Dish

DISH 29

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At Stedsans in the

Woods, Mette Halbæk

(left) works as a chef

and recipe developer,

with PR and styling

thrown in too.

“I have so many things

I love to do and here I

can combine them.”

S

easonal, sustainable, organic,
artisanal, waste-free, foraged... they
may be buzz words in the food biz
right now but this is one trend we
hope lasts. Especially if it looks and tastes as
good as Stedsans in the Woods. For, if you go
down to the woods today, you’re in for a big
surprise – of course, you’ll have to be in Sweden.
This is where you’ll find Danish couple
Mette Halbæk and Flemming Hansen, chefs
and restaurateurs, making a break from city
living to “create a little slice of paradise on
Earth”. You would think the couple’s previous
venture would’ve qualified – a rooftop farm
and restaurant in Copenhagen that drew much
attention from media and Instagram lovers. But
the pair were hankering for “real nature”. And
so, the idea for an out-of-the-way dining and
accommodation experience that sits between
top luxury and simple living was born.
“Everything we have done in the last 10 years
has been pointing in this direction,” says Mette.
“It was a wish for us to give people a deeper
sense of the healing powers of Mother Nature.”
Due to the off-the-beaten-path location
(but still only two-and-a-half hours from
Copenhagen) the plan was to build cabins for
people to stay in but as the building process
dragged on, Flemming came up with plan B.

“We decided to use tents instead. We called

in friends who are creative, skilled carpenters

and they started designing and building our

floating sauna and the toilets for the guests.

They were crazy times but I will say the result

is amazing. I have done the last little styling

details myself, like going to fleamarkets to

buy carpets, vases, and furniture for the tents

and getting loads of light curtains for the

restaurant and comfortable woollen blankets

for the beds. Stedsans in the Woods, in its

present version, is very much a product of a lot

of creative people gathering around a dream of

making something beautiful – and I think we

succeeded,” says Mette. In mid-July this year

Stedsans in the Woods opened for business.

Located in a seven-hectare forest, the

venture aims to imitate nature as much

as possible. Says Mette: “We try to apply

permaculture principles to everything we do:

we watch what nature does and do our best

to ‘copy’ these processes in our work in the

garden, in the kitchen and in the way we live.

We make our own toiletries in order to reuse

the water and we have designed comfortable,

stylish compost toilets because we don’t want

to use drinking water for flushing. We recycle

as much as we can and have animals who eat

all our food scraps. We are only just starting