Tromsø 2024/2025

January 3rd, 2025

Due to the bad weath­er with per­sis­tent snow­fall, we slept in and met for break­fast at 9.00 am. Hop­ing that the weath­er would improve, we set off in our rental car and dis­cov­ered a beau­ti­ful snowy landscape.

There had been at least 15 cm of fresh snow dur­ing the night and it con­tin­ued to snow on the way. Thanks to the spiked tires and the four-wheel dri­ve of our Toy­ota RAV4, dri­ving was no prob­lem. Our des­ti­na­tion was the island of Ring­vassøya north of Trom­sø. We stopped at sev­er­al places there to take pho­tos, and the drone was also used again:

Dur­ing the jour­ney, three rein­deer sud­den­ly appeared in the mid­dle of the road. Appar­ent­ly they also like to walk bet­ter on roads that have been cleared of snow. The cars dri­ving past hard­ly both­ered them at all.

As it snowed heav­i­ly again after­wards, we final­ly drove back to Trom­sø and spent the after­noon at the ARCTIC EXPERIENCE CENTER Polar­ia. A small cin­e­ma there fea­tures infor­ma­tive short films about the North­ern Lights, Sval­bard and Polar­ia itself. After­wards, you can vis­it a small exhi­bi­tion with inter­ac­tive sta­tions that pro­vide vis­i­tors with infor­ma­tion about life in the arc­tic regions. There is also an aquar­i­um and a seal pool. We also watched the oblig­a­tory seal feed­ing with a few tricks. All in all, quite nice, but quite small. How­ev­er, many areas were cur­rent­ly closed due to ren­o­va­tion work.

Then we went back to the hotel. After a short rest, we pre­pared our­selves for the final culi­nary high­light of our trip.

We had reserved a table at the Smak (“Taste”) restau­rant for the last evening from home. A deposit of NOK 1,000 per per­son was required at the time of book­ing. We had dis­cov­ered the restau­rant via Tri­pad­vi­sor, where it had received an excep­tion­al­ly good rat­ing of 5/5 with high­ly prais­ing com­ments. It was also ranked as the num­ber 1 restau­rant in Trom­sø by Tripadvisor.

The text on their home­page made us par­tic­u­lar­ly curious:

“With us, every meal is a jour­ney of dis­cov­ery through fla­vors and tex­tures, with ingre­di­ents from the sea, local farms and unique producers.

Our menus fol­low the sea­sons and reflect the rich food cul­ture of the region - always with a mod­ern twist and atten­tion to detail.

Togeth­er with our ded­i­cat­ed team, we invite you to a culi­nary expe­ri­ence that will exceed your expec­ta­tions and bring you clos­er to the gas­tro­nom­ic heart of North­ern Nor­way.
Wel­come to our table - we look for­ward to intro­duc­ing you to the real North­ern Norway.”

And, there’s no oth­er way to say it, our expec­ta­tions were exceed­ed by far. A culi­nary work of art await­ed us, con­sist­ing of count­less (I think there were 15 in total!) fan­tas­tic, deli­cious and cre­ative indi­vid­ual dish­es from a lov­ing­ly put togeth­er menu with a per­fect­ly match­ing wine pair­ing. So that all of us could enjoy it this time, we walked about 40 min­utes to get there despite the dis­tance from our hotel😉.

The Smak restau­rant is almost hid­den away in a large mod­ern mul­ti-storey build­ing and was not very easy to find. There was no clear­ly vis­i­ble sig­nage. We there­fore had to ask at anoth­er restau­rant first.

There is only a small, dis­creet sign with a large “S” in front of the restau­rant. Obvi­ous­ly, the own­ers don’t need much advertising.

When we arrived at Smak, we were giv­en an extreme­ly warm wel­come and it almost felt like we were with old friends. We were the last 4 of a total of 14 guests that evening and were first allowed to take a seat togeth­er in the cozy lounge area. There we ordered an apéri­tif and were served five dif­fer­ent deli­cious hors d’oeu­vres one after the oth­er, which were art­ful­ly pre­pared on site by the staff. It was a very promis­ing start in culi­nary terms.

We were then tak­en with the oth­er guests to the restau­rant, which only had six tables. All the dish­es were fresh­ly pre­pared in front of the guests. Each dish was cre­at­ed at an open cook­ing block, art­ful­ly arranged and served imme­di­ate­ly. The bread was also fresh­ly baked and each course was accom­pa­nied by the right wine.

The food was incred­i­bly deli­cious, pre­pared with fresh local ingre­di­ents, imag­i­na­tive­ly cre­at­ed and cre­ative­ly pre­sent­ed - the tasti­est and most amaz­ing culi­nary expe­ri­ence we’ve had so far!

Final­ly, we were invit­ed back to the lounge area where we were served a cof­fee and some very tasty home-made pra­lines. We were shown the exten­sive selec­tion of pra­lines and sim­ply took one of each variety 😉.

These were once again deli­cious and a crown­ing finale to an excep­tion­al­ly enjoy­able evening. The dis­creet­ly pre­sent­ed bill at the end of the evening was as expect­ed and not insignif­i­cant, but in the con­sen­sus opin­ion of every­one it was absolute­ly appro­pri­ate for the offered experience.

We spent a total of 4 1/2 hours din­ing and then enjoyed the evening walk back to the hotel. If we are ever in Trom­sø again, we will def­i­nite­ly be back!