What food should you try in Greenland? What is the most common food sold in local restaurants?

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Greenlandic cuisine

Greenlandic gastronomy is still heavily influenced by traditional Inuit cuisine, based mainly on the local food that can be caught in Greenland.

Consequently, seafood, especially fish, whale and seal meat, shrimp and, to a large extent, reindeer meat, are the most common items on the menu.

Danish cuisine is mainly influenced by breakfast and snacks. Also extremely popular in Greenland is the smørrebrød, an open sandwich typically made of black or wholemeal bread and topped with a variety of ingredients from cheese to fish.

The national dish

The national Greenlandic and Inuit dish is suaasat soup, which is commonly eaten at home and is also on offer in restaurants.

The very rich soup contains seal, whale or reindeer meat, supplemented with seabird meat. It is often made by combining all the ingredients listed above.

Potatoes are added and the soup can be made even stronger by adding rice.

Other Greenlandic specialities

The following dishes, for example, can be found on the regular Greenlandic menu.

• Fresh fish - most often cod and salmon
• Reindeer meat - there is a significant reindeer population in southern Greenland and reindeer meat is the most common ingredient in Greenlandic cuisine after fish
• Whale meat - very popular in areas north of the Arctic Circle, including the famous dish mattuk, which is just whale skin with a subcutaneous layer of fat
• Seal meat - usually added as a side dish to soups or other meat dishes
• Other seafood - in addition to fish and whales, Greenlandic cuisine is very rich in shrimp and mussels
• Lamb - especially in the south, lamb with rosemary is popular. In fact, sheep are abundant on the southern islands.
• Blueberries and crowberries - the only edible fruits that grow in the wild (especially in the south of Greenland) and which make popular desserts

Drinks

Greenland has no well-known breweries or distilleries, and there are no typical local lemonades.

The best-selling sweet drink is the Danish lemonade Faxe Kondi.

Greenlanders drink quite a lot of alcohol, especially vodka and imported beer.

The typical alcoholic drink is called Greenland coffee, which is a cocktail made from shots of coffee to which Kahlua, whiskey, Grand Marnier and whipped cream are added.

How to eat like a local

There aren't many traditional restaurants in Greenland. Greenlanders tend to go to cafés, which you'll find in all the larger villages.

The better restaurants for tourists can be found mainly in hotels.

In any case, locals eat mainly at home.

There are no well-known fast-food restaurants in Greenland.

Usual prices in restaurants

Dinner in a restaurant will set you back about 200 dkk per person, including drinks.

Examples of prices:

• Main course (fish or reindeer meat) - 170 dkk
• Foreign cuisine (usually pizza or pasta) - 150 dkk
• Seafood - 150 dkk
• Local beer 0.5 litres - 70 dkk

Supermarket food

Supermarkets can be found in all the towns and considering Greenland's remoteness from the outside world, they are well stocked.

In the largest towns, which have more than 3,000 inhabitants, there are usually several supermarkets at once. You will always find the largest selection of goods in these supermarkets:

• Brugseni
• Pisiffik

Smaller supermarkets in Greenland operate the following brands:

• Spar
• Akiki
• Pilersuisoq

The shops usually have a very wide selection of canned goods, rice, pasta, potatoes and frozen meat of all kinds.

Of the fresh goods, the supermarkets logically have the widest selection of seafood.

On the other hand, the choice of fruit and especially vegetables is very poor, as they are only imported into Greenland frozen.