True fine dining in the most unlikely location.
Huset – literally translated to The House – is a down to earth name given to a restaurant that is out of this world – true fine dining in the most unlikely location. Frankly, it’s as magical a phenomenon as the northern lights of Svalbard. Where all of New Nordic Luxury embodies the contrast between simple and extraordinary, this place is like an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, it should be impossible. Luckily for us, it is not.
At Huset you will meet a cohesive team of people from all over the world, both ambitious and adventurous. The wine cellar is among the richest in all of Scandinavia and it holds all the kinds of bottles you would expect to find, but also interesting new world alternatives as international as the Huset staff itself.
Funken is an unassuming building on a slight hill above Longyearbyen, Svalbard. Enter and you may be surprised to discover, right here at the very edge of human habitability, a luxurious quiet and comfort.
Discover the hotel
Every Monday, when Huset is not open to guests, the team learns and grows together. They might go looking for stone fossils to use as plates. They forage the tundra for mushrooms, sorel and berries and more. If you ask them about their process, they might explain how they will work with an idea over time, individually and as a team, experimenting “until it starts to make sense”. That’s how a dish ends up on the menu.
Each of the food experiences are accompanied by the names and stories of the hunters, fishers, trappers and gatherers that made the experience possible. The storytelling reminds you exactly where you are – the arctic desert. There are flavours to be found, but nature will not make it easy for anyone to distil them. The rich blackberry sauce served with the reindeer is the result of three days hard labour, and worth it. Throughout the meal – which seems too mundane a word for this food experience - you will discover new and delightful tastes, textures and flavours that have been wrenched from their raw materials through smoking, pickling, fermentation, curing or who knows what strange ritual. The food is art, but the vibe is jovial and relaxed.
In this come-as-you-are-atmosphere you will enjoy treats like cured meats served on reindeer antlers, sea urchin soup with fermented honey, arctic langoustine filet with a mysterious tea-bag full of flavour drawn from the langoustine’s head. There is pickled seal, arctic turbot with skin, nuts in liquid caramel and the grand finale - petit fours served on a resin iceberg sculpture, each exquisite bite precariously placed on little iceberg cliffs. Don’t take our word for it. Go.
