Home Comforts: Ally Thompson-Nietosvuori and Alex Nietosvuori

What was the concept behind Restaurant Hjem?

We both always wanted our own restaurant, ideally with rooms, so we could build a substantial wine cellar.

With Alex being from Sweden and I from the North East, it was always going to be a blend of the two.

We spent a lot of time looking at different sites but when the site in Wall was offered to us, it seemed like a no brainer.

My parents lived five minutes down the road, and the backdrop to the restaurant is beautiful.

Hjem was very much an evolution of the combination of our respective backgrounds – Swedish cooking, Northumbrian produce and hospitality.

How do the cultural and culinary traditions of Sweden and Northumberland complement each other in your dishes?

Swedish culinary traditions are thought to generally lean towards a much lighter style of dish: lots of cured, pickled and fermented fish.

While this is true, as a country it is very varied, and the traditions are very different as you move from the South to the North – much like the UK.

Alex’s hometown is on a similar latitude to Northumberland, so climate and seasonality of produce are similar in both countries.

They have a rich tradition of hunting, foraging and fishing, which isn’t too dissimilar to Northumberland either.

We have so much in common, which made it easy for Alex to move here.

He still needs to go to Ikea to get his liquorice and lingonberry jam fix every now and then, but there are a lot of similarities that made Northumberland’s produce complement Alex’s cooking so easily.

What kind of journey do you hope to take your guests on with your tasting menu, and is there a specific process when curating it?

Hjem means home, and we want our guests to feel at home from the minute they walk through the door.

There are too many stuffy restaurants in the world that you feel intimidated to walk in to.

We want guests to walk in and feel comfortable.

We have a great team, which does this seamlessly; it’s sometimes an overfamiliar joke, but our team are always willing to go out of their way to put our guests at ease.

The tasting menu starts with a selection of small ‘snacks’ or canapes that come quite quickly.

As we progress through the menu, the dishes get more substantial but, hopefully, not too heavy.

All those dishes can creep up on you, and we really don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortably full.

We finish with our fika serving – anyone who has been to Sweden will know fika is very important. It’s basically coffee and cake with friends.

Alex writes the menu with what is in season as his main guide.

He spends a good part of his week on the phone to suppliers finding out what they have ready to harvest, or out foraging for mushrooms and other local wild herbs.

It’s then about trying different dishes, which we taste as a team, and deciding if – or how – it will fit on the menu.

The menu has to flow; it doesn’t matter how good a dish is – if it doesn’t feel like the right fit, it won’t end up on the menu.

In what ways do sustainability and ethical sourcing play a role in Restaurant Hjem’s operations?

Ethical sourcing and sustainability will always be at the forefront of our minds when creating menus.

We will be the first to admit there are restaurants out there that are managing the difficult task of sustainability better than we are, but we are always conscious of what we can do better.

What is your proudest achievement?

Convincing a Swede to move to the North East!

Outside of that, the Michelin star we were awarded in 2021, and it being the first for Northumberland, was a very proud moment.

In honesty, though, we are both very proud when we have a guest who dines in our restaurant and leaves with a big smile on their face.

We had a lot of naysayers in the beginning, who said nobody would come to a tiny village outside of Hexham for their dinner.

Every person that comes through our door reminds us to be proud of our achievements.

You recently collaborated with Fenwick. Can you tell us more about that?

Fenwick is a Northern institution and a family business.

While we can’t say we are an institution, we are an independently-run family business that shares a lot of values with Fenwick.

Alex has created a menu that draws upon his Scandinavian background but is much more accessible than our tasting menu at Hjem.

You could come for a glass of wine and a couple of snacks, or a full five-course menu.

The setting is relaxed and, obviously in a department store, the vibe is quite different to Hjem in Wall.

The quality of produce is the same though.

We inherited a new team when we opened, so there was a lot of training involved, but it has been a fantastic experience.

It has always been a passion of mine to see individuals enjoying the hospitality industry and seeing it as a career, rather than just a summer job.

We have loved being part of the Fenwick store, getting to know all the characters around the shop and spending more time in the centre of Newcastle.

Feedback from guests has been great, and we are really chuffed to have been extended until the end of the year, so we can experience Fenwick Christmas from behind the scenes.

We also have plans for an event with Fenwick to celebrate a proper traditional Scandinavian Christmas.

Are there any upcoming projects or collaborations in the pipeline?

Our next big adventure will be our new project in the grounds of Close House.

Restaurant Freyja will be a new building behind the internationally-recognised golf course, with a kitchen, lounge and 12 guest rooms.

Most excitingly, we have a Georgian Walled Garden, built in 1779, which, together with Hexhamshire Organics, we plan to get all our produce from.

We are working to get the land certified organic at the moment, planting an orchard and building raised beds for fruit and vegetables.

As Bob, from Hexhamshire Organics, says, we want to turn food miles into food minutes.

Freyja was the Norse goddess of love and abundance, so we hope to have a garden full of love, care and an abundance of produce that Alex can cook with.

We hope to open in late 2025 but, as with all big building plans, we are not getting ahead of ourselves.

Beyond Freyja, Alex, at the time of writing, was preparing to head to Hong Kong, to cook with a restaurant called Test Kitchen, during a week residency.

We have dinners throughout the diary in collaboration with other North East institutions, but I am not sure how much more I can say about them just yet.

We also have a few school trips, to talk about the importance of fresh produce and home cooking, which will hopefully inspire some young individuals to see the hospitality industry might be for them.

https://www.restauranthjem.co.uk/