Tasting menus, Michelin stars and the chefs redefining Helsinki.
Tasting menus, Michelin stars, and the kitchens redefining what fine dining means in Helsinki.
Palace holds Finland's only two Michelin stars, on the tenth floor of a 1952 Olympics building, where Eero Vottonen cooks a Finnish tasting menu.
Order: The full tasting menu; Vottonen leans hard on Finnish lake fish and game in season.
Tip: The dining room is on the top floor with views over the harbour and Market Square. Book three to four weeks ahead for weekend tables.
Olo on the Pohjoisesplanadi has held a Michelin star since 2011, serving a long Nordic tasting menu of northern ingredients in a grand 19th-century townhouse.
Order: The OlO tasting menu; the kitchen builds it around the best northern produce of the week.
Tip: Set in a neoclassical merchant's house on the Esplanadi. Reservations take one to six guests online; larger groups by enquiry.
Grön in Punavuori holds a Michelin star and Green Star; Toni Kostian cooks a plant-forward set menu of foraged Finnish produce in a 16-seat room.
Order: The set tasting menu; the full menu is also available as an entirely plant-based version.
Tip: Just 16 seats around an open kitchen on Albertinkatu. Vegetables, wild plants and fermentations lead; book three to four weeks out.
Demo has held a Michelin star since 2007 and in 2024 moved to a Ruoholahti tower with near 360-degree views, where Tommi Tuominen serves three tasting menus.
Order: The chef's menu at dinner, or the four-course lunch for the city's best-value star meal.
Tip: Now on the top observation floor of the We Land building in Ruoholahti. The weekday lunch menus are far cheaper than dinner.
Finnjävel Salonki, in the Kunsthalle building, won a Michelin star in 2021 for refined, modern takes on traditional Finnish home cooking by its kitchen.
Order: The eight-course menu; dishes reread Finnish staples like liver, herring and root vegetables.
Tip: The fine-dining Salonki sits upstairs; the casual Sali is downstairs in the same building. Both are in the Taidehalli art hall.
Savoy on the eighth floor of the Esplanadi has served Finnish-French cooking since 1937 in an Aalto interior; vorschmack is the house signature.
Order: Vorschmack, the minced beef and herring hash that Marshal Mannerheim made a Savoy fixture.
Tip: The 1937 Aalto-designed room and roof terrace look over Esplanade Park. It sits in the Michelin Guide, and lunch is the affordable entry.
Jason opened in 2024 as Jari Vesivalo's first solo room after years leading the starred Olo, folding Asian flavours into Nordic produce on Yrjönkatu.
Order: The signature Jason menu, or the Jason Plant Based menu for the vegetarian version.
Tip: Vesivalo ran the kitchen at Olo for years before going solo here. Two menus only: the Jason and its plant-based twin.
Boreal in the design district serves a roughly ten-course New Nordic tasting menu from chef Pasha Demin, who cooked at Noma and Azurmendi before opening here.
Order: The full tasting menu; the kitchen rebuilds it around what is best each week.
Tip: A 40-seat room on Uudenmaankatu in Punavuori. Demin's Noma and Azurmendi training shows in the plating and the foraged notes.
Nolla on Fredrikinkatu was one of the world's first zero-waste restaurants and now carries a Michelin Bib Gourmand, cooking local seasonal plates.
Order: Whatever the daily menu lands on; the kitchen cooks to what arrives package-free from producers.
Tip: The name means zero in Finnish. Producers deliver in reusable crates and the in-house composter closes the loop.
Aoi is a small Ullanlinna room in the Michelin Guide, run by a trio cooking a short four-course menu where global ideas meet Nordic produce like pike perch.
Order: The four-course menu; spring brings white asparagus, summer the pike perch with fennel and apple.
Tip: A personal, low-key dining room on quiet Neitsytpolku. The menu is short and rewritten often, so trust the kitchen.
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Editor picks in Helsinki include Palace, Olo, Grön, plus the full fine dining chapter on TableJourney.