Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

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tuttu
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Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by tuttu » Mon Jun 29, 2015 12:17 am

I will be having a visitor from abroad soon and it would be nice to take them to a restaurant.
I believe that typical finnish food is actually quite good, but it's almost impossible to get good quality in a restaurant.

So, do you have recommendations for a cosy restaurant with good quality finnish cooking in Helsinki/Espoo?

Thanks.



Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

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Beep_Boop
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by Beep_Boop » Mon Jun 29, 2015 1:31 am

tuttu wrote:I believe that typical finnish food is actually quite good.
It's not. That's one of the reasons you don't find "typical Finnish food" in fine dining restaurants... and I'm talking about Finnish Finnish cuisine.

Anyway, what is of good quality is modern Finnish cuisine. You'll find a lot of dishes that have distinct Finnish elements, but are cooked based on modern manners. I've tried the following places:
- Salve on Hietalahdenranta
- Aino on Pohjoisesplanadi
- Havis on Eteläranta

Their menus range from affordable to somewhat expensive. All have nice food with very strong Finnish elements.
Last edited by Beep_Boop on Mon Jun 29, 2015 3:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
Every case is unique. You can't measure the result of your application based on arbitrary anecdotes online.

Rosamunda
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by Rosamunda » Mon Jun 29, 2015 1:53 am

adnan wrote:
tuttu wrote:I believe that typical finnish food is actually quite good.
It's not. That's one of the reasons you don't find "typical Finnish food" in fine dining restaurants... and I'm talking about Finnish Finnish cousin.

Anyway, what is of good quality is modern Finnish cousin.
I think you mean cuisine. As far as I know Finns don't eat their relatives. Though I always wondered what they put in those disgusting looking makkara...

Food is SUCH a subjective thing. Just go for what you like best and make up your own mind. Some of the best food is in the smallest, most discreet restaurants. You can get a decent salmon soup in many places and the fresh fruit and veg are coming into season.

Some ideas here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle ... story.html

And more on the Slow Food Helsinki Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/slowfoodhelsinki

My favourites are out of town nowadays. Out west there are small restaurants serving local food that are great value for money. No hype, just fresh fish, organic meat, local veg. In Helsinki the biggest restaurants are all owned by a handful of chains and they are all serving boring food.
Last edited by Rosamunda on Mon Jun 29, 2015 10:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Beep_Boop
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by Beep_Boop » Mon Jun 29, 2015 3:01 am

Ooops. I should never blindly rely on the spell checker. Fixed now.
Every case is unique. You can't measure the result of your application based on arbitrary anecdotes online.

inkku
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by inkku » Mon Jun 29, 2015 8:29 am

Other options:

Passio
Aito
Kuu
Juuri

and the folkloric Konstan Molja, old time favourite (not for fine diners....)

FinnGuyHelsinki
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by FinnGuyHelsinki » Mon Jun 29, 2015 8:56 am

You might want to consider also the Lapland themed places, e.g. http://www.lappires.com/ , http://www.ravintolasaaga.fi/ . They're touristy, but the food is traditional in the old school sense; game, fish, wild berries and mushrooms, root vegetables,... using ingredients that are native to the country.

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tuttu
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by tuttu » Tue Jun 30, 2015 3:13 pm

Thanks for the constructive replies!

I think I have something to go with now.

The Slowfood group has interesting stuff, too.

Rosamunda
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by Rosamunda » Tue Jun 30, 2015 5:01 pm

If you are interested in joining Slow Food, send me a PM and I'll give you some contact details. They have been doing some really fun stuff this spring visiting local producers around Helsinki and even further away. For example, a group came foraging at our place in the May and then we went to Koskis farm near Salo to see the cattle being released after wintering indoors, we had pulled beef burgers at Koskis for lunch and then went to Köttkontrollen in Karjaa for dinner. A really, really nice day.

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tuttu
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by tuttu » Wed Jul 01, 2015 12:04 am

you mean it's not only a facebook group?
i will take a closer look.

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tuttu
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by tuttu » Thu Jul 09, 2015 12:25 am

we ended up going to Salve.

the food isn't great, but there is something authentic and down-to-earth about it.
a huge plate of pyttipannu with suolakurkku, washed down with lots of beer.
it was enjoyable.

i would have liked to try one of the microbreweries, but time was running away.

also, july means tourists, and people making money from tourists, and not much else. i just wanted to get out of helsinki.
we took the espoo archipelago boat tour, which i warmly recommend to anybody (and there's also a very nice restaurant on iso vasikkasaari).

thanks again for your answers.

AnnieNguyen
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by AnnieNguyen » Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:24 pm

Hey, next time you should visit Raiku (in Hämeentie area), they are known for the best Finnish home food. I visited there once last Friday (because my mom visited me and kept asking me about Finnish food). We got meatball and mash potato. I didn't expect to be good as the long known reputation of Finnish food, but they were really delicious. And yesterday we ordered the seafood soup for the office lunch again (yes they have delivery with some delivery services Delipiste or something), and we were so happy about the food.

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Pursuivant
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by Pursuivant » Thu Sep 10, 2015 12:09 am

Hum... Zetor (with its kitch interior) used to do pretty good kaalikääryle, a killer pyttipannu & stuff... do they do any more?
For a down-to-earth "home food" as in "greasy spoon", you'd needed to go for something like "Ravintola Rape" in Tattis, but most of those have been taken over by ethnics, so its pizzakebab or curry...

I'm ruffling my moldy memories, Kotilounas on Lönnrotinkatu? All those caffs in Kurvi? Come on, not all of them have come hipster-vegan wrap bars surely?
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Something wicked this way comes."

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Pursuivant
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by Pursuivant » Thu Sep 10, 2015 12:21 am

It's not. That's one of the reasons you don't find "typical Finnish food" in fine dining restaurants... and I'm talking about Finnish Finnish cuisine.
Says a man from a cuisine they stuff goat eyes into a guests mouth as a delicacy :lol:
"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes."

Jukka Aho
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by Jukka Aho » Thu Sep 10, 2015 12:53 am

Pursuivant wrote:For a down-to-earth "home food" as in "greasy spoon", you'd needed to go for something like "Ravintola Rape" in Tattis, but most of those have been taken over by ethnics, so its pizzakebab or curry...
A bit OT, but here's something that has not been "taken over by ethnics" - actually, quite the opposite:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pohjanma ... 0685323742

The establishment is located next to the police station in Kilo, Espoo. "Traditional" Finnish BBQ kiosk junk food at its best/worst. No kebabs or other otherworldly stuff (well OK, one token item in the menu, but that's it!) - this is more of the makkaraperunat fare. Even the burgers are the "traditional", Finnishized versions with those strange, large, flat buns and all the typical Finnish grill kiosk condiments, bearing little resemblance to anything you would call a "burger" in any other context.
znark

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Beep_Boop
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Re: Any Restaurants offering good Finnish Food?

Post by Beep_Boop » Thu Sep 10, 2015 8:04 am

Pursuivant wrote:Says a man from a cuisine they stuff goat eyes into a guests mouth as a delicacy :lol:
Never heard of it. What's that? Does it have a name or something?
I "come from" the West Levantine cuisine, so please tell me more about your expertise on the topic since you opened it. Feeling like a little knob now, don't you? :lol:
Every case is unique. You can't measure the result of your application based on arbitrary anecdotes online.


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