Marg & Bein is a prix fixe fine dining restaurant located in Bergen, Norway, that utilizes only Norwegian meats and produce in their 4, 6, or 9-course menus. On our visit we tried the 6-course menu with wine pairings and, although each dish was rather small, the creativity and flavors were outstanding.
The sleek and minimalist typical Scandinavian decor, combined with their hyper-local focus, offers a truly unique and of-the-moment dining experience.
You may not think of Norway as a culinary destination, but on our recent western fjord road trip, we were pleasantly surprised with the food. Although the dining scene in larger towns like Bergen and Alesund was amazing with lots of fine dining options, we were equally impressed at some of the food we had in tiny fjord-side towns and mountaintop restaurants, too.
From hot dogs to prix fixe menus, we were delighted at the focus on using local ingredients in traditional dishes and in more unusual and creative ways, too (smoked salmon on a pizza, anyone?).
Before our trip we did some research on traditional Norwegian foods to try, but finding some of those foods proved near impossible. In this post we highlight some traditional and more common foods that we were actually able to try, and give some ideas of where to find them around the western fjords.
After road-tripping around Norway in some very remote places, often cooking our own meals, we arrived in the town of Alesund excited to eat at some proper restaurants. Highest on our list to try was the fine dining restaurant Bro (Norwegian for “bridge”). This spot was recommended to us by a Norwegian couple we met at Aegir Brewery in Flam (thank you guys!), and it was the most delicious, creative meal we had on our entire trip.
So if you're looking for a prix fixe dining experience with delicious wine pairings to match, Bro most certainly needs to be on your radar.
Piazza Duomo in Alba, Italy, is a fine dining restaurant that has held three Michelin stars for more than a decade and is on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list. With all of those accolades, we knew we had to see what all the hype is about during our recent trip to Piedmont.
It all started with us setting our alarms for 3:45AM our time in order to log on precisely when reservations opened: 10AM Italy time, 3 months ahead of time. The restaurant releases all reservations for the entire month at once, and the release dates are published on their website.
Having secured our spot, the next choice was to select the menu that we wanted to have. Piazza Duomo offers two different food tasting menus, one a 6-course option called “The Journey,” and the second a 10-course menu called simply “Barolo,” meant to pair with Barolo wines, naturally.
When we made our booking we weren't sure if we wanted to focus so laser-like on Barolo pairings, so we initially booked The Journey. However, when the restaurant reached out a few days before our visit we panicked and changed to the Barolo menu.
We are glad we made the switch.