The Fantastic Faroes

This windswept North Atlantic outpost boasts stunning scenery, has surprisingly lively nightlife, and is a gastronomic delight

Landing at the Faroes is certainly memorable. The runway at the little airport is wedged between two jagged rocky mountains that lead to lush green grass. There are no trees - the ever-present wind blows them down. There’s not a house, person or even a sheep in sight. And there’s silence. You feel you’re almost at the end of the earth.

After an introduction like this it’s understandable to assume that the nightlife in this isolated, windy archipelago of volcanic rock in the North Atlantic Ocean, centred between Scotland, Norway and Iceland, wouldn’t be too hot. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The bars in Tórshavn, arguably the world’s smallest capital, are heaving each night until 4am. The banks of beards, skinny jeans and knitted fisherman’s jumpers crowding the Irish pub (yes, really) and Café Natúr are slightly reminiscent of hipster hangouts in London, though these guys are the genuine article.

Tórshavn, on the largest of the islands, Streymoy, is little bigger than it was a century ago. A neat and tidy place, it is peppered with a handful of pretty houses in the typically Faroese vernacular, namely black, brown, green, red and bright blue wooden houses that are often turf-topped.

The 18 islands have a total population of 54,900 - a bit less than the population of Margate - and 70,000 to 80,000 sheep. The human population is very stable as the Faroes have one of the highest birth rates in Europe - no doubt due to the cold weather causing people to escape to bed, and there being little else to do than procreate.

No-one seems to go to bed too early in this place. Probably because, being so near the Arctic circle, for half the year daylight or twilight are the order of the day. It is strange being in a Faroese bar, looking at the bright light outside, assuming it is mid-evening and looking at my watch to find that it’s 3am.

Like Greenland, The Faroes are a semi-sovereign country, a self-governing, autonomous territory that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are not part of the EU. They have their own currency, pegged to the Danish kronor.

The Faroese have become concerned by the increased geopolitical threats surrounding the Arctic and Greenland, being part of the same Kingdom of Denmark and sharing similar strategic vulnerabilities. While not currently under threat by President Trump to be sold or invaded, as Greenland has, islanders recognise that they are in the centre of a re-emerging ‘Cold War’ and have paused their own push for increased autonomy in a show of solidarity with Denmark and Greenland.

A Faroese house - photo by Ben West

The peoples of the Faroe Islands have their own language, Faroese, a variant of Old Norse, similar to Icelandic and one of only two Viking languages still existing today.

Islanders are mostly descended from Norsemen and Celtic women, almost certainly abducted from Ireland and Scotland. More recently, the islands lost proportionally more men than any other nation in World War Two, leading lots of women on the island to then marry Scottish men.

However, in recent years a shortage of Faroese women has led to men looking elsewhere for partners - including a steadily increasing number of women from Thailand. In 2000 there were just 15 on the islands, but today there are around 220, which makes them quite visible in such a thinly populated place.

My party take a helicopter from Tórshavn to little Svínoy Island to the east. The helicopter trip costs £75 but for residents is just £25, being heavily subsidised by the government as helicopters are a lifeline for the inhabitants of the smaller islands.

Around 30 people live on Svínoy. It has a school but has had numerous years in recent times without pupils. We meet Marius, who has lived his whole life on the island. He is of course wearing the obligatory hand-knitted jumper. Indeed, a line of all-organic hand-knitted clothing by two Faroese women, Gudrun Ludvig and Gudrun Rogvadottir (gudrungudrun.com), became internationally known when their modern take on the traditional Faroese fisherman’s sweater featured in the hit Danish television series The Killing.

Marius shows us the precious few sights on Svínoy: a small two-roomed wooden building built in 1806 with a sign saying ‘dance house’, a little playground, a smattering of houses, a church, built in 1878. Svínoy has had a church since 1592, maybe even earlier.

We are given a traditional creamy fish soup in one of the houses. The house is very plain, with no books, computer or television to be seen. I do wonder how they keep themselves busy on this island.

Surprisingly, with the sea such a dominant part of life here, fresh fish can be hard to find on restaurant menus, although there are excellent fish as well as lamb dishes at cosy, candle-lit turf-roofed Áarstova Restaurant (aarstova.fo), in an old wooden house by Tórshavn’s harbour.

There was virtually no restaurant scene on the Faroe Islands until around the turn of the century, no doubt helped by the fact that a strong temperance movement and religious objections meant that it was illegal to serve alcohol in restaurants until 1992. And today you still can’t buy alcohol in the shops (apart from a 2.8% lager), but only in the Islands’ six state-run Rúsdrekkasøla Landsins stores.

