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Faviken
An exclusive insight into one of the world's most interesting restaurants, Fäviken Magasinet, and its remarkable head chef Magnus Nilsson featured in the Emmy-Award winning US PBS series The Mind of a Chef and the Netflix docuseries Chef's Table. Fäviken is an exclusive insight into one of the world's most interesting Fäviken Magasinet in Sweden. Narrative texts, photographs and recipes explain head chef Magnus Nilsson's remarkable approach to sourcing and cooking with ingredients that are farmed and hunted in the immediate vicinity of the restaurant, and how he creates a seasonal cycle of menus based on them. He runs the restaurant with the same ethos as the farm that the restaurant building once housed. The small team of chefs harvests and preserves all the food for the restaurant by hand using the most natural methods possible. They reject the popular contemporary cooking equipment such as low-temperature water baths and liquid nitrogen in favour of simple cooking methods of grilling and roasting over open coals, relying on the chefs' innate skills and knowledge of the product to get the perfect result. This approach results in the highly creative food they serve in the restaurant, the pure, intense flavours of which, far from seeming traditional, are remarkable. The restaurant is near Järpen, 600km north of Stockholm, in a remote part of the country, an area popular with cross-country skiiers. The restaurant is in a traditional Swedish farm and caters for only 12 people each evening. The menu is the same for all the guests, and each dish is served to all the guests at the same time, introduced by Magnus himself. The dishes sometimes involve the use of traditional implements such as a nineteenth-century ice-cream churn or an old sourdough bread basket, which is still used for proving the dough. Even though not everyone can visit Fäviken, Nilsson's approach to working with ingredients in the most natural, intuitive way possible, and making the most of each season, will inspire all cooks and food-lovers to think differently about the ingredients that are available to them. Many of the basic recipes for yoghurt, bread, porridge, vinegar, pickles and preserves are simple and straightforward enough for anyone to attempt at home, and the advice on natural preservation methods can be followed by anyone. The texts will provide inspiration for chefs and food lovers all over the world and are fully accessible to the general reader.
271 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2012
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771 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
December 1, 2012
This was a hard book to review: I giggled through a good chunk of the recipes (see my favorites, below), but was entranced by the utter creativity of the chef. There is only one recipe (for jam) that I will try making, but I admired the intellectual curiosity displayed in the recipes and it certainly inspired me to be more creative in the kitchen.
Some of the recipes that made me laugh:
Broth of autumn leaves
Marrow and heart with grated turnip and turnip leaves that have never seen the light of day, grilled bread and lovage salt
Vinegar matured in the Burnt-out trunk of a spruce tree
On plating: “I like to present the fermenting contents of the bird’s crop on a stone, which is placed on the table in front of the diner. The smell is like a moment in the forest frozen in time. The diner can look at the lacto-fermented contents of the crop and related them to the flavours they are simultaneously experiencing from the meat.”
On the time needed for a recipe: “Bear in mind that this recipe takes one year to make, because you will need two summers to produce both fresh and fermented parts.”
Step 1: “The first step is to chop down a pine tree in early spring, strip it of the bark, and then harvest the light-green phloem from the wood”
Some of the recipes that made me laugh:
Broth of autumn leaves
Marrow and heart with grated turnip and turnip leaves that have never seen the light of day, grilled bread and lovage salt
Vinegar matured in the Burnt-out trunk of a spruce tree
On plating: “I like to present the fermenting contents of the bird’s crop on a stone, which is placed on the table in front of the diner. The smell is like a moment in the forest frozen in time. The diner can look at the lacto-fermented contents of the crop and related them to the flavours they are simultaneously experiencing from the meat.”
On the time needed for a recipe: “Bear in mind that this recipe takes one year to make, because you will need two summers to produce both fresh and fermented parts.”
Step 1: “The first step is to chop down a pine tree in early spring, strip it of the bark, and then harvest the light-green phloem from the wood”
February 16, 2017
WARNING SOCIALIST COOKBOOK REVIEW
This makes me think, maybe I should start a blog of socialist cookbook reviews? :)
I hadn't heard of Faviken before I was given this book, but apparently it's one of the top restaurants in the world. It's in a rural area of Sweden, about 7-8 hours drive from Stockholm. This book is written by the chef, Magnus Nilsson. It is to some extent a cookbook in the sense of a book with recipes, but it is more a vehicle for MN to convey his chefly philosophy (as well as, perhaps needless to say, to build and polish an image). I usually don't like cookbooks with big colorful pictures (which this has), but I usually do like cookbooks with lots of non-recipe prose (which this also has), so there were positives and negatives for me going into the book.
