Restaurant & Bar Awards 2024 | 5 Most Scenic Dining Experience 2024 Southern Norway The mountains of Southern Norway are home to Brokkestoylen, an old farm with a heritage as rich as the landscape it adorns. In days of old, this farm would be used in the summer when the animals would move up the mountain due to the lack of grass in the valley, before they escaped back down on the precipice of a harsh winter. Today, this farm is home to an unforgettable experience that encompasses accommodation, food, and a farm shop, with the site’s remarkable restaurant housed in an old log cabin that dates all the way back to the mid-1800s. Co-Owner Gro Furset is on hand for more. Authenticity radiates from this small, scenic, and adult-only restaurant in the district of Setesdal, with the owners, wife and husband Gro Furset and Erik Berglihn, paying homage to the region’s social dining tradition. As such, the restaurant has but one large table with 12 seats, making this a unique and communal dining experience that is guaranteed to be unlike anything you have ever witnessed before. Then there is the food itself, with elements of all of the dishes served here stemming from a combination of the farm’s produce, herbs and berries from the woods, and game from the mountains. Gro explains, “the food and drink here is made with respect for traditions, and everything is crafted by hand. Permaculture, slow cooking, fermentations, aging, distilling, and extractions are all part of the food and drink experience.” Having started out life as a small café, considerable development has resulted in gourmet restaurant status for Brokkestoylen, with it serving only the healthiest and most tasty food, exclusively using wild game and fish, and smoking all of the food itself. Erik, Gro, and the rest of the small team who help them out from time to time thus all have one shared goal in mind. Achieving excellence. It takes a great deal of effort to ensure that this is attained, but it is a mission that the team go above and beyond to accomplish. Since the overwhelming majority of the food and drink served in the restaurant is taken directly from either other areas of Brokkestoylen or caught in the mountains, to say that freshness and quality control are exemplary here would be an understatement. Moreover, anything that cannot be grown or hunted is purchased from Erik and Gro’s neighbours, who also own small farms nearby, with these items including goat cheese, yoghurts, and certain types of meat. Further distinguishing the restaurant is the skill embodied by both Erik and Gro themselves, with this couple leveraging years of prior experience running hotels and restaurants to provide their patrons with nothing short of the best. As keen travellers and foodies, this duo often visit other restaurants and assess what they believe to be good and not so good, seeing which elements of the overall service stand out and could be incorporated effectively into Brokkestoylen. Gro tells us, “we read a lot about food, get inspired by different chefs, and try to be a place that we would like to visit ourselves.” In an industry where many restaurants are struggling to turn a profit, the cosy, independent, and almost entirely selfsufficient nature of Brokkestoylen’s restaurant stand it in good stead as the wider business continues to grow. Noticing that there was a desire from guests to stay over, Erik and Gro added six eco-luxury nature pods to the land, meaning that not only could a scenic dining experience be provided, but also an equally scenic and sustainable stay. “When you leave us”, Gro says, “we want to have been able to give you the experience of a lifetime in the areas of food, accommodation, and nature.” Last year, every available seat at Brokkestoylen’s restaurant was completely sold out, and this was not a one-off. Recognising the ever-increasing demand for its services, Brokkestoylen opened a tremendous glasshouse that is perfect for big groups or retreats, and last summer saw the unveiling of a new sauna and the conversion of a log house into a sauna. On the back of these developments, Gro is proud to announce that an array of guests from all over the world will be visiting Brokkestoylen this summer, where they will be exposed to gourmet food, eco-luxury, and the serene silence of nature at every turn. Contact: Gro Furset Contact Email: [email protected] Company: Brokkestoylen Web Address: https://brokkestoylen.no/ Brokkestøylen
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