Lysverket - Taking restaurant advice from S4C

I'm pretty sure today is the first time (it won't be the last folks) I have taken restaurant advice from Sianel Pedwar Cymru (S4C). But here we are in the Kode building in Bergen at the one Michelin star restaurant called - Lysverket, which it seems means "The Lighting Department" - a name which refers to the original function of the building where the restaurant is located, an electricity station. 

Why S4C?

The link with S4C is the series of programmes my sister let me know about by the chef Chris 'Flamebaster' Roberts. I had enjoyed his series on BBC1 called Chris cooks Cymru, which brought him to the Welsh Cheese Company shop in Taffs Well, a mile or so from my home. In mentioning my enjoyment to my sister she told me of other series of his in the Welsh language which were on the iPlayer with subtitles in English. One of these series was called Siwrna Scandi Chris (Chris' Scandi Journey) and he travelled to Norway, Sweden and Denmark across three episodes. 

This article focusses on the emotional family reunion he experienced with cousins in Bergen, but prior to that he gets together with with Lysverket chef patron Christopher Haatuft cooking and sampling seafood delights along the stunning fjords of Bergen. I booked tonight's meal before the programme has ended, unlike many Scandinavian restaurants with bookings only two or three months ahead, Lysverket had a longer timeline, so this was the first of the meals I booked for this holiday.

Getting to the restaurant

Our route to the restaurant was a very easy one.

We left the hotel at 6.40pm we took some photos on the way through the park.

An unusual statue in the McDonalds entrance just below our hotel room - a young women in 60s clothes, that reminds me of the things my mother was wearing when I was a child. 

When then walked past the impressive West Norway Museum of Decorative Art

With its central statue of the painter JC Dahl.

The park has a fountain at its heart with the streets of Bergen across the fjord shown at the different levels - its not just in the Welsh valleys the build on top of each other up the hills!

We then arrive at the Kode 4 building of the West Norway Museum of Decorative Art where our restaurant is based.

Drew heading off in the above photo wanted to take a shot of the interesting light feature just beyond. [Co-pilot's note: This is, dear readers, more than an interesting light feature. It was installed in recognition of Bergen's reputation as the rain capital of Europe. It measures the daily amount of rain together with statistical averages over weeks months and years. It appears the Bergenese are almost Reithian like in wishing to entertain and inform. 'Interesting light feature', sigh.....!!]

Lysverket

We arrived at Lysverket at 6.55pm for our 7pm booking. 

Our jackets (aka macs sans sacks) were taken and hung up at the entrance and we were shown to our table by a Norwegian-Thai lady who said she spent most of her younger days in Thailand. Her English was impecable and she was our regular waitress for the whole evening. 

She asked us if we wished to have an aperitif and we choose the redcurrant and elderflower sparkling infusion which was sharp, refreshing and bubbly.

As it happened this was also the drinks pairing selection for our first course, so here it is again. It was just as nice the second time as the first.

We began with Oyster with celery granita and preserved cherry. The oyster had been likely cooked, to firm up the exterior of the belly, and served on a bed of Sichuan pepper which gives it a tingle. A tasty morsal to with which to begin.

Our second drink was sparkling tea, lemon balm, coriander and elderflower, remarkably refreshing, the coriander was enough to indicate something green might be coming our way 

A selection of greens from their vegetable garden MATTAK, this is salad vegetables grown on a roof garden in Bergen City Centre. This has is an innovative mode of production, but the flavours are very familiar. The vegetables were Storm green cabbage, green and purple chilli, onions, lettuce, peas, beetroot, carrot, kale.

Drew was concerned that things so far on this menu might be a little flat! But things quickly improved.

We were next introduced to a ritual about selecting the colour of our Caviar Spoon 

This is the second restaurant this has happened to us at. The first was Field in Prague where they did the same with knives for our lamb.

I choose orange

and Drew choose Mint Green.

The caviar dish was entitled: "Bergen's Best Fish Soup" and looked like this.

It was made with a vegetable cream, haddock base, black ink tuile and caviar. The star is definitely the caviar, but the haddock at the base of the dish was quite special too, it was as if the saltiness of the caviar had extended the range of flavour it offered. The squidiness of the tuile was ridiculously nice - I'd have been happy with a bag of them.

