The ICEHOTEL is situated in Jukkasjärvi, a small village 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. Jukkasjärvi is an old Sámi name meaning meeting place by the lake, and here Sámi people have met for hundreds of years to trade, eat and drink. The region is situated in the Swedish part of Sápmi, the indigenous Sámi people’s nation. Today it is an exotic and cold meeting place for people from around the world who come here to experience something different at the ICEHOTEL.
Less well known is that the ICEHOTEL has probably the best fine dining restaurant north of the Arctic Circle. Here Head Chef Alexander Meier serves a menu that is classic French cuisine with local ingredients.
Head Chef Alexander is Swiss with a Swedish mother. He has worked at several places in Switzerland, most notably top restaurant Le Béarn. After that he worked around the world and even cooked one year for the president of Ecuador before coming to Sweden. Four years ago he started at the ICEHOTEL where he 2011 became the Head Chef.
The ingredients are mostly Swedish, and the most interesting is the local produce from the wilderness of Swedish Lapland. Lapland is a vast pantry of forests, rivers and mountains that gives access to some unique ingredients. The fish can be arctic char and the meat reindeer, elk or grouse. Some of it is smoked which is a traditional Sámi curing technique, but most of the cooking is traditional French cuisine. Local berries are also used in both the main courses and desserts; blueberries, lingonberries and cloudberries grow in abundance here in the wilderness. The dishes are all tasteful but sometimes there are too many flavours and ingredients on the plate.
The restaurant is classic in its interior but has a unique northern light ceiling in the main dining room and some Sámi decorations. The ICEHOTEL influence in the dishes are the different ice plates that several of the dishes are served on. The ice plate is not only elegant but in some cases the cold enhances the dish, as for the Swedish Kalix caviar. All the ice here comes from the River Torne, which every year creates crystal clear ice up to 1 meter thick. This building material is the source of ICEHOTEL, ICEchurch and the ICEBAR BY ICEHOTEL. The ICEBAR BY ICEHOTEL is also the place to get a pre-dinner drink or just cool down after dinner.
There is one menu for the season and even though the restaurant is open throughout the year it is only during winter there is fine dining, and winter is the time to come here. After a day out dog sledding or snowmobiling, enjoying arctic fine dining at the ICEHOTEL Restaurant and then sleeping in an ice room is a unique sensory experience.
Written by Joakim
