Ræst — Restaurant in Tórshavn

The most disappointing $550 Meal of Our Lives

Thursday night we dined there. The food was excellent, but the experience was not. For $550 (without alcohol), we expected fine dining. Instead, we got chaos.

A large group was seated on one end of the very small restaurant. They were talking loudly and got louder and more obnoxious with every drink. One woman stood up pretending to burp, loudly, all over the table, and later came back from the bathroom with what appeared to be vomit on her shirt; then sat down and started drinking again. Meanwhile, the staff kept serving them more alcohol.

We and other diners asked for the door to their “private” room to be closed. Staff refused—said it was an old style house the door couldn’t be closed. However at the very end, when desert was served, then suddenly the door was able to be closed and cut down on some of the noise. By then it no longer mattered, it was several hours too late.

To be clear we would have left had we not had to prepay approximately $550 when booking. It was that bad.

What should have been a refined evening turned into an extremely loud, frustrating experience where we could barely hear each other across the table and couldn’t hear what the serving team even had to say about the different courses of food. When the meal was finished and the wait staff asked how the experience was I told her “awful” and that we were really upset about it she simply said “yes it’s very noisy”.

(But they didn’t care enough to have closed the doors, or addressed the complaints of ours, or the people at the table next to us, who were also extremely upset)

Bad customers happen but Raest made it much, much worse. Embarrassing response. Raest is apparently more interested in selling lots of alcohol over the experience of the those paying for, and expecting a refined dining experience. So, so...

I feel like sometimes people throw out 5 star reviews for a place that was just fine, but Raest was truly an exceptional 5 star experience top to bottom.

I love food, and I was just saying the night before that I think when I travel I'm a street meat, food cart, grandma's kitchen girlie. As much as I live and breathe great food, fine dining often let's me down - it usually isn't hyper local, can be pretentious, etc. Raest's version of fine dining is the opposite of that.

Hyper local, but with Chef Sebastian 's home country of Mexico seamlessly woven into the tapestry of Faroese cooking. You can feel the passion, history, and reverence behind each dish, and the staff beam with pride, care, and joy as they give you the story behind each ingredient, presentation choice, and flavor. Like a prior reviewer, I won't even go into describing the dishes because I won't do it justice, but I included some photos here.

Even more incredible is the space the team cooks in. A home oven, no walk-in, minimal counter space and these folks turn it out better than any high end kitchen. I assumed there was a larger prep kitchen in a neighboring building, but chef informed me it was all done right there and my jaw dropped.

If you can get a reservation, but are trying to decide between the many sister restaurants downtown, pick Raest. They are a group of people building community and sharing culture...

incredible!! its hard to truly express how much we loved this experience and how strongly we recommend anyone looking to try raest. couldn’t have chosen a better place to start off our trip in the faroe islands :)

we had the full tasting menu which ended up being a little over 4 hours (perfectly timed) all the food was absolutely amazing. i dont want to include photos because i think its fun that a lot of it was a complete surprise, but trust that it was all beautifully presented and delicious. and the context/story behind every course made it even better. (if you’re hesitant about the fermentation - i was too, its not something i would usually go for (i dont even eat seafood typically) but i had an open mind, and loved all of it) we chose to do 1 wine pairing and 1 non alcoholic pairing and share both which we are happy we did, it was the perfect balance and meant we got to try 2 different pairings for each course

the dining area is so cozy and beautifully designed, our servers were incredibly kind and knowledgeable about all the food, and we sat at a shared table which made for such a fun experience sharing this beautiful meal with new people.

definitely an expensive night, but you’re paying for a meal as well as a beautifully curated experience and a memory you’ll have forever! well worth the money, hopefully we’ll be back again...