Skrei – The White Gold of Winter

Every winter, skrei leaves the Barents Sea and swims hundreds of miles south to spawn off the Lofoten islands. The journey turns it into something quite different from ordinary cod — muscular, firm-fleshed and almost luminously white. Fishermen call it the white gold of the sea, and it is hard to argue.

From January to April, skrei takes the lead in our kitchen. We handle it gently: poached, pan-fried in butter or slowly baked, with accompaniments that stay in the background. Brown butter, almond potatoes, roe, liver and a sharp note of horseradish. The tradition is Norwegian; the cooking is ours.

Because the menu follows the catch, it changes from week to week. That is rather the point — you eat what has just come ashore. Book a table during the darkest months of the year and let the season’s finest fish do the rest.