When renowned chef Leif Sørensen helped launch Koks (koks.fo) in 2011, the most celebrated Faroese restaurant, that all changed. Instantly establishing itself at the forefront of new Nordic cuisine alongside the likes of Noma in Copenhagen, it serves outrageously innovative dishes using local ingredients when in season. Though the food is distinctly contemporary, every effort is put into exploring the ancient practices – drying, fermenting, salting and smoking.

My group drop in on it in the unprepossessing rural village of Kirkjubøur to sample head chef Poul Andrias Ziska’s astounding menu. He’s recognised for having the skill to distil the tastes and smells from the Faroese landscape, and no clearer is that when trying grass granite with angelica mousse and sorrel ice cream - you can actually taste and smell the grass. Angelica is a common Faroese ingredient, being abundant on the islands, having been brought by the Vikings originally for its antiseptic qualities.

Fine dining at Koks Restaurant - photo by Ben West

Each dish at Koks - shaved horse mussel with cod, wind-dried lamb on fried lichen with cured reindeer, red seaweed with blueberry flakes, shark glazed in chicken stock with nettle compressed in hazelnut oil - is a sensation, an array of completely new tastes.

It is strange that this groundbreaking restaurant is situated within a village consisting of just a handful of houses, a church (churches, being Lutheran, are plain here, with no flourishes), and a farm, a village that is probably no bigger than when it was established more that 1000 years ago. From the outside, Koks looks like any ordinary Faroese house, but the interior boasts large windows looking out to a huge expanse of sea, where seals and whales can often be seen.

Traditional Faroese fare tends to be out of this world, in the sense that it’s almost of another world. For example, skærpekød is sheep’s meat, wind dried, cured and fermented for up to nine months in special wooden sheds called hjallur. Whilst similar in appearance to parma ham, the presence of penicillium mold gives it an intense blue cheese flavour that is certainly an acquired taste.

Note: Since my visit, Koks closed and moved to Greenland, but is currently searching for a new home on the Faroes Islands.

The Faroese diet developed from the meagre choice of ingredients available, hence such items as puffin, guillemot and gannet appearing on menus, and precious few vegetables. Whale has been an essential part of the islanders’ survival for centuries, although nowadays local sources are apparently so riddled with mercury it is no longer considered fit for human consumption.

The outskirts of Torshavn - photo by Ben West

The gruesome annual Faroese summer pilot whale slaughter, the grindadráp, certainly has a growing number of objectors. However, protectors of the tradition state that the annual slaughter takes less than 0.1% of the 750,000 pilot whale population each year and that there are much more immediate and pressing threats to ocean ecosystems, such as widespread overfishing decimating tuna, cod and many other fish populations, or the 100 million sharks caught annually worldwide to satisfy the Asian market for sharkfin soup.

The next day we take a drive from the capital, but the side roads can be very narrow and we immediately get stuck. A local fisherman decked in hi-vis gear directs us out as his wife, looking like an 18th century maiden from a film set, with the purest skin and deepest, most vivid blue eyes - and of course the obligatory knitted jumper - looks on wearily.

When we eventually reach our destination, Klaksvik, a walk up a hill is rewarded with staggeringly beautiful panoramic views of deep green mountains, violently vertical cliffs, crashing seas, nearby islands and a cluster of the brightly-coloured lego brick houses in the town below.

We take a boat trip to the north of Streymoy island at Vestmanna, past colourful houses atop more lush, green hills. We pass huge cages of salmon, each holding 50,000 fish. The Faroe Islands export a lot of fish, and the seas are ideal for breeding salmon as the sea temperature remains the same around the year due to the Gulf Stream.

There are sheep on the steep hills, standing precariously right on the edge, with a long drop to the sea below. Apparently they hardly ever fall into the sea as their whole lives are spent in such conditions and they soon adapt to the location.

The hills become rockier and steeper, until they are 300-metre-high great walls of grey with splashes of green. Fulmars, gull-like seabirds, swoop and glide past, and there are puffins guillimots and Arctic terns. It’s a twitchers’ paradise.

I’m no birdwatcher but you become completely mesmerised at the birds gliding around the boat, colliding with the rocks, trying to get purchase onto a rock, and if failing, circling again.

Like the food, the fascinating way of life, and the surprisingly wild nightlife, the landscapes and wildlife here are completely mesmerising.

Getting there

Atlantic Airways (atlantic.fo) flies direct from Gatwick to Vágar on the Faroes

Accommodation

Hotel Hafnia, Tórshavn (hafnia.fo); Hotel Klaksvik, Klaksvik (hotelklaksvik.fo)

Reading

Faroe Islands (Bradt Guides, £18.99)

Further information

Faroe Islands tourist board (visitfaroeislands.com)

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