Puffins; beautiful, hardy, a symbol of Icelandic ingenuity… food? Well, TV chef Gordon Ramsay was most interested in the latter and recently took his Channel 4 show ‘The F Word’ to Iceland’s Westman Islands in order to sample the local staple.
The Westman Islands, just off the South Coast of Iceland, are home to the largest concentration of these beautiful birds in the world and inhabitants there have been 
tucking in for centuries. Gordon’s adventure began by baking some lava bread in the world’s biggest oven, the still-warm Eldfell volcano mountain which erupted in 1973. The best was yet to come, though, as Ramsay made his way onto a cliff perilously close to the Atlantic Ocean to catch puffins in the traditional Icelandic manner – a net attached to the end of a very long pole!
After a few predictably unsuccessful attempts and some extremely hard work Ramsay finally bagged a puffin, but not before one particularly unhappy bird had nipped him on the nose. Perhaps he had heard what Ramsay was planning to do to one of his friends!
Once the puffin had been prepared, Gordon cooked up a scrumptious looking recipe of barbecued puffin with juniper tomatoes and traditional Skyr yoghurt.
Don’t be alarmed, though; not every visitor is expected to catch their own dinner. If Gordon’s adventure has whet your appetite for an Icelandic break we’d love to see you experience it yourself. If you’re feeling inspired, perhaps sample some perfectly cooked puffin in one of Reykjavík’s fantastic restaurants.
The Westman Islands are amon g Iceland’s most interesting spots, and flights from the mainland take just six minutes. Click here to start your very own Icelandic odyssey!
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