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MY
BEST HELSINKI RESTAURANT
REVIEWS |
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Wherever
we
go, we eat
out all the time. We love good, creative and well
prepared
food and good wine, in both formal and casual restaurants. We
particularly
enjoy dining with groups of friends and family. These are some
of the
restaurants that we and our friends have visited and liked in Helsinki. |
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ON
THIS PAGE (click
on
restaurant names):
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carma, demo,
fish
market, george, katajanokan
kasino, kuurna,
la
petite
maison, nuevo, sasso, savoy, strindberg, tony's
deli & via.
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ON
PAGE 2:
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chez dominique, farouge,
la cocina, maxill,
mekka, nokka, palace gourmet, sundmans, sundmans krog, torni.
CAFES: aalto, carusel,
carusel esplanade, chapman, ekberg, engel, esplanade, fazer, ursula.
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ON
PAGE
3:
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belly, havis, kabuki, klippan, kuurna, kynsilaukka -garlic, kämp café &
bar, la place, olo, postres, safka, yume.
SUMMER
RESTAURANTS, LOCATED
ON HELSINKI ISLANDS:
boathouse, chapman, njk, särkänlinna, uunisaari, walhalla & a general Suomenlinna link. ALSO:
a restaurant list &
more photos.
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NOTE: Many top
restaurants in Helsinki are closed during the whole month of July, some
for even longer. So if you
are planning
a "foodie vacation" in Helsinki during the summer,
July is not a good choice. Check in advance.
July,
which usually is the warmest
summer month, is "vacation month" in
Finland. Most Finns start their vacation around
the 21st-24th of
June,
when "Midsummer Eve",
a huge
holiday in Finland, is celebrated.
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Our
revisit to this old, and very expensive,
establishment years
overdue, but a happy
one.
Savoy
has been known as a quality eatery
since
it opened
in 1937. Many top Finnish chefs
have
worked their magic in its
kitchen over the years.
The
decor was designed by, among others, Alvar
Aalto, the famous
Finnish architect. (See "history"
on the Savoy home page.)
While
I appreciate the genuine historic interior, for
me the charm of Savoy
is sitting on the summer
terrace, overlooking the Esplanade Park,
over its
treetops and toward the beautiful, newly restored
buildings
along the Northern Esplanade and the
beautiful glistening white Dome
a little further away.
The
service was professional and friendly and much
less self important
than it had been years ago when
we dined there last. The food
is world class.
The
nice house champagne, Gosset, set the mood.
The
amuse bouche just melted in our mouths.
Our
appetizer, a
langoustine ravioli with lobster and
vegetable
ragoût
absolutely
delicious. Our friend also
enjoyed hers, a
beef carpaccio.
For
our main courses my husband and our friend had
grilled sea trout,
sauté of new potatoes and
chanterelles, smoked roe and sauce Rémoulade
.
They
loved it.
The restaurant was very accommodating
about
substituting some ingredients. They were more
than
happy to let me have the before mentioned main
course with fried
fillets of Finnish perch (which
I love
in the summer - and cannot get in
New York, sigh!)
instead
of the grilled sea trout. Delicious.
The
Tahiti vanilla soufflé, marbled cherry ice-cream
and compote
of cherries
flavored with hops, was
good but
not exciting. With the
food we shared a
bottle of Volnay,
1989, Camille Giroud.
We award
his Restaurant
4. 5 GIFU STARS.
Eteläesplanadi 14, 00130 Helsinki
Tel: (358) 9 - 6128 5300 Second link
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We
do not really understand why it took us so long to
try
Restaurant
George. Happily, in late October,
2003,
one of our
relatives
invited us there, and we
immediately accepted.
We went on
a Tuesday night.
The restaurant was
surprisingly empty, but it evidently
had been packed
on Monday evening. We were
greeted warmly and
seated in a spare yet attractive
and cozy room.
There was
no hint of cigarette smoke, but since the
restaurant
was empty,
we do not know what their
policy is.
Our
waitress was a sweet young woman, who
was simultaneously
polite,
friendly, utterly professional
(without
being stiff) and quite capable
of dealing with
our New
York brand of humor.

Family dining at George. Click on photo to enlarge.
We
have not been this delighted in a Helsinki
restaurant for a while. While there are many
good restaurants in Helsinki that serve
skillfully
prepared food, sometimes it seems like all these
restaurants
have the same menus, and very
similar, predictable and
mostly seriously
overpriced wine lists.
George, in subtle ways,
has managed
to put
together a menu that, while serving
seasonal
classics, also offers choices that you
do not see
on the other
Restaurants' menus.
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The same
goes for
the
wine list. In
Helsinki
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RESTAURANT
DEMO
is
an ambitious,
relatively
new, small place,
and so popular that
it
is hard to get in. We have been told that
the
food
is very good, fresh and, for the quality and
level
of cooking,
very reasonably priced.
Reservations
highly recommended
weeks in
advance.
The menu changes daily. We hear
Demo
offers the best "bang for the buck" in quality
food
Helsinki right now.
Demo has one Michelin star.
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we
often feel
put off by the pricing of quality
wines.
