Fäviken launch at The Swedish Ambassador's Residence in London

I've written before about this extraordinary restaurant in Northern Sweden, Fäviken Magasinet, where chef Magnus Nilsson creates flavour explosions from locally sourced food and fauna. And I mean locally sourced. This is from their website:

'We respect our raw ingredients for what they are, what they look like and where they come from. We strive to monitor the production of each ingredient from seed to plate. We accept nature’s own choices as the primary factor, and apply our own knowledge in order to maximise every product’s potential. We concentrate on harvesting, preparing, cooking and then serving it. We present every single ingredient in a manner that conveys the feelings that arise in the process to createrektún food.
 Our ingredients are primarily from the Fäviken Estate, grown and raised in conditions that we control. After this, they come from people we know in the local area, Jämtland, and, lastly, they come from our Norwegian neighbours in Tröndelag.' 

The result is the purest tasting food I have ever enjoyed. Though Magnus has an estate and a small farm at his disposal, still, you need a hugely creative mind and excellent skills as a chef to produce the delicacies such as 'Langoustine rolled in dried malted vinegar'

Me with Magnus Nilsson

When we visited Fäviken last March, Magnus told us that he was writing a cookery book which would come out in October. And, true to his word, on 1st October came out the moorishly good looking book, Fäviken, which promises to be not just a cookery book but a book on a way of life.

Last night, when the Swedish Ambassador, Nicola Clase, introduced Magnus to a crowded room, she said something very perceptive about the way of cooking at Fäviken. I'd quote her word for word here, but alas, after a few glasses of their excellent wine and even more excellent Hors D'oeuvres, this morning I could not for the life on me remember what she said…but it was something about the past having brought Magnus to the future of cooking.

The cover looks fabulous.

I cannot wait to have my copy, which is waiting for me at West End Lane Books. Sadly, at yesterday's event we weren't able to purchase copies.

Fäviken is published by Phaidon Press
Hardcover Price: £35-00

Fäviken Magasinet, near Åre ski resort, Sweden, revisited

The atmospheric Fäviken Magasinet is housed in an old grain barn.

I was a little apprehensive about my third visit to Fäviken Magasinet, the acclaimed restaurant run by young Swedish Chef of the moment, Magnus Nilsson, since often when you revisit a place, which you've been raving about, you are disappointed.

But I shouldn't have worried, because this time the food was - if possible - even more exquisite. 

Magnus approach to cooking is twofold: firstly, apart from salt and vinegar, he will only use locally grown and sourced foodstuffs; secondly, he puts his imagination and great talent as a chef towards utilising as much of the fauna and flora at his disposal in the grounds of the restaurant and the surrounding forests, waters and farms, as possible. 

The result is the purest and cleanest tasting food you can ever imagine you could eat. Magnus calls it Rektun Food (Rektun means real in the local Jämtland dialect).

Saturday before last, when we visited the Fäviken Magasinet, the evening started with little amuse-bouche including wild trout roe served on top of a biscuit made of dried pigs blood, something which sounds strange but was incredibly tasty. We also had thin slivers of cured bacon which just melted in the mouth.

Then it was time to go upstairs to the restaurant proper, which is housed in an old grain store with low ceilings. Dried herbs, hams and fish adorn the walls. This is where the theatre that is the Rektun meal begins in earnest. 

Each course is brought to the table by Magnus and his staff and the chef himself explains what we are about to have and how we should consume it to best enjoy the dish. There are eight small dishes, served to a maximum of twelve guests, with each dish wilder than the previous one, followed by four puddings.

Magnus preparing a dish for us.

The atmospheric surroundings greatly add to the magical Fäviken experience.

The carefully selected wines by Magnus together with his talented Somelier, Johan Agrell, are French, apart from the mead made by the restaurant, which is served with the first course of flame 'cooked' scallop in its shell. The scallop which is more of less rare, was the best I have ever tasted. My friend and I speculated whether we could ever eat scallops anywhere else again, as they would always be a disappointment after the one served at Fäviken.

The scallops, served in their shell, on a bed of smoked hay and sprigs of juniper.

The juice inside the scallop was divine.

Another four fish dishes followed....

Langoustine rolled in dried malted vinegar.  

One dish which stood out for me more than others was the trout, marinated in mushroom vinegar, served with a sauce made from roasted oats. Magnus told us the marinated fish had only been slightly 'cooked' by placing the piece on the hot serving plates. The sauce made from oats had a sweet taste, of almost butterscotch, which together with the mild acidity of the fish was a completely new taste sensation to me.

Trout, served with sauce of roasted oats and grated carrot.

This dish of pickled vegetables was so pretty you hardly wanted to touch it to spoil the effect. 

Cow's heart with marrow (which was cut in half in front of the diners) and  grated root vegetables.

Toasted sourdough bread served with herb salt.  

All throughout the meal the staff at Fäviken serve slices of sourdough bread made on site from a root originating from an old wooden bread basin. It's wonderfully soft in the middle and crisp on the outside, and it takes all your self-control not to pig out on it, especially as the bread is served with home-made butter. But luckily for us, my friend is such a regular at Fäviken that when she leaves the restaurant, a loaf of warm bread, wrapped in a brown paper bag, is placed in her hand. I felt honoured that, on this, my third visit, a loaf was given to me too.

