Prefers to cook exclusively with Icelandic ingredients

Iðan visited the Nielsen restaurant in Egilsstaðir, which is located in the town's oldest house. The house is a true gem of the town, and the couple Kári Þorsteinsson and Sólveig Edda Bjarnadóttir couldn't resist buying it a few years ago. They have renovated it with respect for the house's history. Kári is the former head chef of the restaurant Dill, which was the first in Iceland to receive a Michelin star.

At Nielsen, Kári and Sólveig place great emphasis on using Icelandic ingredients from Hérað and the surrounding area, and the menu evolves with what is available each season. “I've always been a nerd for Icelandic ingredients and how to use them, and it's both exciting and, at the same time, very challenging because the selection isn't as wide as it is out in the world. In the summer, we aim for the dinner menu to be entirely from Icelandic ingredients, and we've managed that. We're going to expand on that and have all the ingredients on the lunch menu be Icelandic as well,” says Kári, who says that never in his career as a head chef has he worked with such fresh and good ingredients.

“It's amazing how fresh the fish we get is, even though we're not by the sea. We get fresh fish from Borgarfjörður eystri several times a week. The quality is incredible. It's caught by one fisherman, filleted by him, put in a box, and then driven to me. Just over an hour passes from when it's pulled from the sea until it gets to me,” says Kári. “This is by far the finest fish I've ever had, and I've often had fine fish.”

All ingredients at hand in Hérað

Kári mainly gets cod and wolffish from Borgarfjörður eystri and then makes use of the selection from East Iceland's food basket. “I haven't lacked ingredients in the summer, there's so much that grows here in the surrounding forest, and there are berry patches everywhere and wild game. Everything is at hand. Then there are lots of small-scale vegetable producers and of course Vallanes and Móðir Jörð with their organic farming and fantastic ingredients,” says Kári. “Except for chanterelle mushrooms, the one thing people say only grows in the west. I had one person working for me last year who I got to look for chanterelles. She didn't find them, but she did find scaly-vased chanterelles, which are similar to chanterelles. They're not supposed to grow here, so if they grow here, then chanterelles might be found. I hope so!”

The menu is constantly evolving

Kári says the menu is constantly evolving, and that's how he works as a chef. “I'm always changing and continuing to develop the dishes.” However, he can name examples of dishes from last summer that were a hit and are hard to take off the menu. “There's a tomato dish, an appetizer that I serve with skyr made here in Egilsstaðir. Old-fashioned skyr, not sweet at all. Marinated tomatoes and skyr and strawberries, this is something people find interesting and exciting. Then there's another dish, cod with cabbage and skyr whey and a butter sauce. The skyr whey is from the same skyr that's used with the tomatoes. People think these dishes are amazing.”