In a certain way, MN's food philosophy is appealing, though largely no different from the general high-end food trend of the last few decades: cooking with local, seasonal ingredients; knowing your suppliers; respecting local historical foodways. Alice Waters was doing this 45 years ago.
Here's the thing, though: Faviken is unequivocally a restaurant for the 1%, and the author's message reinforces this. The prix-fixe menu cost is 3000 SEK (about $300) and tack on another $150 if you want wine (which by the way, is of course not local). He may be cooking local, but he is not feeding locals in this rural area. MN spends a lot of time in the book talking about how timing differences of seconds can make or break the quality of a dish, and how only the very highest quality of ingredients will do. The whole thing paints what for me is kind of a grim picture of courtiers fussing over the tiniest details to please the royal court. To make matters worse, the whole local/seasonal philosophy thing is belied by the fact that the vast majority of diners at Faviken are going to be making at least a multiple-hour trip to get there from the city, and probably mostly making a trip to Sweden itself. I don't doubt for a minute that the author believes strongly and genuinely in the principles he espouses, but it represents to me a kind of fetishization where all of the social value associated with local, seasonal eating is set aside (or worse, used as decoration) in favor of the purely individualistic value of the fact that it is also the approach that can potentially provide the highest quality ingredients.
One might make similar criticisms of someone like Alice Waters, since after all Chez Panisse is also a high-end restaurant. I'm not the biggest AW fan, but I think there's a world of difference between CP and Faviken. First of all, you can get a prix-fixe dinner at CP for $75, or $33 at the cafe--within reach for almost anyone for a special occasion. (Or $25 for the late-night special!) Second, it's in Berkeley, which means it is accessible to the huge number of people in the Bay Area, not requiring a special pilgrimage. And if you read AW's cookbooks, they are totally realistic guides for a home cook--she exerts a lot of effort making her approach accessible, not highlighting the extreme levels of precision required.
I also have to mention the gender norms at play here. It's not coincidental that the example I chose, Alice Waters, is a female chef. Faviken is a prime example of the valorization of a certain type of male-associated chefery, associated with terms such as "uncompromising vision", that rips food and cooking from its social context--a context that is primarily maintained and reproduced by female home cooks. For example, one of the introductions (by someone else) relays jokingly the writer's observations of how, even though Nilsson is a genius in the kitchen, he's kind of a space cadet around the home, including accidentally letting his toddler child wander off and get into some potentially-toxic substance. Oh, those wacky chef geniuses!
In closing, I will answer the unspoken question you have been wondering: what is the ideal socialist cookbook? It is _An Everlasting Meal_, by Tamar Adler. Go read it.
This makes me think, maybe I should start a blog of socialist cookbook reviews? :)
I hadn't heard of Faviken before I was given this book, but apparently it's one of the top restaurants in the world. It's in a rural area of Sweden, about 7-8 hours drive from Stockholm. This book is written by the chef, Magnus Nilsson. It is to some extent a cookbook in the sense of a book with recipes, but it is more a vehicle for MN to convey his chefly philosophy (as well as, perhaps needless to say, to build and polish an image). I usually don't like cookbooks with big colorful pictures (which this has), but I usually do like cookbooks with lots of non-recipe prose (which this also has), so there were positives and negatives for me going into the book.
In a certain way, MN's food philosophy is appealing, though largely no different from the general high-end food trend of the last few decades: cooking with local, seasonal ingredients; knowing your suppliers; respecting local historical foodways. Alice Waters was doing this 45 years ago.
