Etika, the only sushi restaurant in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, serving a fusion of Japanese cuisine with raw produce sourced from the Faroe Islands.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson & CM Cordeiro 2019
With Japanese sushi restaurants being found everywhere on earth it was a given first thing to do to see what a sushi restaurant could do on the Faroe Islands, where access to fresh seafood – whitefish, salmon, shrimp, mussels, whale – are abound. Etika opened in July of 2009 and in 2019 seems to remain the only sushi restaurant on the Faroe Islands. Etika serves classic Japanese cuisine with a Faroe twist. Its modern and cozy interiors extends to its flavour innovations reflected in their dishes served. Just the tiniest hint of orange made the salmon maki intriguing.
The restaurant has limited seating capacity and caters mostly to takeout customers that around dinner time make a quick pit stop outside to pick up preordered sets of sushi from a quite extensive menu. The dishes are beautifully plated, giving diners a sense of luxry just looking at the food arriving at the table. What struck me as different, was the generous proportions of the servings. Everything was just a little bit nicer, just a little bit more than what you would have expected from a tiny restaurant.
Relative to other restaurants found on the Tórshavn’s top ten restaurants list, the price per dish at Etika is moderate. The comprehensive menue gives you a lot to explore over a number of visits. Tea pairing were good and other soft drinks were also available if you didn’t want Faroese spring water served over Japanese coal. Sustainability and ecologically conscious food was as given here in Etika’s business philosophy as most other restaurants on the Faroe Islands.
At the Faroe Islands, ecological services are not an effort, it’s a lifestyle. To be careful and considerate are tacit behavioural traits found on the islands, where there is huge respect for nature, the surrounding ocean and for what it provides. It is this underlying philosophy to life and living on the Faroe Islands that comes across in Faroese salmon exports, that makes their salmon one of the world’s best in terms of being an ecologically sustainable product and of high quality.
Browsing the menu.
Teriyaki salmon and grilled lamb chops made with Faroe salmon and lamb.
A family platter of sushi and sashimi.
A short walk from Etika is the heart of the oldest part of Tórshavn, with cobbled stone pavements, narrow streets and more delightful restaurants.