Sometimes dinner requires a cab. In Nuuk, apparently, it requires cardio. One traveller — fresh out of a sauna, dinner plans logged at Café Inuk, and exactly 30 minutes before the kitchen closed — looked at the 2.8km Google Maps route and decided to run it on foot. What the map didn't warn him about was the hill. Or, more accurately, the mountain-ish slope that sits between Nuuk's downtown and its uptown neighbourhoods.
Nuuk, Greenland's small capital, is built across a series of hills, and the route from the new town through the old town and up toward the restaurant turned into an impromptu trail run: down a slope, across a brook, up another hill, through a housing settlement, and finally along the road to the door. He arrived at 7:28 pm — two minutes past closing. The kitchen, politely but firmly, was done for the night.
But he wasn't giving up that easily. All he wanted was the Greenlandic halibut with risotto, and after a quick word with the kitchen, the chef agreed to make it. Sweaty and out of breath in the upper-40sºF air, he waited outside to cool down before settling into what turned out to be the best meal of his entire Greenland trip.
The dish itself was a winner — fresh Greenlandic halibut with risotto — but so was the price: 175 DKK, about 27 US dollars, making it both the cheapest and the most memorable meal of the journey. Add in the view from the dining room over the water and the bonus of watching an Icelandair 737 MAX touch down while he ate, and the whole sprint over the hill felt like a bargain.
What makes this story worth noting for anyone planning a trip to Greenland is less the comedy and more the practical reality of dining in Nuuk. Kitchens close early here, and a restaurant that looks close on a map may involve more elevation than you bargained for. Café Inuk comes recommended for exactly this kind of local dish — Greenlandic halibut being a staple worth seeking out — and the prices are genuinely reasonable compared to what you'll pay elsewhere in town, where dining out can be surprisingly expensive for a small capital.
It's also a nice snapshot of Nuuk itself: a walkable city where old and new districts sit close together, where you might cross a brook on your way to dinner, and where a night-time stroll is genuinely a thing worth doing. Cab rides are available if you're short on time or hill-climbing ambition, but the writer's point stands — sometimes the roundabout way earns you the story.
If you're headed to Greenland, take two lessons from this: book or arrive early for dinner, and don't fully trust flat-looking map routes in a city built on hills. And if you do end up running for your halibut, the view and the price will make it worth every step.
Live and Let's Fly