Lava Cooked Food

The Hotel and Restaurant Holt in Iceland invited two loyal guests to have dinner surrounding the newest activity spewing volcano on Fimmvorduhals in Iceland. A once in a lifetime opportunity, as the exotic outing could cost up to half million pounds.

While the crew travelled over glaciers in Jeeps to get to the hot location and prepare the dinner on hot lava, the guests flew in on a helicopter. They landed on a glacier and their dinner was already prepared on the new lava field. The temperature underneath the rocks was around 170 Celsius with an outside temperature between -20 and -12 having an effect of opposite extremes on the body when standing over a lava spew: one half hot, the other freezing cold.

The courageous guests were greeted with champagne before being served fish soup, grilled lobster, monkfish and chicken breast.

All the food was cooked on the lava by Hotel Holts staff. The team of 4 chefs (accompanied by a representative of the hotel and the photographer) all drove up to the volcano in super Jeeps (pictured in the set) early in the day and spent the whole day preparing the food and finding the perfect location.

The chefs were surprised at how quickly the food cooked on the lava (for example, the soup began to simmer in seconds). The temperature of the lava (which they dug down a little to get to) was near 200'C (about 180'C).

They had a pot of water, which they cooked the lobster in, which froze almost immediately after pouring the water from a canister into the open pot, but quickly began to boil once directly on the lava.

The head chef of the Hotel, Fridgeir Eiriksson, came up with the idea of cooking a 'delicious meal' on the lava when the volcano started erupting on the 21st of March and started planning for the feast. The couple were regular and loyal guests to the hotel, and were treated to this exceptional feast by the hotel as a one-off occasion (for the small fee of $1000). However, the proprietor said that if it was something they were to offer it would cost roughly £500,000!