Europe’s First Underwater Restaurant Gives Glimpses of Underwater Wonders

For everyone, diner, visitor, staffs and the chef, each and every meal beneath the waves at Europe’s first underwater restaurant is a thing of wonder and an experience for a lifetime.

The restaurant named ‘Under’ has been opened recently in Lindesnes on the southern tip of Norway. The restaurant serves Poseidon’s delicacies inside the architectural showpiece that stretches down five metres or 15 feet underwater, thus offering a unique close up view of the ocean life. The restaurant serves up to 40 diners during its one sitting a day, five nights a week.

Working inside the restaurant is also fun, as chef Nicolai Ellitsgaard says, “We have this small window next to the kitchen and every time some special kind of fish comes by, I always start thinking about how it would taste”.

Diners and visitors, who are visiting the restaurant, enter from the shore through a wooden passage and descend down to a long, oak staircase into a dimly lit dining room.

Once you are in, the gigantic plexiglass underwater window takes centre stage. The 36-square-metre window offers a panoramic view of the ever-changing live aquatic show to the visitors.

Stig Ubostad, who owns the eatery says, In Norway, “‘Under’ means it’s under, like submerged, underwater, and it also means a sense of wonder”. He also adds, “It is without doubt the largest one in the world and the only one in Europe”.

There are no violent fish or sharks as one can witness at other underwater restaurants such as in more tropical locations such as Dubai or Maldives.

Rather, here it is in this simple, with a spectacular forest of kelp-like cod, pollock and wrasse that swim past depending on the season, with occasional visits from their predators, seals and the large eider sea ducks, thereby giving a soothing and peaceful underwater experience.

Trond Rafoss, a marine biologist who is associated with the project says, “It’s an area on the southern tip where the brackish water from the east meets the salty water from the Atlantic, so the richness of the species is very high”.

The underwater restaurant is a 34-metre monolith, which is designed by Norwegian firm Snohetta. Snohetta is known for its architectural feats such as the Oslo Opera and the 9/11 Memorial Pavilion in New York.

Now, in addition to its distinctive architecture and fine dining, ‘Under’ wants to shine in the spotlight undertaking environmental issues and for this purpose, staffs are being trained so that they can provide guests with the authentic and elaborate information about the aquatic life, which the guests are watching.