Visual Bornholm
Published by Visual Media ApS
Designed by Miru Studio
As soon as you walk through the door at Hallegaard’s farm shop, you encounter an aroma of smoked food and spices – Hallegaard’s hallmark. Hallegaard epitomises the concept ‘from farm to fork’. The venue’s production processes are organic and sustainable in way that is reminiscent of a bygone era, back when cattle grazed outdoors all year round, leading healthy lives until being slaughtered and turned into juicy steaks and savoury sausages. Here, that still happens.
This entire cycle of traditional Danish agriculture is tended by Bornholm couple Vibeke and Michael Engel. Together they have spent a long life on the island where they were both born, baptised, confirmed and married. They have also spent many hours working in Bornholm’s restaurant sector to create a good life for themselves and their now adult daughters. Their long working life has now found a new setting at Hallegaard, and they aim to sell produce with a taste of heaven. Because they make sure that thought and action go hand in hand, while the livestock are tended, and visitors are invited inside to the venue’s café to taste the delicious produce.
The farmstead is surrounded by an idyllic landscape whose tranquillity and beauty can be enjoyed from one of the many cosily laid tables in the charming old courtyard. Vibeke serves the guests and minds the shop with a smile. Qualified chef Michael prepares the sausages and brings out the flavour. For example, they gather the ramsons used in the sausages in the surrounding woods and fields. This infuses the sausages with the nutritive power of the site itself.
As a new attraction, the owners of Hallegaard are laying paths on the farm’s many hectares to lead inquisitive guests to the many historical areas. There is a unique atmosphere of the romantic golden age right at your feet if you feel like going for a walk. The walk will take you to a sliding rock from the Ice Age, where legend has it that infertile women could become fertile just by sliding down the beautifully shaped boulder. From here, the walk takes you to the Bornholm runes and an authentic menhir before ending at a restored wetland where birds and other wildlife live in harmony with a natural setting as it was centuries ago. This is how past meets present in beauty at Hallegaard.