The next drink was a Redcurrant sparkling tea - tangy and fizzy, what's not to like. 

Mountain trout ceviche, radish and Swiss chard leche de tigre was the next dish.

This dish is another wow from us, there were marigold leaves, jalapenos, tiny, chopped bits of raw fish and a rich and wonderful sauce made spicy and lemony by the Peruvian 'milk of the tiger' sauce. Each balanced with the other so well. 

By this time we can see the style of this chef in all the courses so far, use the best ingredients from around the area and treat them with tender care - not fussy, not mixing new flavours together, but respecting food and the customers' taste buds with care and attention in the process. It is tasty, less remarkable than some places I have been, but with a sense of deep reverence for the local and the magic it produces in its own right.

Apple Juice from specialist Norwegian providers was the drink that followed the cevice. This was very tangy, a sharp, rather than a sweet apple taste - a very memorable drink. 

We were next served scallops with sofrito noodles and tomato

The dish had a beurre blanc base, with a Thai style sauce with garum. The pan roasted scallop was cooked perfectly, with soft flesh but a crunchy top. This was served with pasta and a fresh herb sorfrito that drew out the sweet taste of the scallop.

It was served beside a side dish of zingy tomato water with a piece of sage on a metal stick and drops of Nasturtium oil. 

Such great flavours to accompany the scallop, traditional flavour combinations, but good ones.

Following on the nasturtium theme was the next course of pan roasted hake with chantarelles, courgette and nasturtium flowers 

Hake is one of my favourite fishes and this was a good example of a well cooked piece. The chanterelles were served on top with the courgette flowers and a mushroom and courgette sauce underneath - the waitress must have spotted our accents, because she said courgette not zucchini which is written on the menu, saying in her American accent: "though I have been calling them zucchini all my life, I've been asked by enough British guests what a zucchini is over the time I've been working here, that I have learnt to translate based on peoples voices." Well done on her.

The hake was served with a brioche and butter accompaniment. 

I'm not always a fan of brioche, it can be too sweet for me, but this wasn't - it was warm, soft and very tasty. Drew loved it too. 

Having had the apple juice for two courses, we now moved on to an apple and redcurrant juice

this tasted very robust, promising something equally robust in the next course, this was indeed true as we had Lobster with grilled peas and shellfish sauce next. 

When I think of this dish I think of poached Lobster with extra lobster flavour, the lobster was cooked to perfection, none of the fluffiness which occurs when it is overcooked. The foam was called shellfish sauce, but it was really lobster and langoustine foam, bringing flavours that go well together, together in an intensive manner. The peas were fresh and added another layer of the complex sweetness which is familiar to any lobster lover. A wonderful celebration of fresh local produce.

The next drink was elderflower infused with elderberries,  

the addition of the elderberries gave this drink a much fuller flavour than a traditional elderflower drink. The tannings that the berry skin brought to the drink made for a rich, full bodied flavour.

A perfect accompaniment for the next dish, roasted and glazed duck with "hakkasteik" and duck and apple jus.

Apple juice had been used to glaze the duck, it really worked well, and brought the duck's richness to the fore of the flavour profile.

For the uninitiated (and I was one until this meal) Hakkasteik is a traditional regional dish in this area with a rich luxurious pearl barley risotto with green herbs cooked through it, a perfect foil for the duck.

The next and final non-alcoholic pairing drink was rhubarb and elderflower infusion.

It was a good mix of fresh tasting flavours.

It worked perfectly with the Strawberry infused with basil and salted vanilla

which was simple, fresh and well cooked - Indeed those words could be the description of the whole menu at Lysverket.

The final course was a Yogurt tuile with Brunost (brown cheese) ice cream with a pecan crumb.

Here it is with the crumb on the side.

The pecan crumb with a sabayon cream and brown cheese ice cream provided a clever mix of flavours and none of them were overly sweet, so it was a dessert we both could enjoy. I'm not sure it was a good example of the famed Norwegian Brown cheese, given that as an ice cream it was necessarily sweet - I'm not sure it would be this sweet as this in other settings. I'll have to try it on its own!

We then both had double espressos

This was a tangy Italian coffee with a lot of kick.