Finland
Helsinki Extras
How to explore Under-the-Radar-Cuisine beyond Nordic clichés
By Karen Burshtein
My Finnish friend meets me at Helsinki’s Central Station after I step off a Finnair flight, still mighty pleased with the photo I snapped mid-air of blueberry juice against the plane’s wing, painted in giant blue Marimekko dots. In Finland even an airline beverage has better styling than most people’s homes.
Our first stop is a supermarket. “A cultural touch point,” he says. The endless shelves of salty black liquorice, berries of every sort, and a mind- and eye-boggling variety of yogurts, and dairy products are indeed food for Finnish thought. After all, Finland is recognized as the world’s top milk-consuming country per capita.
For years, Finnish cuisine barely registered internationally beyond pickled herring and pickled beets. In 2005, then-Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, suggested Finns ate only reindeer. Three years later, a Finnish chef won at the World Pizza Championship in Parma with “Pizza Berlusconi,” topped, yes, with smoked reindeer.
Helsinki’s food scene now has little interest in proving itself, and today’s travellers are falling hard for the Finns’ absolute insistence on eating seasonally. Everyone knows the exact day mushrooms, or cloudberries can be picked, or when crayfish season and crayfish parties start. Our first dinner is at Grön, Toni Kostian’s Michelin-starred restaurant, where we ate some of the freshest and most creative bites in the Nordics.
I start my first full day at Market Square with a tori kahvit, an informal Finnish tradition that translates to “coffee at the market.” It’s not just a meal, it’s a vibe, enjoying coffee and a korvapuusti cinnamon bun, while enjoying the pace of the market. Coffee, meanwhile, is practically the civic infrastructure. Finns are the world’s biggest coffee drinkers, and Helsinki lets you do your part.
Fresh seasonal produce is enshrined in law. Finland practices Everyman’s Right, jokamiehenoikeus, that allows anyone to roam and forage in most natural areas, provided they respect land and nature. Cloudberries are an obsession, golden, delicate and maddeningly difficult to find, growing in mosquito-infested bogs.
No thanks, but I’ll take a bowl of them anytime, served anyhow.
We walk through a park devoted to the great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius stopping at his impressive monument of steel pipes that look like music frozen mid-gust. Then, it’s on to Café Regatta, a quirky beloved cottage by the Baltic, where cinnamon rolls and strong coffee invite us in.
Like its food culture, Helsinki’s design culture has a streak of whimsy running through styles ranging from functional to modernism. At Temppeliaukio Church, this place of worship carved into granite resembles a crashed UFO. At Amos Rex, underground galleries sit beneath a rolling plaza where skateboarders swoop over domed skylights.
Dinner at Kuukuu brings us back to earth. This charming, neighbourhood restaurant with simple wood tables, great natural wines, and Finnish comfort food is where we order organic Finnish meatballs with lingonberries, and fresh rhubarb ice cream for dessert.
Helsinki is a compact city with a user-friendly public transit system. A charming yellow and green tram carries us to Löyly, the waterfront sauna with its striking timber architecture. They say there’s one sauna for roughly every 1.5 people in Helsinki but this might be the chicest. After the heat and a bracing plunge in the sea, we settle onto the terrace with creamy salmon soup. It is simple, restorative and, after a Baltic dip, one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.
After our mellow afternoon, we settle on an easy dinner, and head to KOT’s for fried chicken sandwiches. This Covid-era spot by a Michelin chef offers inexpensive high quality fast-food. We eat in a park with strawberries and a bottle of wine, because Helsinki makes even a casual dinner feel improbably civilized.
Before leaving, I take the short ferry to Suomenlinna, the UNESCO-listed sea fortress shaped by Swedish and Russian rule. Its stone ramparts and grassy paths feel worlds away, though Helsinki is visible across the water. And naturally, there’s a place for coffee and a korvapuusti, here too.
Finland has been voted the world’s happiest country for nine years in a row. And after my time there I see how much Finnish food is a direct expression of that well-being, rooted in sustainability, simplicity, and a deep connection to ingredients.
Travel Planner
Visit myhelsinki.fi Finnair has launched direct flights from Toronto. Visit finnair.com
