Happy New Year, Conwegians! We thought we’d return to our Conway food-review efforts with, what else?, a wrap up of the restaurants we sampled on a recent wintry visit to Helsinki.
Levain Helsinki
Runeberginkatu 29
She Said: We landed in Helsinki before we could check into our AirBnb (without our luggage, which decided it wanted a few more warm days in Dallas before joining us in Finland), so we Googled somewhere to land our airline weary bodies for a wait of an hour or two in our neighborhood, Punavuori, which is a trendy Helsinki area boasting an active food scene in the city’s Design District.
We fell into very Scandi-looking bakery Levain around the corner from where the taxi dropped us off. Here, you order at the counter and take your food and/or coffee to your table, though they will bring you anything they are cooking up or brewing just for you. I had a delicious almond croissant and an Irish coffee, as it was cold and I was crabby about the luggage. As with every restaurant we visited on this trip, the staff was fluent and friendly in English (which is grand, since my Finnish is nonexistent). I also enjoyed the dog clientele who joined their moms and dads in this casual, warm and friendly neighborhood croissant joint. We also returned to Levain the last full day we were in Finland, where I had the overnight oats with pomegranate and sunflower seeds and a chocolate croissant with a cappuccino. On this visit, we met a very lovely little fellow, dog Topi, whose mom was surprised at how friendly and smoochy he was to me, as he is normally a bit shy with new people. He must have known how much I missed by own dogs by this time. What did you have, Ruud? And how’d you like it?
He Said: I just had a chocolate croissant our first morning there, along with a bottle of orange juice. It was fine, but the last day, when I had a full breakfast, I had a very tasty egg scramble with raw spinach and pickled onions with capers, which was an excellent breakfast. And, of course, another chocolate croissant because, you know, chocolate. And orange juice. But my favorite thing in the restaurant was the dog.
Ravintola Nerone
Pursimiehenkatu 27
She Said: Our first evening meal out, we landed at Italian Restaurant Nerone, close to our AirBnb. There are A LOT of Italian restaurants in Helsinki—in fact a continental café in our building turned into an Italian restaurant while we were vacationing in Helsinki! This one was very, very cozy, and open on a Monday evening, which many places near us were not. Going on 30+ hours in my comfy tartan brushed cotton dress and feeling less adventurous than usual, it was just the ticket, as I enjoyed pumpkin risotto and two Aperol spritzes. (I realize this summery cocktail doesn’t seem to fit Helsinki in November, but the vacationing heart wants what the vacationing heart wants.) I enjoyed Nerone and thought we might return during our visit as it was just a few blocks away, but we were unable to fit it in a second time. Ruud?
He Said: I, too, had the pumpkin risotto. I love risotto, it’s one of my favorite Italian dishes—I practically lived on Risotto on a trip to Milan in 2008. But I digress. There must be an Italian restaurant or a pizza joint on every block in central Helsinki, and that’s fine, though we were kinda looking for Finnish food. But walking around like zombies after a long flight and long day of getting into our AirBnb, eating at a place a block from our temporary abode was ideal. And as part of our review, it’s probably good information for anybody traveling to this city: If you’re not too adventurous food-wise, while traveling, you can always go with Italian in Helsinki.
Ravintola and Café Strindberg
Pohjoisesplanadi 33
He Said: We spent a good part of the day in downtown Helsinki, buying clothes at Stockmann, the largest department store in Scandinavia. Not knowing when our luggage might arrive, we had to get something to wear. Café Strindberg is a charming and comfortable place across from the Esplinadi, the central park of Helsinki. I ordered (surprise!) their specialty salmon with poached egg—a very satisfying meal—and washed it down with a dessert of vanilla ice cream with caramel. It was delicious and the service was impeccable. The library bar was fascinating, with a lot of theater pictures hanging about. I asked the waitress if there was any connection between the name of the restaurant and the great Swedish playwright Auguste Strindberg, She looked at me like I had two heads. But when we walked out, and I realized that the restaurant was only a block or so from the Swedish Theater (a large percentage of Finns speak Swedish as their first language), I thought I was probably right in my assumption.
