Magnus Nilsson, chef of the famous Swedish restaurant Faviken has announced he will be closing the restaurant in December 2019.
The Swedish chef said that he began to feel that the restaurant had to come to an end. “It would be impossible to run a restaurant like this without it turning into a fake experience. I am not interested in making this project that has been run on intense passion from a large group of people almost 11 full years into something less good,” he said.
“I’ve always known that Faviken was not going to be forever. To run a place like Faviken, the thing you need to feel each morning is excitement. One morning I just woke up and for the first time I did not feel excited to go to work,” he said.
The chef gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times (see below).
Faviken is a unique restaurant that is in the middle of the Swedish countryside far away from the Swedish capital. It was considered to be the ‘destination’ restaurant given the fact that you deliberately needed to eat there.
Nilsson said that he started aged 24 and all he wanted was to cook food in his restaurant. “I got the chance to create a restaurant that did not exist before Faviken and is unlikely to exist after Faviken either.”
The Swedish chef said there were a few important things he wanted to do to close the restaurant. “I have a sense of responsibility towards the team and wanted to give them enough time to reset their life following my ‘selfish’ decision.”
“I wanted to close the restaurant in a way that mirrors the way Faviken has been run for the past 11 years. I did not want people to come here to this most amazing project just because it was going to end. I did not want to make the announcement of the closure of our restaurant until it was fully booked,” he said.
He has no project planned after the closure of Faviken in December 2019. “I do not want to spend my last six months of this most amazing project not enjoying it. I want them to be the best six months that we have done. I will spend them working business as usual and then be done with it,” he said.
The charcuterie production and shop in Undersaker, also operated by Faviken will remain open as usual also after the restaurant closes.
“I am going to spend time with my family, reflect, fish, garden, write, rest and get fit, both physically and mentally. I am not going to lie, I am a little bit tired after all this time pushing the development of the restaurant forward,” he said.
Apart from being chef of one of the world’s most sought after destination dining restaurant he has also written what some consider to be the bible of Nordic cuisine called the Nordic Cookbook. It has taken him around all of Scandinavia, meeting people, researching old recipes and taking over 8,000 photographs during the three years it took him to work on the cookbook.h
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