Lisverket, Bergen, Norway

I loved this restaurant. First of all, it is in a museum, and the space is absolutely beautiful. We had a reservation that started the minute the restaurant opened, so it started off quiet, but over the course of our meal it filled up, and the sound scape was just as nice as the visual scape. On top of that they used Norwegian made glassware that was paper thin--it was so beautiful but I know we would break each and every one of them before we would get much if any use out of them. So sad and so gorgeous. But it is good to know your audience, especially when it is you. This is a Michelin one star restaurant, which is my personal sweet spot for a fancy meal, but I also read about it in one of the guide books I read while figuring what the heck to do on this trip, because the chef is a bit of a trend setter in Norwegian modern cuisine. It is run by chef/owner Christopher Haatuft and featured in New York Times 2017 as "redefining Nordic Cuisine", Lysverket presents a modern Norwegian cuisine with focus on local seafood, such as handpicked shells and dry-aged fish – but you will also find meat and seasonable vegetable dishes on the menu. The restaurant offers a 10-course tasting menu that can be combined with wine pairings, alcohol free pairings, or a bottle of wine from an extensive wine list--we opted for a more modestly priced (for Norway) cremant that the sommelier recommended, and we were very happy with it. The price of the wine pairings is double the cost of the meal. Christopher Haatuft also runs a company called MatTak together with a local gardener. Their goal is to spread knowledge about growing food and finding solutions for issues caused by climate change. The idea is to grow food on roofs throughout the city to manage the impacts of heavy rain, while at the same time provide locally sourced produce for restaurants and residents of Bergen. Lysverket uses vegetables grown locally by MatTak, which helps reduce the restaurant’s environmental impact. There were several memorable course, all featuring local proteins and seasonal vegetables, and all delicious, but the nasturtium salad was exceptionally delicious and the seafood spectacular--the oyseter underneath a pea granite was another standout. To top things off the beautiful Kode Bergen Art Museum was offering a weaving work shop that I would have loved to check out.