She Said: This was just the very-civilized ticket I craved after sight-seeing and shopping for emergency replacement clothes on our first day. A Google review describes these eateries as serving “modern Nordic food in a high-end venue known for people watching.” If I recognized famous Finns, I might have seen some! What I did love was how quiet and relaxing it was on the second floor of the building with all the huge potted plants, comfortable, welcoming booths and beautiful library bar where we waited to be seated. (The restaurant is on the second floor, and the more casual café is on the first.) I was still wearing my tartan dress from the plane, and I was happy to land with all my shopping bags in that big booth and get fed. I chose the mushroom rolls with sweet potato, the item I’d seen on the menu when we perused it on the street, and I was a bit disappointed that the “roll” wasn’t bread, but cabbage, with a mushroom mix inside. The dish was still quite good, and very hearty on a cold day. The sweet potatoes were filling and deliciously seasoned. The star of my show was the dessert, a pavlova with black currant. It looked beautiful and tasted even better. Both my dishes were satisfying without being too heavy. And stopping in here for “linner” meant we could return to our apartment, enjoy a sauna and read whilst refreshing the Finn Air lost-luggage online tracker every 5 minutes with full bellies.
Ravintola Skörd
Fredikinkatu 37
She Said: This exquisite restaurant was recommended to us by a world-traveling Little Rock friend, who had been told it is the “best restaurant in Helsinki.” By this time, I had a new dress to wear from department store Stockmann, so I was ready to go out on the town. “Skörd” is a Swedish word meaning “harvest,” and the restaurant’s owner/host explained to us that they only use food produced in Finland, and local-to-Helsinki Finnish food at that, except for the salt (Finland doesn’t produce salt, we learned). They offer a prix fixe menu of five or seven courses, with a wine-pairing option, in an 18-seat dining room (so make a reservation!). We both chose the five-course option, and I also indulged in the wine pairings. You may be skeptical about wines from Finland, of all places not famous for its wine production, and I was, too. The owner reassured me that the berry wines Finland is making these days are not too sweet and are improving all the time. In fact, the gooseberry sparkling wine I had to start out was delightfully dry and light, with just a touch of tartness in its fruity echoes. Of course, the food was the real star. The five-course option included the soup, a choice between second course options and entrée options, and two desserts (everyone gets two desserts in this paradise of a restaurant).
The evening began with complimentary “welcome bites” of pickled cucumber with cured small fish and dill mayo, and then we were brought the chanterelle and marrow soup. This soup was the perfect antidote to the chilly Helsinki winter weather, as it seemed to warm me up from the top of my head to the tips of my toes with comforting, meaty nourishment. The sourdough and rye bread basket with homemade butter that accompanied it could have been a satisfying meal on its own. I had the white fish two ways (whipped and cured) with fermented veggies and then moved on to the absolute star of the show, and considering the competition, this is notable: Deer steak with celeriac puree and fermented gooseberries. I have never in my life eaten venison this tender—it was seared and very rare, my favorite way to order beef, as well. It reminded me of duck with the fruit accompaniment, but was richer. For dessert, we both had the lingonberry sorbet with honey crumbles and salted caramel and the apple three ways with oat crumble and mushroom ice cream. (“Mushroom ice cream?!” you shout, gobsmacked and somewhat terrified, but too curious to turn away from my review. “Yes,” I answer, smiling over the happy memory.) It was both mushroomy and sweetly creamy. It was a lovely earthy foil for the apple flavors and textures.)
When we got home, our luggage was delivered, and I hugged my suitcase with a delightfully full belly.
He Said: There’s not a lot I can add to your detailed description, Jones. Normally I don’t like places that give you virtually no choice in what you’re going to eat, but the focus on local foods was fascinating. Yes the place has very limited seating, so you have to reserve well ahead of time. I had mostly the same things you had, though I had non-alcoholic oat ale instead of the wine pairings, and was surprised at how the oat ale tasted, well, like ale, even though it was made of oats and had no alcohol. My main course was different from yours, since I was trying to keep the fat content down, so I had fish for the main—pike with brussels sprouts, which was very tasty.
