The Viking Atlantic Capital — turf-roofed old town, raw puffin and fermented lamb, sea cliffs that drop to nowhere, and a restaurant scene that changed how the world thinks about Nordic food
Tórshavn is the capital of the Faroe Islands, an archipelago of 18 volcanic islands in the North Atlantic halfway between Norway and Iceland. With around 21,000 people, it is one of the smallest capitals in Europe, yet it has produced a dining culture wildly disproportionate to its size. Koks, the Faroese restaurant that became one of the most celebrated in the world, put the islands on the global food map with its fermented, wind-dried, and raw interpretations of traditional Faroese ingredients: skerpikjøt (wind-dried mutton hung for nine months), ræst kjøt (fermented lamb), and fresh puffin…
The Faroe Islands were settled by Irish monks around the 6th century CE, then colonized by Norse Vikings from Norway in the 9th century — the Norsemen reportedly found Irish monks already living there, calling them Papar. Tórshavn takes its name from Thor (the Norse god) and havn (harbor), and the Løgting (the Faroese parliament, established around 900 CE) is one of the oldest functioning parliaments in the world. The islands came under Danish sovereignty in 1380 and remain a self-governing archipelago within the Kingdom of Denmark today. The Faroese language is descended directly from Old No…