[Review of a film about a restaurant (originally posted to the Europe board, but someone told me that Greenland is North America).]
THE MOST REMOTE RESTAURANT IN THE WORLD (2023) is about the
opening of the two-star Michelin restaurant KOKS in Ilimanaq,
Greenland, relocating from the Faroe Islands. Ilimanaq has a population
of 53, at least before the restaurant staff of 21 move there. (It does have a
school; eight children attend first through ninth grade there.)
KOKS serves a 17- to 22-course tasting meal (the number seemed to
fluctuate) for 3200 DKK (US$455), and had about 1800 reservations
before they even opened, for a restaurant that seats 30. People
can arrive on their own, but the meal is also included in some
high-end tours.
Part of the pressure to open on time in spite of all the problems
was that the people who had booked the first night included a man
coming from Hong Kong just for this, a couple celebrating their
anniversary on opening day. Chef Poul Andrias said at one point
that people were spending 10,000 DKK (roughly US$1500), which
probably only includes travel from nearby airports such as Denmark
or Iceland, plus boat fare.
The film covers the problems of opening a restaurant, exacerbated
by the remote location, the lack of infrastructure, and the attempt
to serve only seasonal, locally sourced food. For example, when
they first turned on the oven, the entire village lost power. It
turned out that seal is not as easy to source locally as they
thought, and since the Greenland whale harvest is limited to two
per year, that is also problematic.
Andrias described it at one point as, “everything that could go
wrong is going wrong, and everything that couldn’t go wrong is also
going wrong.”
They did not give the entire menu (which presumably has some
variations because of supply problems), but what they did mention
were mattak (whale skin); shrimp in a chamomile-kombucha sauce;
Arctic ptarmigan with tumak (reindeer fat), cream, and a berry
salsa; grilled seal ribs; Arctic char; whale with a blue mussel
glaze with beetroot; tartlet of seal blood and seaweed; fried
shrimp head; scallop; halibut; salmon skin; braised musk ox in a
glaze of burnt crab shell; a lovage dessert; and petit fours of
carmelised onion and fermented garlic.
What makes it more complicated is that apparently the meals/dishes
are staggered, i.e., they are not starting everyone at the same
time. So for example, they may be serving Table 1 the musk ox
while they are serving Table 2 the seal ribs.
[WARNING: The film shows a whale being cut up. It also has a lot
of profanity.]