Café Ekberg
Bulevardi 9
He Said: This is an historic lunch place that has been in this location for a good 150 years or so, so having come from the nearby memorial to Elias Lönnrot, the author of Finland’s national epic (Kalavela), we stopped in for a quick bite, and chose the quiche, which was very satisfying. But I couldn’t resist the famous three layer chocolate cake for dessert because, well, chocolate.
She Said: We saw Café Ekberg so many times getting the tram and riding past it on the 6 to the center, that it was inevitable that we would stop in, and after trudging around in the snow to see the Vanha Kirkko (Old Church) and the Elias Lönnrot memorial statue nearby, I felt it was our time for a mild repast at a very civilized classic café. We had a big dinner scheduled that night for Thanksgiving, so I originally planned to get a coffee or a cocktail and a snack, but in the end I was so hungry that I couldn’t resist a small meal of quiche and a historic dessert.
The café reportedly invented a cake for the visit of Russian Czar Alexander II, Grand Duke of Finland, in 1876: The Alexander cake is made of shortcut pastry, apple jam and pink sugar icing. I ordered this with a cappuccino after I finished my Aperol spritz and quiche (I have sampled Aperol spritzes all over Europe, and I don’t find it being November in Helsinki any reason to slow my roll.) It was delightful, light, slightly fruity, sweet but not sickly. I took a moment to remember Czar Alexander II, who emancipated the serfs in 1861 and was assassinated by a Narodnaya Volya bomb in 1881, which is a strange kind of cognitive dissonance of cake versus the complex vagaries of autocracy and terrorism.
Ravintola Toca
Unioninkatu 18
She Said: When I realized we would be away for my favorite meal of the year, Thanksgiving dinner, I got to work on the Internet to find a suitable stand-in in Helsinki. After quickly abandoning finding an American-style roast turkey dinner that would probably just lead to disappointment because we love our own so much, I Googled “best restaurants in Helsinki,” and promptly made a reservation at Toca which topped one of the lists I found. It’s a Michelin-star restaurant offering prix fixe menus, so I knew we would be taken care of. After making our way home in the dark at 3:45 p.m. after our Ekberg repast, we had had a bit of a lie-in at “home” before dressing for dinner, getting the tram back to the center and strolling through the snowy Esplanadi, the snowy central square of Helsinki’s Old Town to the intimate and welcoming Toca.
Four-course set menus are offered daily depending on what is available and looks good to the chef, and we were able to communicate dietary needs. The menu is a mix of “Italian simplicity and Finnish modernity,” and I was excited to find out exactly what that meant. I chose the wine pairings to accompany each course. It started with a welcome bite of arancini (fried risotto balls) and fabulous bread and seasoned butter. I moved on to pumpkin pancetta with other pumpkin accompaniments and cheese as my first course (I like pumpkin things except for PSLs… don’t @ me). For my fish course, I had salmon, beets, and salmon roe with an octopus-ink cookie, octopus-ink mayo and horseradish “snow.” This was quite delicious, as the salmon was cured, not cooked, and the other flavors elevated the fish instead of distracting from it. My husband did not share my view, as you’ll no doubt read below. For my entrée/meat course, I had the venison with potatoes and onion ice cream. Apparently new things are being tried with ice creams in the culinary world, and I am here for it! It wasn’t completely savory, but made a good pairing with the heavy, rare venison, which was just as good as the night before, again reminding me more of duck than any venison I’ve ever eaten. For dessert, we had black currant sorbet with hazelnuts five ways. This was a delightful, suitably light but filling finale to the taste parade that had been our dinner.
