This post contains product affiliate links. These are mainly on items/hotels/tours that I personally endorse & love. I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase, but at no extra cost to you.
Food in Greenland isn’t about fine-dining; it’s about survival. Here’s a look at the Greenland cuisine including some traditional Greenlandic dishes.
Food in Greenland is undergoing a revolution at the moment. In the past, eating has been a major part of survival in this hard and barren climate. Something you endured as opposed to enjoyed. You hunted, you ate, because if you didn’t you’d die. That’s the stark reality of living somewhere like Greenland.
However, all of that is changing. Greenland cuisine has a new face, someone who says you can enjoy your food, someone who says it doesn’t just have to be fuel for your body. While I was in Nuuk, I met up with Anne Nivíka Grødem, a native Greenlander originally from Ilulissat and now living in the small capital.
Not only does she run a purely Greenlandic blog Greenlandic Food Lover, she is well on her way to becoming “Greenland’s Jamie Oliver” having started her own food revolution. Everyone knows her and she has become a real champion for eating healthily with a twist on traditional recipes.
She partnered with Brugseni, one of Greenland’s main supermarket chains, on a range of frozen vegetables to get people cooking with more varied ingredients than meat and a bit of veg on the side.
Quick overview
National dish: suaasat, a thick soup traditionally made with seal, onions and barley or rice
Must-tries: musk ox, reindeer, halibut, Greenlandic shrimp and mattak
Best place to see local produce: Kalaaliaraq market in Old Nuuk
Dinner in Nuuk: mains from around DKK 295 to 450 (about £34 to £52)
Greenlandic beer: around DKK 70 (about £8) in a restaurant
Vegetarian? Possible in Nuuk, but options are limited
Useful word: mamaq, which means delicious
What do people in Greenland eat?
Most people in Greenland eat a mix of what they hunt and catch and what arrives by ship. Fish, seal, whale, reindeer and musk ox are the staples. Imported rice, potatoes and frozen vegetables usually sit on the side. Dried fish is a favourite snack, and coffee and cake are at the heart of social life.
What is the national dish in Greenland?
One of the most popular things to eat in Greenland is seal. This is something that the people here have been eating for thousands of years and it’s one of the main basic ingredients in Inuit cooking.
In fact, the national dish of Greenland is Suaasat. This is a thick broth often made of seal meat which also has barley and onions through it. One way of cooking it is with rice instead of barley, but it’s a very filling dish supposed to keep you going for hours.
I also ate some grilled seal while I was here – the taste definitely takes some getting used to! It’s very musty (if that’s the way of describing it), but I can see why Greenlandics love it.
Traditional Greenlandic food to try
If you only try a handful of things in Greenland, make it these. Some are easy wins. Others, like mattak, take a bit more courage.
| Dish | What it is | Where to try it |
|---|---|---|
| Suaasat | The national dish, a thick seal soup | Anne Nivíka’s food experience |
| Mattak | Raw whale skin with a layer of blubber, often narwhal or beluga | Kalaaliaraq market |
| Dried fish | Wind-dried fish eaten as a snack | Kalaaliaraq market |
| Musk ox | Rich, lean red meat served as tartare, steak or burgers | Sarfalik, Restaurant SØMA |
| Reindeer | Gamey red meat and a hunting staple | Restaurant SØMA |
| Whale | Dark, dense meat, usually seared like a steak | Restaurant SØMA |
| Halibut and redfish | The backbone of everyday cooking | Sarfalik, Qooqqut Nuan |
| Greenlandic coffee | Coffee with whisky, Kahlúa and Grand Marnier, topped with cream | Hotel bars |
My taste of Greenland
While the cuisine isn’t for everyone, I actually really enjoyed all the food in Greenland. At times it seems simple – muskox with rice and carrots, or home-reared lamb with potatoes – but there’s pleasure in that simplicity too.
There were three Greenland dishes that really stood out for me. The first was a traditional bbq on the beach. Using stones as a make-shift bbq and local heather as kindling, we cooked fish, muskox, seal, and controversially whale and whale blubber.
I say controversially because in the Western world the idea of eating whale is horrific – in Greenland, it is life. If you don’t eat animals like seal and whale, then you don’t eat. There aren’t many alternatives and it was fascinating learning all about Greenlandic food in a beautiful setting while on the beach. This is what traditional Greenland food is all about.
Ours was at Inuk Hostels, just outside the centre of Nuuk. They still cook local food on heated stones by the water, with things like capelin, Arctic char, seal and reindeer depending on the season. The BBQ at Inuk Hostels is one of my favourite experiences in my guide to the best things to do in Greenland.
The second meal that really hammered home the Greenlandic cuisine was where I caught my own fish for dinner. I kid you not, there are so many fish in Greenland that you only need to stick out your rod for five minutes before you catch something. The best bit is the food doesn’t come any fresher than this.
