World’s most remote Michelin restaurant, Koks, moves to Greenland

Dining at the Michelin-starred Koks has always been something of an expedition. To get there, you first have to fly to the Faroe Islands, a rugged semi-autonomous Danish archipelago 200 miles north of Scotland in the frigid North Atlantic. Once in country, you take a twisting drive along narrow roads cutting through a Lord of the Rings landscape and through an undersea tunnel to arrive at the lonely edge of Lake Leynavatn. From there, you must abandon your car and, fortified with fermented fish beer and cod-skin snacks in a curing-shed-turned-reception-area, climb into the back seat of a Land Rover for the rocky ascent to your final destination: an isolated wooden farmhouse that houses the most remote fine-dining restaurant in the world. Yet even that, apparently, was not epic enough. On Feb. 23 the restaurant’s head chef, Poul Andreas Ziska, flew 1,300 miles to the west to a spot 200 miles above the Arctic Circle to begin the work of transplanting Koks to Greenland. For the next two summers, the restaurant will be housed at the Ilimanaq Lodge, a 40-minute boat ride across the bay from Ilulissat, a town best known for its icebergs. This will be the first time a restaurant offers Michelin-approved cuisine in Greenland. To hear Ziska tell it, the move was a decision born at least in part of necessity. The Faroe Islands location that’s housed the restaurant since 2018 was always meant to be temporary while its owners looked for a spot to build their own place. “The house was built in 1741, and its ceilings are about 2 meters [6 ½ feet] high, so the waiters always had to duck down,” Ziska says. “I don’t think the farmers ever thought back then it would be used as a restaurant.” But even after they found a plot of land, bureaucratic hurdles, concerns from environmental organizations, and a host of other obstacles prevented them from commencing construction. “It’s been four years, and we still haven’t gotten permission to build the new restaurant,” Ziska says. Then the Koks team was approached by World of Greenland, a tourism company that runs the Ilimanaq Lodge, as well as several other hotels and tours in the country. It seemed the perfect solution to a practical problem. The restaurant, seating just 30 guests, will open from mid-June to mid-September in 2022 and 2023. Most reservations will go to guests of the lodge, but bookings for remaining tables opened on March 1. The relocation doesn’t just serve a practical purpose, though. It also allows Ziska to pursue a long-held fascination. Like the Faroe Islands, Greenland is a constituent country in the kingdom of Denmark with a harsh terrain and climate. “As a Faroese person, I’ve always felt like there’s a connection there,” the chef explains. “It’s a place we identify ourselves with, at least when it comes to the raw materials.”