Chef Rene Redzepi. Credit:Ditte Isager Dogme 95's manifesto called on the region to be original and to go local. Something similar happened with food: chefs began to eschew imported ingredients in favour of local and seasonal produce. Going local enabled the Scandinavians to stand out globally. It is no coincidence that Scandi-fever has become so infectious; the region is reaping the rewards of years of hard work. ''It's been a very conscious effort for 20 years now to professionalise the way we tell stories,'' says Piv Bernth, head of drama at DR, Denmark's public broadcaster. ''We started to work out what do the Americans do? And then we realised we can't do the same things, so we have to find another way of working.'' Bernth says the region has deliberately tapped into a unique Scandinavian identity. In Denmark, a country with a celebrated welfare system and emphasis on gender equality, television shows often feature strong female characters. In crime dramas, detective stories are interwoven with contemporary issues, including attitudes to immigration, corruption and society's underbelly.

Sofie Grabol as Sarah Lund in the award-winning The Killing. From weeds on the menu to lights shaped like artichokes, here are Scandinavia's best cultural offerings. Food Icelandic singer-songwriter Bjork. Danish chef Rene Redzepi and his countryman Claus Meyer declared war on meatballs, herrings and potatoes when they founded a scientific food lab for experimenting on seemingly inedible substances, such as mould and pine needles. They foraged ingredients from the countryside and, if it tasted good, it went on the menu at Noma restaurant in Copenhagen.

''They asked, what are Danish ingredients - Danish plants that are under-used; animals; and even insects?'' Kingsley says. ''How [could] they use these things and traditional Danish fare in a new way to create an exciting food culture?'' Arne Jacobsen's Egg chair. For three years, Noma was No. 1 on the S.Pellegrino-Acqua Panna World's 50 Best Restaurants list. Despite a food poisoning incident this year, it is still in second place. In October, Redzepi will come to Sydney for the Good Food Month festival. Also in the top 50 are Geranium, in Copenhagen, and two restaurants in Sweden, Frantzen/Lindberg in Stockholm, and Faviken, a 12-seat restaurant in a barn on a remote property in the north. At I'm a Kombo in Copenhagen, diners can dig for their food with a Stanley knife or even cook it themselves under supervision. Television A solemn Joern Utzon with a model of the Sydney Opera House in his office last night during 1966.

The Swedish television adaptation of Henning Mankell's Wallander novels barely made a splash outside its homeland. But, in 2007, along came detective Sarah Lund in a Danish production called Forbrydelsen (or The Killing). With luminescent cinematography, clever writing and a brilliant performance from Sofie Grabol, it quickly won fans around the world. Soon, Grabol was guest-starring on Absolutely Fabulous and the Americans were remaking their own version. In Australia, the third season of the Danish production begins on SBS One on July 24. The political thriller Borgen and another crime series, The Bridge, were just as enthralling: an Anglo-French version of The Bridge called The Tunnel is in the works, while the US version is already finished and airs on FX from Thursday. An American production of Borgen is also in production. The Brits have enlisted Icelandic composer Olafur Arnalds to score their own take on the moody genre, Broadchurch, starring David Tennant, which begins on ABC1 on Friday. Music The Danes won Eurovision this year and the Swedes the year before. Norway won in 2009. In 2006, the Finnish winners, heavy-metal outfit Lordi, scared the living daylights out of the rest of Europe with Hard Rock Hallelujah and a set of startling latex monster masks. Of course, in 1974, a Swedish band called Abba took the title and went on to sell 370 million albums. The new super group is electronic music act Swedish House Mafia. They ranked high in DJ Magazine's influential Top 100 DJs list, along with fellow Swede Avicii. Iceland leads the charge when it comes to independent, alternative and electronic music. Since the otherworldly Bjork, the nation has produced artists whose ethereal sounds evoke the vast, frozen landscapes of the north. Reykjavik's Sigur Ros is renowned for lead singer Jonsi Birgisson's falsetto and the haunting sounds of a guitar played with a cello bow. Fellow Icelander Olafur Arnalds has carved out his own niche; the 26-year-old combines chamber music and electronica to create a sound that is all his own.

Literature In the 1960s, the Swedish husband-and-wife crime-writing team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo pioneered the Scandi-noir genre, but it was Stieg Larsson who pushed it to international fame with his Millennium Trilogy. Through his vigilante-hacker heroine Lisbeth Salander, he delved into Sweden's underbelly and a world of crypto-fascists. The books became international bestsellers and sparked interest in the genre's back catalogue, including Henning Mankell's Wallander novels. Mankell's protagonist, detective Kurt Wallander, is a thoughtful guy with a dysfunctional private life who solves bizarre and grisly murders in the small town of Ystad. In Norway, Jo Nesbo, a former financial analyst by day and rock musician by night, has become an international success. Anne Holt, a former Norwegian minister of justice, has also turned to crime writing. That the Scandinavians are the world's biggest producers of crime novels despite the region's low crime rates is no coincidence, says Fredrik Ebefors, an education lecturer at Jonkoping University in Sweden. ''We have such a good economy and a welfare state … and here comes something that kind of puts a hole in it,'' he says. ''You must articulate the fear.'' Video games A decade ago, three students from the Helsinki University of Technology in Finland (now Aalto University) entered and won the Startup Sauna video game design competition. Today those students run Rovio, one of the most successful video game app developers in the world. They struck gold with Angry Birds, a game in which cranky-looking birds are flung via a finger-operated slingshot at pigs. Rovio has since capitalised on the addictive game by creating spin-offs, making merchandise and turning Angry Birds into a international brand.

In Sweden, Markus Persson created a game called Minecraft, uploaded it to the internet and was pleasantly surprised when thousands started downloading it. Players use three-dimensional blocks to build empires limited only by their imagination. Last year Minecraft made $270 million. Film Mads Mikkelsen is everywhere - as a villain in the James Bond film Casino Royale and as the world's most famous cannibal in the new American television series Hannibal. Closer to home, the Danish actor with cheekbones that could cut glass has starred in many of Scandinavia's top films. In the Oscar-nominated After the Wedding (2006), directed by Susanne Bier, he played a man on the run from his past. He also starred in The Hunt (2012), a film by Dogme alumnus Thomas Vinterberg that explores a small-town witch hunt after a man is wrongly accused of child sexual abuse. Another Mikkelsen film, 2012's acclaimed period drama A Royal Affair, was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, and won two Silver Bears at the Berlin Film Festival. Architecture and design For many Australians, Scandinavian architecture is the Sydney Opera House. Danish architect Joern Utzon put Sydney on the map with his radical design. So indebted is Australia to the Danes that we have invited their royal family, rather than ours, to be patrons of the Opera House's 40th-anniversary celebrations in October. There will also be an exhibition about Danish design.

Since the Danish modern movement began early last century, it has produced classic - not to mention creatively named - designs: Arne Jacobsen's Egg chair and Swan sofa, Poul Henningsen's Artichoke lamp. At the other end of the market is Ikea, founded in Sweden in 1943 and now the world's largest furniture retailer. Architect Gerard Reinmuth, who practises in Copenhagen and Sydney, will curate the Opera House exhibition. He says Danish design focuses on natural materials and craft while blending the pragmatic and the poetic. ''Unlike Anglo countries, where the architect is a professional builder, in Denmark they are treated more like artists,'' he says. Scandinavian architects of the moment include the Danish firms Bjarke Ingels Group and Schmidt Hammer Lassen, Sweden's Tham and Videgard, and in Norway Fantastic Norway.