Bro – The Best Restaurant in Ålesund, Norway

We are in Ålesund. Recently voted Norway's most beautiful city. It's easy to see why. It is and while we're here we're staying at the Tone Hotel Ålesund. Right now we're standing on the balcony of the hotel room on the sixth floor and we have an incredible view from here. You can watch the boats coming in and out. You can see this beautiful mountain behind us. We're going to climb up there later to get a great view and you can even fish right from the balcony of the hotel. I've never fished so it's gonna be a fun experience. All right maybe we'll catch something for beginner's luck right? Beginner's luck I'm sure. But we are gonna eat something while we're here. Yeah in case we don't get fish we will go to Restaurant Bro from Chef Ronny Kålvik which is probably the best restaurant in town. We'll find out. Yeah. Don't miss out on the breakfast buffet where they make similar to the American pancake but topped with butter and sugar instead of syrup. And for dinner you can enjoy traditional Norwegian dishes like fish soup and klippfisk. In addition to fishing from your balcony activities at the hotel include catching crabs using traps and kayaking. Tonight we're dining at Restaurant Bro. Head chef Ronny Kålvik used to be the chef at Arakataka and Aso which is one of our favorite restaurants there. Now he moved back to his hometown of Ålesund. We're going to be sitting at the chef's table and enjoying a seafood focused tasting menu. My name is Ronny Kålvik and this is Restaurant Bro. Bridge over troubled waters. Of course. We're at Restaurant Bro. I started my culinary background here in Ålesund and then I moved to Oslo. I went to Haga restaurant with Teddy Ness and after that I jumped on board at Pellets Grill. Then I had a short time at Illa Jalli and then when I was there I kind of like okay Arakataka is available this is your restaurant. So I was the head chef at Arakataka for almost seven years and then Arakataka was the place that kind of like defined me as a chef and I got to do it my way and then I ended up here. Bro in Ålesund. So this is our Norwegian oysters and we made our own Tabasco. It's made with fermented celery and chili. I am from Ålesund so this is my home city. I kind of like just ended up and got cooking school. So my mom was when I came home and said I'm going to culinary school and she was like what? Why? But it turns out that I was quite good at it. I enjoyed it. For the last snack here a small tart with local goat and nasturtium emulsion. So Bro is a like a partnership between me and in the kitchen and Joakim. He is in the front house. Joakim is in charge of the wine on the wine list and he's like an amazing host as well. Now it's time for our bread serving. So this is a bread called our quickly made bread. Only takes about three weeks to make. It's made out of fermented potatoes, yogurt and sourdough. On the side we have whipped butter from Røros with leek oil and shredded dried cod. What you do is break the bread put a lot of butter on it. It's only one thing better than butter. More butter. Coastal gastronomy is basically that we're trying to focus and use all the produce that are here on the west coast of Norway. Actually now here in this region they are fishing mackerel. Normally you think of mackerel as like a main thing but here they are fishing it now and so we got some local mackerel here that we serve with some fresh coriander seeds and ponzu sauce. Chef's table that's basically the chef's playground in the kitchen. You sit next to the table or basically in the kitchen and we serve you like 15 to 20 dishes depending on our mood and the produce that's available. This is mini carrots from our garden with bronze fennel so we can like roast it and we place it in the grill with a pickled juice from white currant and with roasted yeast. Here we have a smoked haddock and a cauliflower sauce and rossini black label caviar. We play a lot here with cliff fish salted in black cod. It's kind of like mandatory to have. We baked it and it's served with taste of the forest so it's local chanterelles and a butter sauce made with pine shots and fermented asparagus. Tastes like christmas. We have a matured cow from Migra that is just outside Olsund and that's going to be served with like fresh porcini mushrooms and some kale from our garden, some reduced cream. Another dish that I kind of like have all the time on the menu is of course there is like a puffed pancake with soured milk and this is when you do the ferries here in the region you take a coffee and you eat the svele with butter and sugar or with brown cheese. So I kind of felt that's a bit mandatory to have on the menu so we have a svele and we made a salt toffee with like goat brown cheese and we serve this with the brown butter ice cream. Well that's a wrap on this trip. We're headed home with a full belly. See you next time Olsund! If you like our work support us on Patreon where we also have a food community called The Hungry. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more food and travel videos and be sure to follow us on Instagram at Andershusen and Carnivore. Thanks for watching!