Holmen Lofoten Norway: The home of Kitchen on the Edge of the World favours provenance

At the southern lip of the Lofoten Islands, Sørvågen clings to Norway like a punctuation mark — small, stark, improbably picturesque.

Here, moods are dictated by the sea and the running of the cod. And it’s here — among the skeletal outlines of the fish-drying racks that dot the shoreline — that one of the world’s most unlikely dining rooms has taken root.

The town’s old cod factory now houses Holmen Lofoten: part hotel, part crucible, and the stage for Kitchen On The Edge Of The World.

What began as an experiment has, over seven years, hardened to legend — a culinary gathering that draws top chefs who thrive on risk, like Ana Roš, Simon Rogan, Heidi Bjerkan and Australia’s Lennox Hastie.

“The Arctic has a stark quality that demands respect,” Hastie tells ROAM. The man behind Sydney’s globally revered Firedoor made the pilgrimage to Sørvågen in 2024. “There’s nowhere quite like it — the landscape almost writes the menu.”

Next October, a new roster steps into the fire: Max Coen, Mikael Svensson, Lara Espírito Santo and George McLeod, Matthew Orlando, Thomas Laursen.

Each is confronted with the same elemental brief: to cook with what the Arctic provides. From cod hauled from morning nets to reindeer cured only by salt and wind, their menus reshape Norway’s northern larder into something rooted in place and entirely new.

Born of salt and survival

If Holmen feels inseparable from its surroundings, that’s because it is.

Founder Ingunn Rasmussen grew up in Sørvågen, the daughter of a fisherman, in the same building that now houses Holmen. Her father worked in the cod factory when racks of stockfish lined the shoreline and every meal came from what the sea allowed.

“We weren’t thinking about sustainability then,” she says. “It was survival.”

That ingrained respect for provenance still shapes Kitchen On The Edge, though the event has grown into something more than food.

Each gathering runs for four days and brings together just 20 guests, who live, eat and travel as a small, temporary community.

Days might mean fishing in the fjord, climbing ridgelines, or plunging into the sea before warming by the fire with craft workshops, like knife carving or basket weaving. Evenings take place at the dinner table where guests sit shoulder to shoulder, watching the alchemy unfold from the open kitchen.

Ingunn insists the exchange flows both ways. Visiting chefs give back by offering talks and masterclasses to the local community, ensuring the knowledge and energy of the event ripples beyond its walls.

And in 2026, she says, that spirit sharpens with a renewed focus on sustainability. Flights are kept to a minimum: one long-haul chef a year, the rest drawn from Scandinavia or nearby. Ingredients never travel further than the tides, and waste is reimagined as possibility: bones in broths, roots and stems in stocks, shells in the fire.

“It has to give back,” says Rasmussen. “To the land, to the sea, and to the people here.”

Rewriting the northern larder

At Holmen, nothing is ever entirely planned. The program is shaped by weather, rewritten at the last minute, and designed to unfold like a story you can’t predict.

“The less guests know before they arrive, the better,” offers Rasmussen. “If you have no expectations, you can’t be disappointed, only surprised.”

Next year that surprise will come from six distinct voices. Coen, of London’s Michelin-starred Dorian restaurant, brings modern British precision; Oslo’s Svensson, with two stars and a Green Star at Kontrast, unites sustainability and excellence.

Portuguese Espírito Santo and New Zealander McLeod, the duo behind Lisbon’s SEM, turn offcuts into brilliance, while Orlando — ex-Noma and founder of Amass and ESSE — brings circular gastronomy to the north. Denmark’s Laursen, among Scandinavia’s most respected foragers, closes the year with a menu rooted in wild plants, mushrooms and berries.

Each faces the same northern larder, but no two meals are alike. Past gatherings have seen halibut smoked over seaweed and pine, scallops seared like steaks, cloudberries folded into cream, wild herbs charred on the fire.

Next year may bring reindeer heart in broth, langoustines blackened in their shells, or mushrooms pulled from the forest floor and scattered across rye. Rasmussen calls it “a conversation with place”.

For Hastie, that blend of raw ingredients, wild setting and rare intimacy is what lingers.

“For a food lover, it’s the chance to taste ingredients you won’t find anywhere else,” he says. “Combine that with the beauty of the setting and you realise the journey isn’t just worth it, it changes the way you think about food.”

holmenlofoten.no

STAY

Holmen Lofoten, set in the fishing village of Sørvågen on Norway’s remote Lofoten archipelago — reached via a short flight from Bodø to Leknes, followed by a 45-minute drive. Rooms and waterfront cabins start from about $450 per night, with breakfast included.

KNOW

Holmen offers 11 rooms across renovated fisherman’s cabins and new lodges, where raw timber, exposed beams and wool throws meet pale Nordic wood and floor-to-ceiling windows.

The effect is minimalist but warm, with interiors framing sea or mountain views. Stays include breakfast built on local produce, and guests can experience guided hiking, fishing and foraging in the surrounding landscape. With 2026 dates open, early bookings for Kitchen On The Edge Of The World are essential.