20 Best Restaurants In Scandinavia Slideshow

In 2003, only a year after chefs and co-owners Rune Jochumsen and Kristian Moller took over the kitchen at Restaurant Formel B, the duo was awarded a coveted Michelin star for their French-influenced Danish cuisine. The menu includes a rotating collection of 15 to 20 dishes like baerii (Siberian sturgeon) caviar with sour cream sorbet and crystallized white chocolate, and smoked venison with wild herbs, beets, walnuts, and yogurt. 

For 27 years — since long before the locavore movement swept through Sweden —28+ has served innovative cuisine comprised of locally sourced organic products. Chef Hans Borén's menu is dictated by the seasons and includes offerings like lardo-baked halibut with sage, oyster mushrooms, and mussel risotto; grilled scallops with cauliflower variations and ras el hanout; and saddle of reindeer with Jerusalem artichokes and blackberry vinaigrette.

Chef Henrik Norström designs his menus at Lux Stockholm based not on the four seasons, but on 16 "mini" seasons. In late autumn, for instance, lobster and crayfish dominate the menu; apples, pears, plums, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage arrive in time for Christmas feasts. Norström works with an impressive roster of local suppliers — horticulturists, fishermen, cheesemakers, dairy producers, hunters, and more. The restaurant's décor of metallic-colored walls, an exposed ceiling, and oversize cushioned chairs is just as playful and whimsical as the food — which includes things like cumin-roasted lamb with smoked bone marrow, roasted pumpkin purée, and garlic and green juniper dressing, and lightly smoked venison with peas, shiitake mushrooms, and watercress cream.

Mathias Dahlgren's Michelin-two-starred Matsalen serves internationally inspired Swedish cuisine in a bright, modern, minimalist setting appointed with burnished wood, velvet, and brass. The seasonal menu changes daily and includes two eight-course tasting menus, which can be paired with wine, sake, beer, or other drinks, and might include such fare as salmon with whitefish roe, artichoke purée, and asparagus tips; langoustines wrapped in pork fat with lovage–pea purée; pumpkin porridge with Parmesan cheese, black truffles, and pumpkin seeds; and saddle of lamb with sweetbreads. Matbaren, an adjacent "food bar," is worth trying if you can't book a table at Matsalen.

Chef Bo Bech's Geist is intimate, with small tables accented with soft lighting and plenty of candles setting the stage for Bech's imaginative specialties. Bech, who worked with Alain Passard at L'Arpège in Paris and Michael Roux at Le Gavroche in London, among others, creates small bites like pot-roasted cauliflower with black truffle, avocado with almonds and caviar, vanilla ice cream with black olives and licorice, and salted wasabi cream toffee. 

The unpretentious atmosphere at Relæ may seem at odds with thehigh-end gastronomic experience you'll enjoy here. With plain white walls and stark wooden tables, minus tablecloths, the dining room is simple and purposely understated; chef Christian Puglisi believes that the real focus of the evening should be the food. Puglisi's cuisine is best experienced by booking Table O, a four-seat oak table near the kitchen, where the chef and his team serve an experimental menu of 10 to 12 courses, giving a handful of diners each week the chance to see Puglisi's creative impulses, sampling dishes that may one day make it onto the main menu.

There are only 19 seats in chef Björn Frantzén's and pastry chef Daniel Lindeberg's eponymous restaurant, which has two Michelin stars and aims to provide "a gastronomic journey, led by the needs of each ingredient, and the freedom of our creativity." Depending on the night, guests can dine on langoustine tartar with melted pig's fat and marinated fennel served on a marble slab or finish off the meal with pancakes and birch-flavored ice cream. But you won't know exactly what you're getting until each course is served, as guests are only given a list of ingredients upon arrival.

Chef Esben Holmboe Bang asks guests planning an evening at Maaemo to set aside an entire evening to experience his set menus. The Michelin-two-star restaurant serves a nine-course tasting menu populated with organic produce predominantly sourced from Norway. While the main ingredients like potatoes and red cabbage start out simply, the resulting presentation and flavors are complex. Samples of Bang's mastery include potato crisps with seaweed powder and pullet egg emulsion, langoustines sautéed in pine-infused butter, celeriac cooked in birch sap with celeriac purée and apples, and duck heart with kale purée and smoked cream foam.

Nestled within the inn of the same name, opened by this Copenhagen suburb's vicar in 1677 as a place for parishioners and passersby to stay, Søllerød Kro has become one of the region's best restaurants, awarded a Michelin star. The menu offers traditional dishes with a twist prepared by chef Christian Ebbe, for instance, smoked salmon with apple, oyster, and dill; roasted foie gras with beets and dried goose breast; and roasted turbot with celery and mushrooms.

René Redzepi helms "the world's best restaurant," Noma, whose name is a portmanteau elision of the phrase Nordisk mad ("Nordic food"). The story of Noma is well-known. According to the lore, at least, BN ("Before Noma") in Scandinavia, there was only a revolving door of pork, potatoes, herring, and grumpy Protestants. AN ("After Noma"), every chef in Denmark and beyond was suddenly foraging for herbs spelled with funny letters and killing moose with his bare hands. The real story is this: In 2003, Danish restaurateur Claus Meyer approached a number of chefs about opening a high-end restaurant that would highlight Nordic ingredients. Most chefs passed, except Redzepi. After having done stints at Pierre André in Copenhagen, Jardin des Sens in France, elBulli in Catalonia, and the French Laundry in California, Redzepi, then working as a sous-chef at Copenhagen's Kong Hans restaurant, formed a partnership with Meyer. Redzepi — The Daily Meal's International Chef of the Year in 2011 — has since become the poster boy for the über-locavore, foraging, and New Nordic movements. Did two Michelin stars, a TIME magazine cover, and three consecutive number ones in the San Pellegrino Top 100 Restaurant list change anything? Yes. From a kitchen staff of fewer than 10, Redzepi's team has grown to close to 40, including 20 or more stagiaires, not to mention the hoard of foragers, farmers, and fishermen supplying the restaurant. Add a completely renovated kitchen, a food laboratory, and an actual head chef beyond Redzepi, and it's a wonder that the restaurant is still in its original location. See Copenhagen-based food writer and Daily Meal special contributor Evelyn J. Kim's full story: Noma Is Still a Work in Progress.