This past Saturday, internationally acclaimed San Francisco chef Daniel Patterson (who today had his two stars for his restaurant Coi re-upped by the Michelin Guide) welcomed another internationally renowned chef, 29-year-old Magnus Nilsson of Faviken Magasinet in Sweden. The two chefs did a collaborative, eleven-course meal using Bay Area ingredients, many of which (Meyer lemon, wild bay, Monterey Bay abalone) were brand new to Nilsson. One of the reasons Faviken and Nilsson have garnered such fawning press — including this 2008 piece in Bon Appetit in which it was called "the world's most daring restaurant" — is that the centuries-old preserving and hunting practices of his native, northern Sweden are all a part of the cuisine, and such things are foreign to those of us who never had to get by in subarctic conditions.

For instance, many of Nilsson's dishes feature local butter, and vinegar, and he dry-cures meat in the middle of the lodge's rustic 12-seat dining room, so you might be eating with an enormous ham suspended from the ceiling nearby.

The past couple of weeks Nilsson was touring the U.S. on tour with his new cookbook, called Faviken, just out from Phaidon press. SFist sat down with Nilsson and Patterson just before the dinner at Coi to see how Nilsson was enjoying our foraging, farmers-marketing ways here in the Bay Area.

SFist: Is this your first time in California?

Magnus Nilsson: Yes. I've never really traveled around the U.S. I've only been to New York a couple of times. But this book tour has taken me around to a few cities in the U.S., which has been very interesting. I was in Charleston, Chicago, Seattle, and New York before here.

And have you been cooking in each place?

MN: No. I cooked in Charleston [South Carolina, with chef Sean Brock], and now here.

Where did you guys meet? [Looking to Daniel Patterson]

DP: I think it was in Finland, the first time. Isn't that where everyone meets?

I wanted to ask what you guys were planning for tomorrow. Did you bring anything with you from Sweden?

MN: No, I don't like bringing things with me because they never turn out the way you want them to. I'd rather come here and find the best produce available in the area, and then do some new dishes, maybe versions of dishes we already do at the restaurant. We're going to the market tomorrow. And we were in the forest today, foraging.

DP: Magnus arrived last night and our communication has been very sporadic, but basically we said we're going to need oysters and mussels. My staff is really nervous about it, but I was like, Hey, we'll sit down to dinner, and we'll work it out. Really we worked out the menu while walking in the woods today. Magnus had some ideas about the kinds of things he was interested in, and I knew what was good and particular to our area. For instance he has a dish with scallops and it's kind of cooked to lukewarm over a spruce branch. And I suggested we use oysters, and redwood branches, because redwood is something we use a lot here and it's very California.

MN: For me it's interesting to work with things I don't have at home. I'm getting to work with Meyer lemon, almonds, wild bay, olive oil...

You don't use any olive oil at all?

MN: No. First of all there isn't any good olive oil in Sweden. We use quite a lot of butter, and other oils like grapeseed oil. And I use rendered animal fats. Olive oil is really mostly used as a seasoning, and I just use something else.

So tell me more about this redwood dish. Are the oysters smoked?

DP: It's more evocative. The oysters are served with smoldering redwood, and so you're eating it, and you're smelling this really nice grill/burning smell.

MN: Forest-y.

DP: One of the things about the place Magnus is from is that there is very much space, and very few people. And a lot of animals. And the way they cook there really wouldn't make sense to do here, and the way we cook here wouldn't work there. A lot of it is based in preservation, and limited by what can broke there. And they have these really long seasons where nothing grows. One of the products that's really important there, and really represents something deep historically, is dairy. So the menu ends up being very dairy-rich. And it's not like us cooking with butter here. Butter is just okay here.

MN: You have to make the most of your situation, and the difficulties you have, in making food. I don't see my cooking as fixed, either. Faviken is a restaurant where I need to do a certain kind of cooking, but I would not cook that way anywhere else. But the sensibility is still the same. Part of what I'm trying to explain in the book, to people not from my culture, is why we do things the way we do them, and why it's logical for us to do them that way, in our situation.

Do you have a one-sentence summary of your sensibility?

MN: No, I'm not a fan of these things.

DP: He's got about 100,000 words in the book...

What have you been the most excited about, product-wise, with stuff that you don't have in Sweden?

MN: I saw Daniel working with abalone today and it's not like the abalone we had when I worked in France. And it was really interesting seeing him work with that, the process of making it delicious. He ages it four days on ice, and it was extremely interesting seeing this process. Also, in Charleston, I made a dish with grits, clam juice, and butter that I was pretty happy with, and also I worked with alligator. And that was less interesting.

What in American cooking have you been most interested in?

MN: I haven't traveled around enough to see enough American cooking. I've only really been to New York, and that's just such an international city.

I know Faviken came together accidentally, and you didn't intend to stay there and open this restaurant. But now that you're five years in and been blessed by all this great press. Do you ever regret it, or feel any pressure from all the accolades?

No, not at all. And we can only do the best we can do on any given day.

How far is it booked out these days?

MN: We only take reservations 90 days in advance. Because it's so small, 12 to 16 seats, that it books up fairly fast. But like anywhere we get cancellations, so it never hurts to call or write us an email.

And is the restaurant running smoothly without you while you're gone on this trip?

Yes, definitely, it can run very well without me. But I don't like not being there. You don't run this kind of restaurant to not be there every day.

Related: Scenes From Magnus Nilsson’s Guest-Chef Dinner at Coi