The wooden drying racks rise along the harbor and hillsides in February in the Lofoten Islands off Norway’s northwest coast. In the chilly sea air, thousands of full skrei—the migratory Atlantic cod that come from the Barents Sea to spawn here during the darkest months—hang, their flesh gradually losing moisture in the same manner that Norwegians have been drying fish since at least the Viking Age. It will take months for the tørrfisk to be ready.
Now that the fresh skrei is ready, it may be found in eateries, at quayside stands, and on fishing boats that transport tourists outside before morning to harvest fish from nearly freezing water. When people claim that Norwegian seafood is the best in the world, they are referring to the flesh of a skrei caught in these conditions, which is bright white, lean, and firm in a manner that cod from warmer water just isn’t. Then some of them are eating it on a boat in the dark while wearing waders, which is a unique culinary experience.
The case for Norway as a seafood tourism destination has been gradually developing for the past ten years or more, picking up speed in tandem with the larger New Nordic food trend that Norway has been pursuing with its own momentum but that Noma in Copenhagen made internationally readable. There are currently twenty Michelin-starred restaurants in Norway, ranging from the three-star Maaemo in Oslo to the southernmost point of Lindesnes, where a restaurant called Under is situated five meters below sea level in a concrete tube embedded in the seabed.
Its floor-to-ceiling viewing panel looks out into the actual ocean while patrons enjoy a tasting menu centered around local marine life. Reservations for the biggest underwater restaurant in the world, Under, are difficult to come by. Rather than being at odds with it, the contrast between a tørrfisk heritage that dates back a millennium and a Michelin-starred experience below the waterline is actually a representation of what Norway has to offer.
All of this is made possible by a unique maritime ecosystem that is important to comprehend. While the cooler, nutrient-rich Arctic water rushes in from the east and north, the Gulf Stream carries warm water north along Norway’s coast. The environment for cold-water fish are particularly favorable where these currents converge; the low temperatures create the hardness and flavor density that set Norwegian cod, halibut, and salmon apart from fish bred or captured in warmer waters.
More than half of the world’s market for farmed Atlantic salmon comes from Norway, which is the world’s second-largest exporter of seafood by volume. Commodity farmed salmon is not the same as the salmon from a fjord in western Norway, which is raised under conditions that are monitored with an intensity that would surprise most consumers. The difference is tasted rather than merely debated.
The king crab safari has emerged as one of the most unique culinary tourism experiences in the far north, in Kirkenes, and in the Finnmark region close to the Russian border. King crabs are plucked from the ocean through holes made in sea ice, transported to a heated tent on the coast, and cooked right away. They were first brought to the Barents Sea by Soviet scientists in the 1960s and are currently flourishing in vast numbers.
Even an hour later, the sequence of events—the cold walk, the ice, and the live crab entering boiling water—produces a sweetness in the meat that is hard to duplicate. A king crab loses more the farther it travels from the ocean before cooking. The quickest path between the water and the plate is the Finnmark experience, which involves eating crab while still wearing a winter jacket.
Reading the itineraries that serious food tourists are creating around Norway gives me the impression that the nation has reached a point where tradition and modernity are complementing rather than displacing one another. In the winter, fresh skrei are sold at reasonable costs in Bergen’s fish market, which has been located on that harbor since the 1200s. Depending on the form, the price ranges from NOK 150 to 350 per kilogram. The same fish is being interpreted through modern Nordic cookery at the Michelin-starred restaurants in Trondheim and Oslo.
The stockfish that hangs in Lofoten is still completely dry. The sustainability pressures on North Atlantic fish populations are real, and the question of how Norwegian aquaculture manages its environmental footprint is genuinely open. Whether Norway remains at the forefront of serious food travelers’ considerations depends in part on the sustainability of the supply chains and marine environments that make it possible. As of right now, the drying racks are still being installed and the skrei are still arriving in February.