Here's the thing, though: Faviken is unequivocally a restaurant for the 1%, and the author's message reinforces this. The prix-fixe menu cost is 3000 SEK (about $300) and tack on another $150 if you want wine (which by the way, is of course not local). He may be cooking local, but he is not feeding locals in this rural area. MN spends a lot of time in the book talking about how timing differences of seconds can make or break the quality of a dish, and how only the very highest quality of ingredients will do. The whole thing paints what for me is kind of a grim picture of courtiers fussing over the tiniest details to please the royal court. To make matters worse, the whole local/seasonal philosophy thing is belied by the fact that the vast majority of diners at Faviken are going to be making at least a multiple-hour trip to get there from the city, and probably mostly making a trip to Sweden itself. I don't doubt for a minute that the author believes strongly and genuinely in the principles he espouses, but it represents to me a kind of fetishization where all of the social value associated with local, seasonal eating is set aside (or worse, used as decoration) in favor of the purely individualistic value of the fact that it is also the approach that can potentially provide the highest quality ingredients.
One might make similar criticisms of someone like Alice Waters, since after all Chez Panisse is also a high-end restaurant. I'm not the biggest AW fan, but I think there's a world of difference between CP and Faviken. First of all, you can get a prix-fixe dinner at CP for $75, or $33 at the cafe--within reach for almost anyone for a special occasion. (Or $25 for the late-night special!) Second, it's in Berkeley, which means it is accessible to the huge number of people in the Bay Area, not requiring a special pilgrimage. And if you read AW's cookbooks, they are totally realistic guides for a home cook--she exerts a lot of effort making her approach accessible, not highlighting the extreme levels of precision required.
I also have to mention the gender norms at play here. It's not coincidental that the example I chose, Alice Waters, is a female chef. Faviken is a prime example of the valorization of a certain type of male-associated chefery, associated with terms such as "uncompromising vision", that rips food and cooking from its social context--a context that is primarily maintained and reproduced by female home cooks. For example, one of the introductions (by someone else) relays jokingly the writer's observations of how, even though Nilsson is a genius in the kitchen, he's kind of a space cadet around the home, including accidentally letting his toddler child wander off and get into some potentially-toxic substance. Oh, those wacky chef geniuses!
In closing, I will answer the unspoken question you have been wondering: what is the ideal socialist cookbook? It is _An Everlasting Meal_, by Tamar Adler. Go read it.
March 23, 2019
Not sure how to rate this, will plump wildly for 2.5 stars? Beautifully bound and photographed, it’s a cookbook drawn from the author’s restaurant in a remote part of Sweden. He’s like an extreme locavore/couturier - everything is hyperlocal and the attention to detail is unimaginable. I was rather interested in some of the info on the regional foods and his story of becoming a chef. But the recipes themselves were ludicrous (gathering last year’s dead leaves, frying tufts of lichen, perching a tiny dead thrush on a plate, etc) and frankly many of them were off-putting. I’m more interested in how local, fresh eating could be practical for more people, and that doesn’t seem to be his area of interest.
October 8, 2013
Clearly, Magnus Nilsson is a rock-star chef. His restaurant sounds amazing, and he is doing amazing things foraging and using local food. He clearly takes such care, and has an enormous amount of respect for the food that he uses. And I love that he uses moss, old leaves, berries, mushrooms, and phloem. His dishes have titles like "Rose Fish, coarsely chopped pieces of its liver and raw langoustine stirred with really good butter, lichnes and a broth of forest floor." It's not really a cookbook, because who but a chef would go to the trouble of making any of these dishes? But it is a lovely read.
And now a rant.
He is what he is, and I am what I am. What he is, is a forager and a chef. What I am, is a conservationist. And here's the thing about foragers, especially those who forage for profit. They always go too far. There is a recipe in this book for Thrush with drying mushrooms, fresh cucumber, etc. Thrushes, Magnus? Tiny migratory songbirds, with only enough flesh on their bones for one bite, who fly from Northern Europe, across the Mediteranean, into Africa, and back, and you seriously kill them and serve them in your restaurant? Don't you know that migratory songbirds are in steep decline across Europe? Read the Jonathan Franzen article in National Geographic. It's appalling. Fortunately, in the US, thrushes are not a game bird. It's too bad that they are game birds in Europe. Maybe for not much longer though, if the trend continues.
And now a rant.