Here,
we were pleasantly surprised.
George's wine list,
though not as
comprehensive
as Sundman's, was still far
more than adequate,
offering not only expensive wines, but
also a
respectable
selection of more affordable wines.
The
service was impeccable, perhaps the best
service we have had
in Helsinki at any restaurant.
Here
is what we had:
Starters:
-Crayfish
soup gratinated with Chimay cheese.
-Parma ham-cep risotto with cep dauphine.
-Poached
whitefish with avocado-tomato salad.
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-Ptarmigan breast
with black currant
sauce.
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Desserts:
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LA
PETITE MAISON
is
a small restaurant serving French Cuisine.
This restaurant is very popular and seems to
always be packed,
and therefore we have not
been able to score a reservation during
our
stays in Helsinki. (Next time we will book in
advance of the
trip). But we have heard people
sing this restaurant's praises.
One
gentleman even took the time to e-mail us,
to warmly recommend
the place and suggested
that we put the restaurant on our
site. Thank you
for the feedback.
A second link.
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-Apple-almond
tart with ginger cookie ice cream.
-Black
currant
fondant, chocolate mousse and
arctic
bramble.
-Cloudberries
with licorice mousse.
George
also provides an amuse bouche at the
beginning and a palate
cleanser late in the meal.
Each
of the five of us thought our food was
extremely well prepared,
fresh and delicious, and
well presented. For the first time
in a long, long
time in Helsinki, I was left happily curious about
the
rest of the menu and wanting to come
back soon, to sample
some more of it.
If you
love good food and good service, and
do
not mind
the prices (worth every penny): Eat here.
A
second visit, in April 2004, confirms everything
above. The
best restaurant service we ever had
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A
recent visit confirms everything above & then some!
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KATAJANOKAN
KASINO -
a
favorite of ours for many years- is
located on
Katajanokka, a bit of a walk from the market square,
behind
the Uspenski Cathedral.
The
restaurant is in a mansion-like building, on
it's own lot
by the sea.
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A recent
renovation has given George a new, modern
look. The color scheme is mainly white and brown.
We
highly recommend this restaurant and give
it
4. 8 GIFU STARS.
A
second link
However,
before deciding, take a look at:
RESTAURANT CARMA
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The
main dining room on the ground floor is
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grand in an
old style. Upstairs
there are smaller
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rooms
for private meetings and
dinners and
there
is also a big banquet room for larger parties.
The
restaurant also has a terrace facing the bay,
and, a few steps down,
summer outdoor seating
in the garden, by the water. The garden
is
wonderful for dining or drinks.
We
have had both dinner and lunch at the "Kasino"
on several occasions
over the years, both indoors
and in the garden, usually in a
group of four plus a
baby. The reception and the service have been
warm
and friendly.
The
quality and consistency of the food is quite high.
They
have also
been very gracious about
substituting items on the menu or mixing
items from
different dishes on the menu.
One
evening we went there and the restaurant was
closed due to a private
reception. Nevertheless, they
accomodated us by placing us in
a private dining
room upstairs.
These are nice people who run
a
great
restaurant with delicious food and frendlier
service than most restaurants
in Helsinki.
Addition
in July, 2002:
This time we
dined here twice. On our first
evening
in Helsinki, it was just the two
of us.
We were so
impressed that we decided to return in a bigger
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ALEXANDER
NEVSKI is gone. Too bad; it was
our
favorite
Russian
restaurant in Helsinki.
We have noticed
that many
people are still looking for the restaurant.
RESTAURANT
SASSO,
with Italian fare,
now proudly stands in "Nevski's" space, which
has been thoroughly transformed into quite the
opposite of what the "old" space used to look
like, with heavy draperies,
etc.
Now, a modern interior, mostly in light earth tones,
has
emerged. We have yet to sample the place
ourselves, but have
heard pretty positive reviews.
A second link.
Downstairs,
replacing Restaurant Havis Amanda,
is
FISH MARKET,
a
seafood restaurant, just like it's predecessor.
Also
this space has been renovated and updated.
We have heard very
favorable reviews and opinions
about the Fish Market.
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Everyone in
our group of 6 adults (and a child) was
blown
away by how good the food was.
Even
the desserts were wonderful. So good, that
we were "teasing" each
other about who had the
better choice.
Again, the service was warm, natural and filled
with of good natured humor.
We wanted to go back for a third time, but they
were hosting
a couple of weddings that night. We
are not surprised: it is a beautiful
place to have a
wedding.
P.S.
Ask the waitress to tell you about the friendly
house ghost.
Recent
visit: Still delicious.
We give it: 4
GIFU STARS.
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RESTAURANT
NUEVO,
a
popular spot, was our "best bang for
the buck"
restaurant in Helsinki, in 2003. The location, in a
historically
preserved alley in the heart of the
"Empire Centre", between
the dome and the Market
Square, is great, especially if you
sit on their
sidewalk terrace, enjoying the historic
ambience,
facing
the Dome or the harbor. Wow.
The
food was surprisingly good and the service fun
and friendly. Based
on our experiences there in
2002, we ate at Nuevo 3 times on
our eleven day
trip in 2003.
