By Sophia Genitz
Lifestyle of the future
IT’S PROBABLY SOMETHING we’ve all fantasised about at some stage – upping sticks and moving out into the woods to live off the land, in harmony with nature. But Mette Helbæk and Flemming Hansen have made that dream a reality.
The couple previously ran one of Copenhagen’s hottest eateries, the rooftop restaurant Stedsans at Østergro, where the philosophy was natural food ‘from farm to table’. But they wanted to take it further, growing their own food and offering guests a more holistic experience, where everything is clearly connected. So Helbæk and Hansen made the decision to move with their two daughters to a farm in the Halland forest in Sweden.
“There is nature here that is not found in Denmark,” says chef and sommelier Hansen. “We can get pike perch from the lake, langoustines from the sea, wild game from local hunters and plants from the forest.” Stedsans in the Woods is a place for people to find their way back to the forest, where the food is healthy and life is simple and sustainable, not causing too much damage to the earth’s resources.
“We want to create a laboratory for the lifestyle of the future, putting the restaurant in a context where guests are surrounded by nature’s beauty from start to finish,” says Helbæk.
Now, just over two years after the move, they have built up a whole resort, complete with a forest restaurant under a canvas roof, an impressive refurbished barn, small cabins and Bedouin-style tents for overnight guests, and a floating sauna and yoga platform on Lake Halla.
In this holistic project, the basic idea is that ‘the closer to nature we are, the better we feel’, a philosophy that is also reflected in the architecture – in the restaurant’s glass walls and in the intimate cabins and tents where guests are surrounded by the forest. “We build as we cook – great ingredients in simple combinations,” says Hansen, who came up with most of the design ideas. He has realised these ideas with the help of architect Asger Risborg Jakobsen and carpenter Thomas Kjelds
