Once a remote limit is reserved for the most fearless travelers, Greenland Quickly stepping into the spotlight. The inauguration of the long -aided international airport in the island capital Nuuk has made this huge, snow -capped area more accessible than ever. ,Travel + holiday Even named one of Greenland The best place to travel in 2025,

As more passengers come, there are familiar questions about how to grow tourism, which makes some place special. Local communities, business, and, rapid, are running with tour operators, care. Adventure Cruise Company Hx campaign Among those who take more intentional perspectives. Its new cooperation with Greenlandic Chef Inungugaq Hegelund Spotlights the country’s often ignored culinary traditions through a board dining program, which is characterized by local ingredients and stories.

HX Senior Corporate Operational Executive Chef David J. McDonald Graves called Hegelund a pioneer of new Arctic cuisine. “As a skilled hunter, fisherman and chef, he brings intensive knowledge of local practices and a passion to show what the Arctic is offering,” McDonald Graves told T+L. “Their confidence in using continuous citrus and locally caught and cultivated materials align with our mission in HX. This partnership allows us to tell us the culinary story of Greenland through authentic voices, while also supports a widespread movement that is putting arctic dishes on a global map.”

Met Chef Inungagak Hegelund

Hegelund was just 5 years old when he worked in his first catch – the city of South -West Greenland, where he was born and raised, was drawn a heavy cod from the water from the measure. By 9, he was learning to hunt reindeer with a rifle under his uncle’s attentive eyes. Their childhood was defined by wild tastes: eating sebird brain, fish was rough on open flames, and provoked the berries directly from Tundra. Nevertheless, the most unexpected turn in his early Pak story did not occur in the forest; It started in her mother’s kitchen.

Around 10 years of age, he kept harassing his mother to bake the cake. Eventually the requests were worn, he assigned a recipe and that moment created a lifetime interest in the kitchen. The irony is that the baking stick – Todd, is one of its lowest favorite things to do it. But that initial experiment opened a door: until 14, he was washing dishes in a local restaurant, and a few years later, he was enrolled in Pakistan school.

Today, Hegelund is at the forefront New Arctic Kitchen-A growing movement that mixes indigenous knowledge with modern techniques to spot Greenland’s culinary heritage and broad Arctic region.

His personal approach lies in stability, food sovereignty and cultural protection. “I hope to understand our food culture and traditions,” he told T+L. “Many people cannot understand this because they live in a very industrial world where they get everything in a bag. Greenlanders are still connected to nature – some you don’t see in many places. Here, we have other values that we really have to take care. Our world is becoming more and more modern, therefore, it is dangerous for our food culture and traditions.”

Hegelund called his motherland “The Wildest Kitchen” in the world – and for a good reason. Nothing is cultivated. Nothing is farming. Even as a simple source, heliboot can mean a temperature of -40 degrees in the depth of winter, the dog’s sled comes out of the frozen ice fields, and holds fish by hand. “If I need a musk bull, I have to go to the mountains for days to get my meat,” said Hegelund. “And it’s all with everything. We have no farming fish or shellfish. Everything is wild and you don’t see it in many places.”

For nature, this reverence and culture around hunting begins quickly. Newborns join the elders on trips in Wilde-this is an initial introduction in a way of life where self-sufficiency is passed like a language. By the time children reach their adolescence, many people get on their first independent hunting, which is celebrated with then Caffemic– A gathering of family, friends, and neighbors, whoever brings home the new hunter, to feast on it.

Hegelund reported that hunting is one of the everyday part of life that hunting rifles are often sold in shops with candy and bread. But unlike many parts of the world, hunting in Greenland is an essential lifeline. For example, whaling, the foundation stone of both cultural heritage and food security for people living in more remote parts of the island. (The hunter needs to keep a license and follow a strict quota. The rules keep the ecosystem in balance, while still allowed indigenous communities to maintain their way of life.)

Hegelund said, “We have great respect for animals and nature. We know that there is only one boss in Greenland: Prakriti,” Hegelund said, animals are never provided. “We all use animals, from skin to bone.”

Even after two decades in the kitchen, Hegelund still sees himself as a student of nature. “There is always something new. While I know a lot, I still have a lot to learn.”

Greenlandic menu of HX

With Hegelund’s partnership with HX, the chef allowed his food darshan to the sea. He said that the menu absorbed a more new Arctic with Greenlandic ingredients. “When you make traditional Greenlandic food, you need raw, fermented foods and materials that are not allowed on the ship,” they told T+L.

HX Expedition’s cultural Ambassador Niels Sanimuinac Rasmusen – A native of the Itottecortormitit, who is a remote city in East Greenland – sees the cruise line’s culinary program as an opportunity to reduce guests in greenlandic dishes, a plate at a time. “Food in a way we consider each other the best,” Rasmusen said. “New Prasad is a small drip feed, as it introduces you to new tastes in a controlled level. Menu is a development of Greenlandic food.”

HX’s menu tasting four-currers rode in its beginning Ms. Fridtzof Nansen Under the top of Hegelund on 24 May, 2025. During the sailing season, the local guest Chef -Lacey Billman, Georgine Tobiasen, and Ellie Nukka Johansson’s rotating roster is joining Hegelund, who said the group represents the current and future of Greenlandic dishes.

The food opens with scallop ternin – fennel crudetes, tops with citrus onions and apples – equipped by a rich Greenlandic Snow Crab Bisk. For the main course, the dinner is locally served with beetroot, salt-covered onion and an herb butter butter pyas between the sour south greenlandic lamb or beef dish. Rounding food is a greenlandic apple cake with salty caramel sauce, vanilla ice cream and a cocoa cracker.

Each course tells a story. For example, Apple cake pays homage on how local dishes have adapted over time. Hegelond said Greenlandic cuisine was not historically not desserts. Early sweet behavior was often a mixture of angelica (a fragrant herb), or even berries with marine algae and animal fat. The introduction of flour brought dried cakes to Greenland, and sebusis only came in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Even the inclusion of beef on the menu is a milestone. Musk Ox has long been a head in the Greenlandic kitchen, but beef on the board is from the only cattle farmer across the country, located in the southern city of Narasack. Hegelund said, “This is really new. You are some of the first guests in the world to eat Greenlandic cow.”

Stability and local cooperation are at the core of the program, as 30 percent of ingredients are obtained directly from Greenlandic producers. “In HX, we see stability as long-term adaptation-strengthen local economies, promote community engagement, and reduce environment and cultural effects,” McDonald’s Graves told T+L. “In Greenland, stability is not a trend; this is a way of life. People are always in balance with nature, deep respect for elements and commitment to pass on a healthy environment for future generations.”

Part deepens the relationship between cultural immersion, part culinary experience, HX’s program and the land that has come to detect the travelers. “I hope that guests leave with a deep praise for the unique tastes and components of Greenland, as well as with a rich understanding of the culture and culinary traditions of the country,” said “McDonald Graves. “To cook, educate and share stories behind each dish on the board with local Greenlandic chefs, the goal is to provide an unforgettable Pak trip that exposes Greenland’s rich food heritage.”