Click here to read the Spanish version.
To get to the Norwegian restaurant Iris, you have to take a boat, which is fully electric, and sail a few minutes in the direction of the center of the Hardanger Fjord. Once there, you will have to enter a grayish spherical platform. If you look at it from afar, it might look like an alien ship, a large stone detached from a mountain, … but you could hardly imagine that inside there is a restaurant, the Iris restaurant.
On their website they warn you that the whole experience lasts about six hours. In addition, they warn that it is necessary to wear warm clothes to withstand the cold and wind in the water. Of course, once inside the restaurant, there is no dress code.
The restaurant serves a closed menu. This is due to logistical difficulties in gaining access to the facilities, and there are no vegan, vegetarian or allergy-friendly options.
The experience begins three meters below sea level with a video raising awareness about food waste. It continues with a starter and then moves on to a meal with spectacular views of the fjord, with a total of 18 dishes.
The menu is focused on using local and sustainable products. Among others there is Norwegian salmon, seaweed, reindeer, kuzu and wildlife ingredients from the mountains surrounding the fjord. The cost of the menu is NOK 3,200, about 280 euros per person.
A unique place in the middle of the fjord
The space in which this restaurant is located is a structure of more than a thousand tons that simulates the shape of a salmon’s eye, hence its name, the Salmon Eye. The outside is covered with a series of silver scales and an opening in the center, giving it the shape of an eye.
It is composed of four floors, which in addition to housing a restaurant, have a movie theater inside and a terrace where outdoor events can be organized and which has a full view of the fjord and its mountains.
The idea came from a representative of the salmon company Eide Fjordbruk and was commissioned to the Kvorning studio. The intention was to build a place with which to raise awareness of sustainable fishing.
