If a single restaurant could be said to have put modern Nordic cuisine on the culinary map, it’s Noma, René Redzepi’s much-lauded Copenhagen eatery. It opened in 2003; by 2010, when Phaidon released Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine, it had earned two Michelin stars and been named near the top of Restaurant magazine’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. The cookbook has sold more than 20,000 print units, according to Nielsen Bookscan.
In October, Phaidon will publish The Nordic Cookbook by Magnus Nilsson, another proponent of New Nordic cuisine; his previous book, Fäviken (Phaidon, 2012), named for his restaurant in northern Sweden, has sold more than 12,000 print units. The new book compiles 700 recipes from Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, as well as Nilsson’s photographs of meals he prepared and people he met as he traveled throughout the region.
Also out in October is Fire & Ice: Classic Nordic Cooking (Ten Speed) by Darra Goldstein, founding editor of Gastronomica. According to Jenny Wapner, executive editor at Ten Speed Press, Scandinavian cuisine’s “strong connection with the natural world, both through intense seasonality and through foraging,” has a long tradition. “High-end restaurants like Noma and Faviken have drawn attention to the seasonality,” Wapner says, “but it is present in home cooking as well.”
In September, Ryland Peters & Small will publish The Scandi Kitchen: Simple, Delicious Scandinavian Dishes for Any Occasion by Brontë Aurell, a Danish restaurateur who, with her Swedish husband, Jonas Aurell, runs the Scandi Kitchen cafe and shop in central London, a hub for Scandinavian expats and those who want to eat like them.
“We’re seeing retailers stocking more and more Nordic favorites,” says RPS publisher Cindy Richards. “Siggi’s skyr—Icelandic-style strained yogurt—can be found at Whole Foods [and other] stores across the country. So it’s just a matter of time until Swedish favorite Kalles Kaviar [smoked cod roe] shows up on your sandwich.”
