Birgir Enni
Faroese Captain & Chef
Birgir is a Legend from the Faroe Islands.
It seems like an overstatement but funnily enough, it actually isn’t.
We had the chance to meet him through some great Faroese guests we had back when we were working in Denmark. Fast forward a couple of years and we ended up living on Birgir’s boat for a whole summer. He is one of the most helpful person we’ve met so far, and that’s saying something. We called him trying to ask if he knew some people in the Faroes recruiting in restaurants and such, and he asked us if we wanted to stay on his boat and help him around.
So that’s how we ended up helping him around, mostly sailing out and entertaining guests, as well as helping him making food. You see, Birgir is a chef. Actually, we learned he kind of started Faroese gastronomic culture back in the late 80’s, back when the Faroes were a very - very - different place.
He was the Captain on the Norđlýsiđ, a two-mast wonderful schooner that was sailing out and about in the vicinity of Tórshavn and close by islands, where all the while entertaining guests, he would help them to fish up their own food, even dive down for mussels and seaweed, and cook for them onboard, and all of that for an affordable price.
Now he still does all of that, on a smaller but great boat he rebuilt himself called Ennitime, as well as helping out for parties, mostly with affairs related with seafood.
And even if all of that wasn’t enough, the man did a lot of other things.
In a previous life, Birgir worked as a professional diver, helping to construct harbors and bridges all around the North Sea, mostly in Førøyar but also in Ísland or even Kalaalit Nunaat. If you go to the Faroes and rent a car, also know that the bridge between Streymoy & Esturoy (in Oyrarbakki) has been build by the man !
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Amongst other things, he is one of the very few that swam between Sandoy and Suđuroy, as a reference to the Faroese saga of Sigmundur, that fled death by swimming from Skúvoy to Sandvik on the Southern Island. More than 20km !
There would be many many stories to tell, too much for these small paragraphs. Like this time he travelled to make food for the Danish embassy in Egypt, with herrings and salmons in his checked-in luggage. Or like this project he started more than 30 years ago, while working on the Norđlýsiđ, together with Kristian Blak (more about him here!), to make concerts in previously inaccessible sea caves (!). They would sail people out to the caves off the cliffs of Nólsoy or Hestur, make them food and bring them inside the caves with a dingy to listen to some live jazz or classical music. Pure legendary stuff.
If you want to meet him and listen to his stories yourself, just go in Tórshavn harbor and ask for him. Everyone knows him, he won’t be hard to find. It really was a privilege to live on his boat for the summer.
You can also find him on this site, hold by his son Hávarđur, another amazing Captain, great guy and good friend, with many stories on his own.
https://www.instagram.com/birgirenni/