While not quite as small as Skörd, Toca was also intimate, with perhaps 20-some seats. We had some choice of our menu to allow for dietary restrictions, and I thoroughly enjoyed the wine pairings with my choices. I would absolutely dine here again; it was an evening’s very sensory entertainment and was a lovely way to mark our holiday as Americans abroad.
He Said: Not a fan of salmon roe or Octopus ink (Seriously, why? Who first decided, “Hey, this eight-tentacled slab of mucous excretes a disgusting black substance when it’s frightened. Let’s pour some of that obnoxious discharge on our food!”). This is what I mean about restaurants where you don’t get a choice of what you eat.
However, I will aver that the fried risotto balls were awesome to the last bite, and that the black currant dessert more than made up for any courses that may have offended. I again skipped the venison and had white fish with asparagus—two things I dearly love—and these were Michelin star-worthy.
Afternoon Tea at the Hotel Kämp
Pohjoisesplanadi 29
He Said: This High Tea was less a Finnish and more of a British meal. We shared small sandwiches (including cucumber, so I felt like I was in The Importance of Being Earnest), savory tarts, desserts and scones. I ate the cucumber sandwiches, mushroom tartlets, goat cheese profiterole, smoked whitefish, opera cake, rum savarin and macarons and, of course, had my choice of tea. I didn’t eat the reindeer sandwiches because I simply could not face eating Rudolph; nor did I eat the foie gras tarts, as liver is extremely fatty. My wife ordered a €28 glass of wine, which cost more than everything else she ate. The food here was good, but they clearly were making their margin on the alcohol.
She Said: I have come to the conclusion over my travel life that afternoon tea is a great thing to do on a trip, especially since I don’t know of anywhere in Little Rock or central Arkansas that offers this staple of Anglophile life. After having walked up and down the Esplanadi in Helsinki multiple times and identifying some of the cafes offering tea and Googling said offerings, I decided we should have tea at the very posh and glamorous Hotel Kämp, but when we rocked up without a reservation, I grew concerned; however they were able to fit us in in the far table in the glassed in sidewalk area, which was perfect for people watching and enjoying the fall of night… at 3:30 p.m.
I ordered a pot of orange tea and then enjoyed both my share of the reindeer sandwiches and foie gras with cherries as well as He Said’s, plus many other items on the three-tiered treat tray as well as a scone with clotted cream and jam. The service was exceptional, the surroundings were beautiful and lush, and all the treats were very tasty, including my €28 glass of sparkling rosé, which I made last by savoring each sip. It was everything I hoped it would be, and I’m glad I paid attention to the days and hours afternoon tea is available at the Hotel Kämp, as it didn’t work out again anywhere else with our schedule for the rest of the trip.
Ravintola Saaga
Bulevardi 36
She Said: So, I now have mixed feelings about Saaga since going there and learning a little bit more about the language they use to describe their food to diners (and tourists?): “The magic of Lapland in the Heart of Helsinki: Lappish music and the best northern flavours at Saaga.” After I posted on Facebook about the food as “Lappish” cuisine, a Swedish friend kindly shared with me that this term is considered a pejorative by Sami people, who refer to this region as Sápmi (far northern lands of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia historically inhabited by the indigenous Sami people) and she was a bit shocked to see it used so casually. So, dear reader, if you didn’t know this already, you are now better informed than I was when I darkened the doorway of Saaga after a day at the International Skating Union’s Figure Skating Grand Prix in nearby Espoo.
When we went, Saaga wasn’t offering any a la carte menus, only what I’ll call the “Northern” buffet for the Christmas season, with lots of salmon, reindeer, lingonberries, deer and white fish, deliciously prepared and displayed for diners in a traditional wooden boat-shaped buffet. There was a smaller dessert buffet of five or six desserts with berries and cheesecakes and cookies. We were seated on an upper floor with a view straight down to the food boat. The wait staff wore slightly traditional northern attire, and the dark wood interior felt very Scandinavian to my American eyes. I found the food quite tasty, and filling, and perfect for a day after watching skaters in a chilly arena and walking through downtown Helsinki after sunset. We arrived around 5:30 p.m. or so and were rather lucky to get a table without a reservation.
