

Rock band Týr have built a huge fan base in Germany and across Europe through their special mix of progressive heavy metal and traditional folk rhymes as known from the ancient Faroese chain dance.

One notable artist that has spellbound audiences throughout Scandinavia and beyond is Eivør, whose melodious songs, often influenced by traditional folk music, are given an angelic feel and tone through her amazing voice.

Eivør is one of a number of music artists and bands who started their career in the village of Gøta, home of the G!Festival, a music festival which has won fame abroad, not least in the UK, for its spectacular setting on the Gøta beach.

A few of her former band members went on to start other groups including ORKA, whose “poetic industrial” sound is breaking new ground by exclusively using home-built instruments consisting of anything from pieces of metal and plastics to electronic and mechanical devices.

It began when Jens L. Thomsen took some of his friends to his father’s barn to record sounds there for use in a musical experiment.

A few years and two records later, the London-trained sound technologist and musician comments: “I never expected this overwhelming response to our latest album... We’re getting invitations to play everywhere...”

So what’s the excitement all about?

“Maybe it’s our odd toolbox that makes people curious,” he says, almost shyly.

“I guess it’s the music as well. We create the sounds from scratch and we enjoy it because it gives a different kind of freedom. We’re not under pressure to play any particular kind of solos, for example. We’re not confined to the universe of conventional instruments and it’s more about creating a whole... I’d say music is about communicating ideas and it’s something essentially spiritual that happens between the artist and the listener.”