New Nordic. Cuisine, Aesthetics and Place

New Nordic Cuisine is a movement that started in the Nordic countries in the early 2000s and has since grown into an international phenomenon.

With its interpretations of wild nature, the Nordic climate, local foodstuffs and culinary traditions, the movement spawned a distinctive aesthetic that was expressed in meals, tableware and restaurant interiors. Locally-sourced natural materials, animal skins and untreated wood, handmade ceramics and the use of wild vegetation as raw ingredients and for decoration all featured prominently.

In the exhibition New Nordic. Cuisine, Aesthetics and Place, the National Museum shows how this food movement merged with other contemporary cultural trends. Through architecture, contemporary art, design and crafts from the museum’s collection, and objects loaned from various restaurants, the exhibition examines the “new Nordic” concept as a broad aesthetic development defined by the interaction between materials, people and landscape.

A specially commissioned pavilion will be constructed for the exhibition on the square outside of the museum. There will be an extensive programme of events throughout the exhibition period, including design workshops, foraging trips and meals prepared by celebrated chefs.

A version of the exhibition will be on display at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, USA from 7 November 2025.