The Tarv

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A Merchant House on the Water's Edge

The Tarv occupies a carefully restored old merchant house at Undir Bryggjubakka in Tórshavn, with a terrace that looks directly down to the quay where local fishermen land and clean their catch. The building's soul has been preserved while the interior has been reimagined with raw concrete, stone walls, wooden plank floors, and a bar and kitchen that leave nothing to chance. On the ground floor, large glass refrigerators display dry-hung beef and lamb in plain sight; on the first floor, cured meats, sausages and dried ham hang from the ceiling. It is a room that tells you exactly what kind of restaurant this is before you have ordered a thing.

Fire, Smoke and Serious Dry-Aging

The cooking at The Tarv is built around fire. Both indoor and outdoor grills are Josper units from Catalonia, fired with Cuban wood charcoal — a combination that fills the room with a fine smoky aroma the moment you walk in. The kitchen's commitment to dry-aging is equally serious: the tasting menu has featured an eight-year-old free-range bull hung for a hundred days, with thick ribeye steaks served on a hot stone and carved at the table. The charcoal-grilled, beautifully marbled meat is described by White Guide — which awarded The Tarv its prestigious Masters level recognition — as melting on the tongue in a blend of juice, flavor and smoky notes on par with the finest Danish gourmet restaurants.

The evening menu reflects the same philosophy in everyday form: a Great Omaha ribeye, a Black Angus Tomahawk, Nordic lamb rack, and a beef tenderloin sit alongside Faroese salmon, langoustines with garlic and herb butter, kokotxas with browned butter, and scallops with caviar. The catch of the day changes with what comes off the boats below.

Local Ingredients, Precise Technique

The fish and seafood quality is a particular point of pride. Cod is filleted just hours before service; prawns and mantis shrimp arrive so fresh that salting is unnecessary. The tasting menu opens with seared meat served on a plank with butter, salt and drýlur — the national grilled yeast-free bread made from water, soda and flour — a detail that grounds the experience firmly in Faroese food culture even as the wine list reaches to Marlborough and beyond.

At lunch, the charcoal grill remains central: grilled Faroese cod collar with pimento sauce, hand-peeled Nordic cold-water prawns with avocado, and the same cuts of dry-aged beef available in smaller format. The cheese fondue for two or three, with pickled and grilled potatoes, Jamón Ibérico and mixed vegetables, is a more convivial option.

White Guide's Masters level verdict puts it plainly: the culinary experience, the view and the interior together make The Tarv a detour worth taking.