Faroese Cuisine

Faroese cuisine is the hardy, distinctive food of a remote North Atlantic people, shaped by the need to preserve food through long, harsh winters in a treeless land where little grows. Its most characteristic traditions are wind-drying and fermenting: skerpikjøt, mutton hung to dry and ferment in slatted sheds for months, and ræst fish and lamb, matured to a pungent, acquired-taste intensity. Alongside come fresh, superb seafood, fish, langoustine and salmon, lamb, potatoes and rhubarb. In recent years, acclaimed New Nordic restaurants have propelled these bold, local ingredients to international culinary fame.

What's there

• Skerpikjøt - the wind-dried, fermented mutton.
• Ræst - the matured, fermented fish and lamb.
• The fresh seafood - the fish, langoustine and salmon.
• New Nordic cuisine - the acclaimed modern Faroese restaurants.

When to go

Year-round; Tórshavn in particular has a growing food scene, from traditional home-style fare to internationally acclaimed New Nordic restaurants showcasing local ingredients, and heimablídni, home dining hosted by locals, offers an intimate, authentic taste of Faroese cooking and hospitality.

Good to know

Traditional Faroese specialities like the fermented ræst and wind-dried skerpikjøt are a genuinely acquired taste, pungent and unlike anything most visitors know, so they divide opinion; the islands' traditional pilot-whale hunt, or grindadráp, is also a controversial practice that draws international criticism. For the adventurous, though, the bold fermented traditions, superb fresh seafood and lamb, and the islands' acclaimed New Nordic restaurants make Faroese food a fascinating and increasingly celebrated discovery.

Nearby

Tórshavn's restaurants and village home-dining hosts are the places to eat.