Scan Magazine | Hotel of the Month | Norway
The view from the hotel rooms at Thon Hotel Lofoten in Svolvær is spectacular.
Hotel of the Month, Norway
Eat, stay, love The nature is so breathtaking in Lofoten that some tourists decide to stay permanently. People from all around the world also come to taste the award-winning food.
fast competition, as well as a national prize for their local menu.
By Eirik Elvevold | Photos: Thon Hotel Lofoten
“We love to try something new in the kitchen and to surprise our guests. We smoke our own salmon, our jam is homemade and we bake our own bread,” says chef at Paleo Arctic, Stian Haugnes.
With snowcapped mountains, panoramic sea views and magical northern lights, Lofoten has always been a popular destination. Now foreign visitors have also got a taste for the local cuisine. “About 350,000 tourists come here in a year. Lofoten is most popular among German, Norwegian, French and Swedish travellers. But the cruise ship Hurtigruten also brings a lot of other nationalities here,” says Caroline Hömke. Hömke is German herself and works at the local tourist information office in Svolvær – an idyllic small town in Lofoten with only 4,500 inhabitants. 98 | Issue 95 | December 2016
High season lasts from June to August when the midnight sun is up all night. But in 2016, restaurants opened four months earlier because photographers and tourists wanting to see the northern lights travelled to Lofoten as early as February.
Norway’s best breakfast Local specialties such as cod, halibut, reindeer meat, goat’s cheese and salted, dried white fish known as stock fish (tørrfisk) is served all over town. Paleo Arctic, the restaurant at Thon Hotel Lofoten in Svolvær, recently won first prize in Twinings’ annual Norway’s Best Break-
Business developer and motivational speaker Steinar Jøraandstad is originally from Oslo but has lived in Lofoten for the past ten years. He raves about Svolvær as a gastronomic mecca. “Svolvær is on the way to becoming the town you have to experience before you die. A lot has happened with the local cuisine here. Svolvær and Thon Hotel Lofoten have lifted the gastronomic level to new heights,” Jøraandstad explains.