A miracle in Nordanå

“Fusion” as a culinary term is hated by chefs and customers alike. It’s so late-1980s it conjures up images of over-tanned men in pastel jackets with sleeves rolled up, leaping over the bonnets of cars as they chase a villain. It stinks of shoulder pads and David Hasselhoff’s oily cleavage in Baywatch. It’s just wrong.

But it’s not just the term ‘fusion’ that’s wrong (it also makes me think of the Hadron Collider and the end of the world). The food was rubbish, too. I remember wasabi mashed potato and rhubarb tuna. Trust me, I wish I didn’t. Fusion, as a concept, was one thing – in reality it was rarely anything other than a taste-clashing disaster.

That’s why Diamanto “Mando” Burström Billia’s new restaurant Nordanå Gården in, er, Nordanå is such a spectacular surprise. Mando, who was born and raised in Athens, has promised diners a Greek and Mediterranean take on Scandinavian cuisine and a Scandinavian twist to Greek food. That sort of pledge would not normally be a very kind one to make.

As with the promise, “I will eat your liver with fava beans,” it would elicit in me a mild thrill of curiosity (‘would the texture of fava beans really go with liver?’) but a thrill that would soon be overwhelmed by terror and the urge to run very fast in the opposite direction.

Yet Mando’s promise is not a threat. It’s a celebration. A wild, vivid jubilee of what food can be. A vegetarian moussaka with the textural satisfaction and complex flavour of a much more complicated dish. A crispy hake dish, served with beetroot puree, green pesto and smoked anchovy aioli, shouldn’t work. Such a battery of strong flavours should be fighting a noisy and bloody battle to the death in your mouth. But Mando has them working together, helping each other glide deliciously over your tongue – it’s a proper work of art.