He is what he is, and I am what I am. What he is, is a forager and a chef. What I am, is a conservationist. And here's the thing about foragers, especially those who forage for profit. They always go too far. There is a recipe in this book for Thrush with drying mushrooms, fresh cucumber, etc. Thrushes, Magnus? Tiny migratory songbirds, with only enough flesh on their bones for one bite, who fly from Northern Europe, across the Mediteranean, into Africa, and back, and you seriously kill them and serve them in your restaurant? Don't you know that migratory songbirds are in steep decline across Europe? Read the Jonathan Franzen article in National Geographic. It's appalling. Fortunately, in the US, thrushes are not a game bird. It's too bad that they are game birds in Europe. Maybe for not much longer though, if the trend continues.
July 9, 2013
Wow, this is a stunning book, with sumptuous matte pages and a blue embossed cover -- it looks like a fairy tale book full of secrets. The first foreword by Bil Buford gets you hungry and fond of the chef who’s always losing his children, but by the second foreword, you think, okay, who does this guy think he is? I liked reading about the straightforward operations of this farm and restaurant, and Nilsson’s austere, even harsh philosophies about treasuring, serving and wasting food. Reading about slaughtering the lamb Valdemar is a short intense meditation on eating meat. The recipes are like poems and the dishes look like sculptures, but the biggest strike against this book is that I don’t think I would want to make anything in it, except the broth of autumn leaves and the bitters, which take a year. The beet and raspberry dish also looks interesting, but what the hell is a gelatin leaf and where do I find one? It’s a great art book, and a lovely example of truly living in the world where your food grows.
March 23, 2013
It's all about taking the time and the heart on "good" food. Recipes included may not be as easily practiced as others, but the precious part is actually Magnus Nilsson's unique mindset and determination towards a way of life.
November 28, 2016
I was introduced to chef Magnus Nilsson through the PBS show Mind of A Chef. Nilsson is the owner and head chef of Faviken in Sweden (making it very tempting to just refer to him as "The Swedish Chef," which brings back images of another very famous (puppet) chef hailing from Sweden). I was instantly charmed by Nilsson's care and kindness in collecting his ingredients and creating his dishes. It is evident though this book and the show that every creative decision he makes is completely deliberate and limitlessly innovative. I doubt I will make many of these dishes (my access to extremely fresh mahogany clams is quite limited), but the beauty of their construction, the stories of the sourced ingredients, and the ethereal Swedish landscape make for an enchanting cookbook.
Get Fäviken from Denver Public Library
- Hana
Get Fäviken from Denver Public Library
- Hana
February 10, 2021
This restaurant (closed 2019) was located near my great-grandfather's village in Jämtland, Northern Sweden, so I read it more as a natural & cultural history of place than a ridiculously-complicated locavore cookbook. These recipe titles will give you a flavor of what's inside:
Grilled pine mushrooms, vinegar matured in the burned-out truck of a spruce tree
Grouse, paste of innards, mushrooms, and rowan berries
Scallop cooked over burning juniper branches
Grilled pine mushrooms, vinegar matured in the burned-out truck of a spruce tree
Grouse, paste of innards, mushrooms, and rowan berries
Scallop cooked over burning juniper branches
May 22, 2013
Really beautiful book. The photography & styling are really lovely. Interesting story & lots of great information about cooking techniques & ingredients, but not a lot of accessible recipes for the home cook.
July 16, 2021
Unrealistically impractical recipes for almost every home cook. Interesting theory and essays though. Only get this cookbook if you don’t mind not learning much about cooking from it. Some of its essays on cooking techniques or sourcing ingredients were particularly interesting.
November 14, 2016
This cookbook is more for your coffee table than your kitchen cabinet. It is a beautiful book, with gorgeous images of the Swedish 'outback" and of food that I would never dare to re-create. Get this book to be inspired to visit the amazing Faviken.
August 2, 2018
Amazing. Beautiful. Not meant for everyday cooking inspiration. This book is more about the art of cooking, the art of seeing all of natures bounty and the myriad of ways that it can be used to create something fresh and exciting to eat. Immersive foodie experience and truly a gem.
March 5, 2013
All I can say is Right On! Forage, garden, harvest, raise humanely. And eat locally.
March 2, 2013
I don't think I would or could make any of the recipes in this book but it is delightful to read and thought provoking.
August 30, 2016
Mind-blowing. So far beyond my skills and the way I think about food, but fascinating to read and get a glimpse of Nilsson's mind.
