For anyone who’s ever seen Mark Mylod’s The Menu, chances are the 2022 movie left you horrified and hungry in equal measure. Taking a cast of doomed diners to a fictitious restaurant on an island, it famously starred Ralph Fiennes as Chef Julian Slowik and Anya Taylor-Joy as the defiant Margot. While the exclusive Hawthorn restaurant that was featured isn’t real, some real-life doppelgängers thankfully come without all the murder.
If you’ve got the money, it’s nice to splash the cash on unique dining experiences when a burger from the local McDonald’s just doesn’t cut it for your anniversary, birthday, or new promotion. One YouTuber has tried out a floating restaurant in Norway that promises a once-in-a-lifetime meal experience. Of course, it comes with a once-in-a-lifetime price tag too, with a bill that comes in at $1,634 per meal.
YouTuber Harrison Webb shows us what it’s like to dine at Norway’s Iris – an orb-shaped restaurant that feeds you an 18-course menu while floating in the middle of a fjord.
Earning a Michelin star after only being open a year, Iris is dubbed the world’s most remote restaurant and is the brainchild of Danish chef Anika Madsen.
Just like the start of The Menu, Webb boards a ferry and finds himself sailing to Iris for a tasting menu that takes ‘five to six hours’ to complete. Well, at least you get your money’s worth.
Arriving at Iris, the staff explains that everything you eat is inspired by its surroundings, then take diners inside to descend three meters under the water via a spiral staircase.
An apocalyptic-sounding video says how a ‘world of the most amazing ingredients’ is beneath our feet, with the oceans offering up far more than just a ‘few species of fish’.
Webb starts with what’s effectively chips and dip, with you having to pluck your own chips from the ceiling. Moving upstairs for the main meal, Webb tells viewers: “The cool thing with this restaurant is that all the ingredients are within 500 meters.”
Highlights included a main with duck heart, which came with 27-layer laminated bread and was apparently ‘unbelievable’. There’s also a mind-blowing ice cream desert that’s made to resemble the nearby mountains. He wasn’t such a fan of another desert involving caviar, but you can’t win them all.
Viewers were equally blown away by the experience, with someone else writing: “This really did give The Menu vibes like woah! but also the whole view was so pretty💕”
Saying it looks like it’s well worth the money, another added: “This 1,600 USD is good for once in a lifetime experience compared to Salt Bae’s 2000$ 1 pc Tomahawk steak.”
A third joked: “I love the internet because I get to watch people experience things that I have no business experiencing 😂.”
If you’re ever in the area of the world’s most remote restaurant and have the money, maybe consider popping into Iris.