The restaurant is called Qooqqut Nuan, and it sits in an old sheep farm deep in the fjord, about 50km from Nuuk. The only way there is by boat, which takes around an hour. On the way you stop to fish for cod and redfish, then hand your catch to the chef. Their fish & dish menu turns it into three different dishes with a Thai twist. Honestly, it is in the most beautiful setting too.
Qooqqut Nuan is only open from May to September. A few Nuuk operators run trips there, including Kang Tourism and Tupilak Travel. The boat price usually covers the trip only, so you pay for your meal at the restaurant. If you’re not a Greenland resident, you’ll also need a fishing licence, which you can buy at the post office (Tusass).
And finally, I ate at Sarfalik, on the fifth floor of Hotel Hans Egede. This was the meal that showed me how far Greenlandic gastronomy could go. The tasting menu I had was as good as any Michelin-starred restaurant I’ve been to in the UK. Make sure you read all about my experience at Sarfalik.
Sarfalik now runs as two restaurants in the same space. Sarfalik Lunch serves lighter dishes every day from 11.30am to 2.30pm. In the evening it becomes Sarfalik Fisk & Skaldyr, with a seasonal menu of fish, seafood and a few meat dishes like musk ox tartare. Mains cost DKK 295 to 450 (about £34 to £52), and the view over the fjord is just as good.
Greenland’s food revolution
I caught up with Anne Nivíka and spoke to her all about Greenland foods and what people can expect. Here’s what she had to say:
“Everyone here in Greenland knows how to make a reindeer stew. It’s the common thing. But I wanted to show people you can eat vegetables in Greenland… even if it’s frozen, it doesn’t have to be boring,” says Grødem.
She is adamant that there is a balance between health and taste, history and the future.
“Sometimes Greenlanders are just so stuck in our traditions that we’re not going anywhere. Food doesn’t have to be boring but it should be a celebration of our culture. Yes, that’s food like whale, muskox and reindeer, but it can be cooked in a different way.”
Anne Nivíka learned to hunt and fish at a very young age, going out with her father. She even showed us a picture of her aged 8 with her first hunted grouse. The only thing I was doing aged 8 was cycling my bike around the village at a million miles an hour!
However, while using local meat is a staple of the diet in Greenland (vegetarians are rare here), the food blogger and mother now sees opportunity to bridge the gap between entrenched traditions and modern cuisine.
“I think we have to be humble with the traditions when it comes to food because it’s such a big part of our history and our culture and our traditions… I have to take small steps to change people’s perceptions because people don’t like too much change.”
“There are some Greenlandic people who might think that what I’m doing is too modern or that’s not the way to cook. But I like sticking to tradition as much as possible by bringing alive recipes in Greenland.”
Creating a food community for everyone
Anne Nivíka’s goal is to create an accessible, healthy food community in Nuuk (and beyond) and it got me thinking; how does this exist in our culture?
In the Western world, we have the luxury of finding any ingredient we need to cook with at the supermarket no matter the time of year. We have access to fresh vegetables and fruits wherever we look. When it comes down to it, we can cook what we want, whenever we want, and that choice is overwhelming sometimes.
More often than not, we’re not even cooking: rather buying prepared foods that are quick, easy and lack nutrients. It also means we can buy single serving meals, eat them alone and toss out the evidence.
And so the food revolution has started
Now, Anne Nivíka is bringing together the Greenland food culture and a “modern way of looking at food and health.”
Since I met her, Anne Nivíka has gone on to run food festivals and publish cookbooks sold in supermarkets across Greenland. Her next plan is Mamaq (Nuuk by Mouth), a food culture house for locals, families and visitors. Mamaq means delicious in Greenlandic, which feels about right.
If you want to taste her cooking for yourself, she runs private two-hour food experiences in Nuuk. She cooks three courses in front of you: traditional Greenlandic food, modern Greenlandic food and a kaffemik. It’s a great way to try things like mattak and suaasat with someone who can explain them.
While she is slowly doing so with her recipes (things like Red Fish from the Fjord, fried leeks, edamame, mushrooms, potatoes with basil hollandaise and date balsamic – YUM), Anne Nivíka is quickly becoming an important figure in the country.
So, while food in Greenland traditionally used to be fuel for survival, over the past few years it has slowly been evolving into something new and beautiful. And after trying it for myself, it’s delicious too.
Are you wondering whether it’s worth visiting Greenland? Then check out my guide where I give my honest opinion on what it’s like travelling here!
I’ve also written guides on the best places to visit in Greenland and my top tips for Greenland too. I’ve also written individual destination guides to Nuuk, Igaliku, Narsaq, Qaqortoq and Uunartoq.
Like this blog post? Then make sure you Pin it!