November 5, 2015
Passionate. Innovative. Artistry. Sensitivity. Beauty. Hard Work. Experience. Perfection. Presentation. There is only one Magnus Nilsson and one Fäviken. Review forthcoming.
January 28, 2015
A beautiful, engaging book of stories through recipes.
March 25, 2019
Totally impractical recipes but beautiful to look at and fun/insightful to read. Probably the closest I'll ever get to Faviken!
July 16, 2019
One of a handful of truly creative young chefs/entrepreneurs. Had the fortune of being able to dine at Fäviken and have a chat with Magnus in September, a truly sublime experience.
July 11, 2017
I know this is a well-regarded book ... but honestly, I feel like it's a self-parody of the entire foodie scene. A quirky young chef sets up a restaurant in the middle of nowhere and lures in big-city diners by serving ridiculous food ("A little lump of very fresh cheese, one lavender petal from last summer").
If you've made these recipes (one requires "1 very fresh cow's heart" and "1 very fresh cow's femur, at room temperature", among other things...) and you enjoy them, more power to you. I'd be shocked, though, if a normal sane person with a job made more than a handful of these recipes as written.
So, as a book of well-done pictures of ridiculous food ... it's pretty cool. As a cookbook? I'm still not completely sure this isn't a practical joke and that Magnus Nilsson isn't laughing his butt off somewhere...
If you've made these recipes (one requires "1 very fresh cow's heart" and "1 very fresh cow's femur, at room temperature", among other things...) and you enjoy them, more power to you. I'd be shocked, though, if a normal sane person with a job made more than a handful of these recipes as written.
So, as a book of well-done pictures of ridiculous food ... it's pretty cool. As a cookbook? I'm still not completely sure this isn't a practical joke and that Magnus Nilsson isn't laughing his butt off somewhere...
October 22, 2025
Excellent — very memorable. Nilsson is a very careful chef and writer.
January 6, 2016
This is a book disguised as a cookbook. It lives with my novels and nonfiction not with my cookbooks. In short, Faviken (written by Nilsson) is the tale of a world class chef (whose restaurant ranks among the best in the world), the evolution of his cooking philosophy, style, and methods, and how he has created a completely unique dining experience in the foresaken climate of northern Sweden. This is not a book to read from beginning to end. You read when you want a dose of Magnus' brilliance, stories of how he sources his food (he's a true farm-to-table chef), photos of his prepared dishes, and you read to learn oh so much more about his fabled restaurant. A trip to Jamtland and dinner and a room at Faviken should be in your bucket list! For more background, view (on streaming Netflix) "Chef's Table" (episode 6) and/or "Mind of a Chef" (season 3, episodes 9 through the end) before, during, or after reading. You will fall in love as I did with this extraordinary man. (Publication date: 2012; as of publication, Magnus Nilsson was 28.)
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September 4, 2015This is less of a cookbook than a guide on cooking technique, foraging, and Swedish food history, since most of the recipes here are impossible to attempt unless you have access to a professional kitchen/5 months of dry-aging time/a 20000 acre Scandinavian forest from which to source your ingredients. But really, who wants to read another homecook recipe for hamburgers anyway?
December 8, 2015
tho' the recipes are surely beyond the everyday person's kitchen/abilities - the ideas behind the food - eating only what's in season, using unusual cuts of meat, traditional preservation techniques - fermentation, drying - are very inspiring and can definitely be used on a more everyday level. beautiful and inspiring.
October 3, 2013
This was a lovely and enchanting cookbook to read, but not one in which there are practical recipes (there is one out of the book that I will try for berry vinegar). It did make me want to go to Sweden and be one of the 15 or 16 diners at the restaurant someday!
January 17, 2015
A beautiful book espousing on a philosophic approach to cooking, with flawless photography. If it was a memoir I'd be all on board. As a cookbook it shares a spot with the Ottolenghi and Jerusalem books: awe-inspiring recipes with no chance of ever being used.
March 24, 2013
Inspiring Birch and moss.
Local food done with lots'a love.
Yet, hard to do at home.
Local food done with lots'a love.
Yet, hard to do at home.
lookedinto-decidedagainst
March 6, 2014My husband (and his bro, AND his best friend, are all BORKING MAD svenska chefs) and they remark about the similarities with wilderness eating a la Telemark WWII
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews