The mottled panorama of the Lofoten Islands is actually an infinite assortment of tidal swimming pools, as if the waves had solely simply departed, abandoning a tumble of seaweed-covered rocks interspersed with puddles. I can see two figures in the ocean, their petrol black pores and skin glistening. They seem like seals however put on vibrant beanies on their heads. When they arise, they maintain aloft tresses of saw-toothed kelp, which they carry again to shore together with a strawberry pink sea urchin. We take turns holding it, as fastidiously as one would a Fabergé egg.
The pair are Angelita Eriksen and Tamara Singer, who collectively run Lofoten Seaweed. They use their harvest to provide prime eating places and to make seasoning, pasta, chocolate, and pores and skin lotions. Back at their small retailer in the village of Napp, we sit right down to a feast of sugar kelp tempura, as crispy as popadams, which are embedded with pearls of algae; pickled dulse and seaweed-cured trout; and halibut wrapped in kelp. The butter has been whipped with truffle seaweed, a crimson algae with an analogous taste to its landlubbing namesake.
My host for the journey is the Norwegian cruise line Hurtigruten, which is taking me behind the scenes of Norway’s Coastal Kitchen, its long-running culinary program that highlights native farmers. In the previous few years the firm has developed a community of round 70 farms and artisanal producers that present its ships with as much as 80 p.c of their substances—from king crab, arctic char, and cured wild sport to sauerkraut, berries, herbs, and, in fact, seaweed. It’s an method that makes sensible sense, provided that Hurtigruten’s varied itineraries go to 34 ports alongside Norway’s shores, enabling cruise ships to choose up contemporary provides as they go whereas creating dishes that greatest mirror the locations they go to. Guests on board ships corresponding to the MS Richard With—which takes us a part of the approach alongside its northern route—can dine on dishes like barley risotto with baked celery and blackcurrant mousse with brown-cheese ice cream.
But on this journey Hurtigruten’s F&B administrators are exploring methods for visitors to get their boots muddy and expertise substances at their supply. “With more and more foodie travelers discovering Norway and with our ongoing relationship with these farmers and producers,” says Øistein Nilsen, Hurtigruten’s culinary director, “it felt like a natural evolution of the Coastal Kitchen concept.” One of those producers is Gisle Melhus, a screenwriter who as soon as wrote a rom-com set aboard a Hurtigruten ship however flipped his personal script to maneuver to Myklevik Gård, his small farm in Lofoten. There he raises pigs and geese together with his associate, Åshild, and grows crops utilizing compost created from the cruise line’s leftover meals. Ingredients from Melhus’s farm seem on the menu in a baked root vegetable salad and a inexperienced pepper sauce used as a condiment in meat dishes.
It’s darkish after we arrive at the farm. Candles lead the technique to a comfortable eating room with a desk laid with pickled greens and foraged morels, that are quickly joined by crisp-skinned pork barbecued over charcoal outdoors. Melhus has a powerful sense of the mythic, speaking about how girls labored this land throughout Viking occasions, and the way the skrei fish that swim right here had been as soon as so plentiful they may very well be scooped proper out of the water. “We live not only close to nature, we live in nature,” he says. “When spring arrives in May, we forget about the seven cold, dark, and extremely windy months that we collectively cursed and agree we live in the most beautiful place on earth.”
It’s a view shared 110 miles north by chef Halvar Ellingsen, who moved again to the islands from Oslo to open a restaurant with rooms at his great-great-grandfather’s farm, Kvitnes Gård. Using solely substances grown inside the Arctic Circle (save for flour, seasoning, and oil), his crew assembles a 20-course tasting menu that features halibut on a mattress of seaweed; a leg of lamb with blueberries; and blood pancake. As a culinary ambassador for Hurtigruten, he devises seasonal recipes for cruise menus corresponding to cured halibut with smoked potatoes, bitter milk, and dill. “The limited larder and season force us to be creative,” he says. “Phrases like ‘local’ and ‘sustainable’ are so overused. I wanted to see just how far I could stretch them.” He leads us previous turf-roofed outbuildings to a cellar fabricated from stone, the place greens ferment in jars and packing containers are stuffed with carrots, salsify, and potatoes. On the approach again, a herd of younger goats surrounds us. As I bend right down to {photograph} one, one other jumps on my shoulders and stands there, crowning me with hooves and horns for a brief second—a becoming image of my expertise on this wild Nordic landscape.
The Lofoten Islands are one among our Best Places to Eat in 2025. For the full checklist, learn here.
This article appeared in the July/August 2025 subject of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the journal here.