We
particularly enjoyed their gazpacho and their
whitefish. Our dinner
guests told us that the meat
dishes were quite tasty.
The wine
list actually has some decent affordable
choices, not so common
in Helsinki. We had a
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very
nice
Rioja, Fuedo
Crianza,
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for
less than 28 Euros.
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Downstairs,
Cafe Strindberg offers sandwiches,
salads, pastries and coffee
(espresso, cappucino,
latte etc.). They also serve wine and beer.
You
take a tray, and move down the line picking up
the stuff you
want and you pay at the end. In the
summer, you can sit outside and
enjoy the
Esplanade park and some great people-watching.
Upstairs,
Restaurant Strindberg serves pretty good
fare at both lunch and
dinner. Window seats
overlook the Esplanade park.
Strindberg
has a lounge, with comfortable sofas
and
chairs, good for late
night drinks and
conversation,
if you do not mind the smoke.
You can
click here for a second
link.
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Nuevo imports
its espresso from Spain, and
for
our taste, it was the best coffee in Helsinki.
Recent
visit; still good.
Nuevo
is one of the few restaurants that are open
Sundays,
a day when
staff has to be paid double in
Finland.
3
GIFU STARS.
A second link
The
patios of Restaurant Nuevo
& Café
Sofia.
Click
to enlarge
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THE
HOTTEST NEW HELSINKI RESTAURANT, ON OUR:
"Tony´s
Deli is a declaration of love to Italian
and Mediterranean food." Nice place.
Address:
Bulevardi
7, 00120 Helsinki,
Tel: 020- 7424 268
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RESTAURANT CARMA
The very
talented chef Markus Aremo, whose cooking
we loved
so much at George, has opened his own
small
restaurant in the center of Helsinki.
We have
not yet had a chance to sample his
cuisine
there, but have heard only good things, so
we cannot
wait.
Address:
Ludviginkatu 3–5, 00130 Helsinki
Tel.
(+358) 9- 673 236
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Be sure to check out our
"SUMMER RESTAURANT - LIST"
that features restaurants
on different islands,
just a
few
minute boat ride from the center area.
Below, just
one
of these "hidden" Helsinki gems
that are
worth
a
visit:
Klippan island
&
Klippan restaurant &
bar:
CLICK ON PHOTO for place names and a much larger view:
So many restaurants, so
little time! Unfortunately we
never
have the time to explore all the splendid restaurants we
would like to while in Helsinki. We would
love to hear from
fellow Helsinki travelers & foodies. PLEASE
LET US KNOW
WHICH
RESTAURANTS YOU
HAVE
ENJOYED IN HELSINKI
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RESTAURANT
VIA
is
a reasonably priced, relaxed restaurant that
serves casual but pretty good food in a nice,
large and open room, casually elegant furnishings
and lots & lots of light.
There are
small tables and big square tables that
seat up to 12 people, but
you can sit wherever you
choose. It is easy to just drop in, during
a Saturday
afternoon of shopping, or for lunch during the week.
The restaurant has a lunch menu that changes daily
and a larger menu that consists of salads, pastas,
woks, curries, etc. On a
recent Saturday visit the lunch
turned out to be very enjoyable.
The service was friendly, relaxed and fast. Our
lunch,
for three adults and one child, was 52 Euros. For that
we
got two Chicken-Thai
Curry’s, one Chicken & Shrimp
Wok,
one glass
of wine, half a
Salmon Salad and
one
portion of Blueberry Ice-cream
-and
lots of friendly smiles.
Address:
LUDVIGINKATU
8-10, tel. +358 (0)9 681 1370
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General about Finnish Cuisine and
Helsinki Restaurants
For years, Finland has been one of
our top destinations partly because of its excellent
and constantly evolving
culinary scene,
that encompasses
not just the Scandinavian
way of cooking,
but
also integrates
international flavors and styles. Every
time we
travel back
to Helsinki, there is something
new and
exciting going on in the
restaurant scene. The culinary
know-how and the skill level of
many of these
chefs
is truly impressive and
often
delights
even the most demanding and spoiled patrons.
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General
about wine pricing in Helsinki Restaurants:
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Be
aware that
Finnish restaurants
generally appear to mark-up their
wines to a higher degree
than
comparable American restaurants.
For example, it is not uncommon
to see a wine that would retail in a
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wine store
for $15 in the US, selling
for
over $50 on a menu in Finland.
An example: We saw a Marqués de
Riscal Reserva 2002, Rioja for 42
Euros (= $ 55.5 in Feb., 2007) on
the wine list of a casual restaurant
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in Helsinki.
In New York the retail
price for this wine
ranges from
$13 to $14 The Marqués de
Riscal
Reserva 2001 (that has
an IWS
rating of 90 points) sells between
$10 to
$14 in New
York.
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You
should now be able to dine totally smoke-free in Finland: A SMOKING
BAN IN
FINNISH RESTAURANTS TOOK EFFECT on the
1st of
June, 2007.
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All photos, images, design
& content on this and all "My Best
Helsinki" pages
© R.C.Candolin-Gelber 1999 - 2008
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