The idea, the location, the execution, they were all audacious. Magnus Nilsson took a hunting lodge in the far reaches of Sweden and turned it into a global dining destination. People had to traverse for hours to reach the 28-seat restaurant and eat a 30-course meal that was intensely rooted in the surrounding region. And they came not for the usual fine dining trappings of lobster and A5 Wagyu, but for trout roe served atop dried pig’s blood and lamb tongue with brined vegetables. Along with Noma, it came to exemplify the New Nordic ethos that emphasized a locavorism that would encircle the globe during the 2010s. So it was fitting the end of Faviken felt as audacious.
Just before Covid-19 entered the lexicon, Nilsson closed his restaurant in December 2019, despite still being a thriving concern. In his recent book he explained there wasn’t some extenuating circumstance or financial calamity that caused Nilsson to walk away from one of the world’s most renowned restaurants. He was burned out.
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