Steak from 'an old pensioned-off milking cow' was the most delicious piece of meat I've ever tasted.

To move from the savoury to the sweet we were served wild raspberry sorbet, water lingonberry with thick cream and sugar. 

Cake made from pine bark with frozen buttermilk.

Milk ice-cream, whipped duck egg and raspberry jam.

The sweets were divine too. The milk ice-cream made in the old-fashioned churn, was served with home-made raspberry jam and a whipped duck egg. It was just sweet enough to be the pinnacle of the pudding menu.

When the meal came to an end we were invited to return to the downstairs bar/reception area for coffee and home-made liqueurs. Even though I was thoroughly satisfied, I'd enjoyed such wonderful tastes I didn't really want to leave the restaurant. Especially as I knew it'll be a long time before I can make a return visit.

The inevitable me-with-the-chef picture. (I just had to...)

But, there's good news: for those of us who aren't able to make regular trips up to Northern Sweden to sample Magnus Nilsson's fantastic cooking, his methods can soon be enjoyed by all. He has a cookery book in the making, which should be out in October this year. He'll also be making a book tour in London to co-incide with the publication of the book, so watch this space for dates and venues.

Fäviken Magasinet
Fäviken 216
830 05 Järpen
Tel: +46 (0)647 40177, Fax: +46 (0)647 40147
E-mail: info@favikenmagasinet.se

Sweden: Fäviken restaurant in Åre

During my extended skiing trip last month I was lucky enough to visit a most fantastic - and unusual - restaurant near the Åre ski resort in Northern Sweden. The chef, Magnus Nilsson, of the remote Fäviken Magasin has become a bit a celebrity. He has been selected as one of the top ten young chefs by Wall Street Journal and is - alongside Albert Adrian from El Bulli - one of the chefs chosen for the Cook It Raw society.

Here Magnus explains his philosophy on cooking.

The Fäviken Magasin restaurant is set in a 17th century farm and serves food in one sitting, to a menu decided by the chef. All the ingredients are either grown or reared at the farm, or in the waters nearby (we had langustines from Norway). The only ingredients they buy from further afield are salt and pepper, and the dishes they serve strictly follow the seasons (A Cook It Raw principle). This is no mean feat in a place where snow covers the landscape for half of the year and the growing season is three or four months at its best. On the other hand you have the most fantastic wild ingredients: lingonberries, various mushrooms, game. Traditional and newly invented methods are used in preserving the berries, herbs, root vegetables and meat and fish. The chef also likes to use of all an animal - in a very similar way to St John's Bread & Wine (I wrote about that restaurant here).

When we arrived, it was snowing and the farmhouse looked welcoming against the dark blue night.

The path to the front door was lit by fires.

In the restaurant which sits only 12 people, there are no menus. Instead the staff tell you what you are about to eat just after they've served it. There are eight courses (not counting a few amuse de bouche's), and the identity of the wine is concealed for the customers to guess the grape and region, etc. I absolutely hate it when the host at a dinner party decides to play this game. It's usually done just to massage his or her middle-class ego, 'I know so much more about wine than you'. I've never before come across the same done in a commercially run restaurant. But, hey, while in Sweden, you must do what the Swedes do.

The guessing game aside, the food and the incognito wine at Fäviken is indescribably delicious. The tastes are so pure that I found myself thinking about the dishes I ate there for days - even weeks - afterwards.

Plus the staff at Fäviken Magasin could not be friendlier. They take such pride in the unusual dishes that the service can sometimes come across as pure theatre. But then isn't that what a really good dining experience is supposed to be - a very well executed performance?

These were some of the dishes we enjoyed.

Dried moss - yes! And it was delicious.

Dried pork from the farm - I've never tasted meat like it.

Baked trout  with muesli, preserved root vegetables, almost burnt cream and aged cheese.

Cod glazed with honey and fried in a dry pan, swede covered in grains of rye and fried in home made butter, served with cream of cod roe, eggs, vinegar and green juniper berries. 

Langoustine dry roasted with wild cumin served on a bed of dried hay. The scent was divine; I can still remember exactly how this dish tasted.

The chefs cut open the leg of beef to extract the marrow.

Raw heart with marrow and preserved root vegetables.

The home made sour dough bread was out of this world with the uncooked cow's heart. Yes, I know...

Wild raspberry sorbet, thick cream with sugared lingonberries.

Dill being dried in the old hay barn which is now used as the restaurant. 

The dried meat joints hanging from the rafters.

At the end of the evening we were offered tea, coffee and liqueurs.

We all felt very privileged to have been able to enjoy this fantastic restaurant. Although it is not cheap by any means, if you ever find yourself in the Swedish ski resort, you must try the place. Your taste buds will never again accept over-fussy, over-seasoned, or out of season food.

I'm just off to the Heath to forage for some wild leaves....or perhaps not.