I did learn that while I hadn’t thought I needed mulled wine cheesecake in my life, I was wrong.
He Said: I had plenty of salmon and whitefish, scorning the fattier deer and the shanks of Doner and Blitzen. There was plenty on the buffet that was tasty and inviting, including the berries and especially the cookies, of which I ate quite a few. Because, of course, chocolate.
Kappeli
Eteläesplanadi 1
She Said: The first day we explored Helsinki, I saw this beautiful glass palace of a café on the Esplanadi and put it on my list as a must-try for our dining list. On our penultimate day, we finished up at the museums we were checking off our list and I had one thing on my mind: Kappeli. It was well reviewed for a quintessential Helsinki dining experience, and I couldn’t wait to go inside the beautiful café on the square. We arrived mid-afternoon, around sunset, and were seated near an empty table on a big bay window overlooking the square. We were a bit envious of little two-top round tables in circular glass alcoves, but we enjoyed our somewhat private feeling table that still had beautiful views. Our waitress complimented my purse, so I felt like she was my people, and this would be as fun as I hoped.
Kappeli offers prix fixe menus, but I wasn’t quite that hungry, so I chose an entrée and dessert a la carte. I had the duck with celery and pumpkin puree. I almost didn’t choose it as it was listed as “fried duck breast,” but it wasn’t southern-fried (perhaps pan sautéed?). It was delicious and the celery and pumpkin accompaniments made the perfect winter supper. We both chose the apple and cinnamon pie and roasted butter ice cream, which was more like a small, closed apple tart, also served with apple compote. Very hearty, fruity and satisfying. Going out for a “linner” in November in Helsinki, means you get to walk back to the tram among all the festive ferry lights, along the snowy statues of the park. I felt so happy to have finally gone inside Kappeli and found it just as delightful as I’d hoped.
He Said: Your description does the place justice, Jones. It’s true that our first day in Helsinki strolling down the snowy Esplanadi, we saw this café and thought it looked like the entry to a palace, and you vowed we’d eat there before we left. And so we did. I had fried pike-perch with crayfish sauce, fennel and Jerusalem artichokes—which I was afraid might be tough as artichokes often are, but this Jerusalem variety were wonderfully tender and flavorful. I was well satisfied with lunch here.
Restaurant Fisken på disken
Fifth floor of Kamppi mall
Urho Kekkosen katu 1
He Said: This was our final meal in Helsinki, and it was on the top floor of a large mall downtown. Essentially it had the menu, though not the atmosphere, of a British pub, and fish and chips were the main attraction. These were actually not as heavy as British fish and chips I’ve had, and the light texture was quite tasty and at the same time probably less fatty than I’d have got at a pub in Oxford—where, by the way, I lived on fish and chips on a long visit in 2003. But I digress. Anyway, we ended up desserting on some Fazer candy—a kind of ubiquitous candy seller in Helsinki—because, well, chocolate.
She Said: Our final day of vacation, we like to do a “clean up day,” checking anything off the list that’s still available we haven’t done yet and shopping for any souvenirs or gifts. After we visited the 1952 Olympic Stadium and sport museum and buying Moomins books for the grandkids, we Googled Helsinki restaurants to see if there were any “musts” still out there we hadn’t hit yet. That’s when I found this mall-based bar that closed in the late afternoon. We chop-chopped up to the top floor of the Kamppi Mall, looked at the menu and ordered at the bar just like in a British pub and waited for our fish and chips and vino (for me), relaxed and ready to head home the next day. He Said is right that the breading was tasty but not too heavy, and the fish was light and flaky. It came with very nice fries and a braised lemon, which was a nice touch. We rolled ourselves back onto the No. 6 tram for the last time after buying chocolate in the shop on the ground floor and headed back to the flat to pack and fly home in the morning.
As usual when we travel, we got an email from Finland, asking us to please leave, as we had eaten all their food and they needed some for their own people. Until next time, Helsink