Tag Archives: Huset
A VERY SPECIAL COVID CHRISTMAS IN SVALBARD: Outdoor Mass w/ 10 residents reading/singing in their native languages and a Christmas Eve harkening back to old times set the spirit
LORDAGSBIFF AT HUSET: A review of Svalbard’s most iconic mining-era meal

(Editor’s note: This review, written in the spring of 2018 as the opening of a planned ebook that remains unfinished, is being published in advance of the 60th birthday celebration of Huset on Saturday, when lordagsbiff will be served from 2-6 p.m. for 60 kroner.)
This is what it’s like to eat the ultimate traditional community meal in the world’s northernmost town.
You enter an unremarkable and isolated building near the foot of a glacier three kilometers from the town square, well past the walking range of tourists paying more than ten times as much to eat a tasting menu in the famous formal restaurant in an adjacent room. You take a quick left into a casual bistro just past the no-attendant (and thus no-tip) coat room, where a half-empty assortment of booths and tables with a bar against a long wall next to the kitchen awaits.
Briefs from Svalbardposten for the week of Jan. 10, 2017
Random weirdness for the week of Nov. 8, 2016
Random weirdness for the week of Sept. 29, 2015

When we print stuff about strange crimes here it’s usually some idiocy unique to Svalbard’s laws and environment, in large part because notable “traditional” crimes are rare. But this one is a doozy: A 42-year man who admitted running up a 26,000-kroner bill during a birthday party at Huset and billing it to his employer – who obviously didn’t pay since he’s also embezzled about 100,000 kroner from the company since 2007 – has received a 60-day suspended prison sentence and a 3,000-kroner fine.