The Best Eats of Helsinki

By Ria Mair, University of Helsinki, Finland

Sushi Buffet

Something all tourists should do when visiting Helsinki is try a sushi buffet.  There are several dotted around the city, and all are delicious.  With fresh seafood from the Baltic Sea, and plenty of vegetarian options, it is the perfect tourist spot. 

The nature of Finland is that the country is very trusting, and sushi buffets are an excellent depiction of that: you can trust that everyone will be respectful and tidy up after themselves. 

Although many things in Helsinki can be expensive, in comparison to the UK, sushi is one thing that is loads more affordable in Finland – and even more depending on how many plates you can stomach!

Café

A staple of Finland is a good café serving its famous cinnamon bun.  Like all Nordic countries, Finland had the most delicious pastries in every café, using spices like cardamom and cinnamon in many baked goods.  The savoury selection was always top tier too, with a focaccia almost always being present on the menu, and always very flavoursome.

It is no secret that Finns love filter coffee, and it was always nice having a slightly cheaper filter coffee in all the cafés, which had the specific tone of Finnish filter coffee.

Supermarkets (?)

Unexpectedly, when thinking of the best places to eat in Finland, a supermarket has to come up.  The Finnish supermarkets were very high quality, and their boxed salads were always fresh and surprisingly satiating.  Most supermarkets had a fresh food section, which provided an option for a store-bought lunch to not include any artificial preservatives while being tasty.

An interesting feature of Finnish supermarkets is that they tend to stock a much smaller number of brands of food than in the UK, which means that there are staple snacks and foods that you can always rely on.  This is also a food habit that reflects the nature of Finland: simple, safe and reliable.

Market

In the Harbour of Helsinki, there is a large market hall that is definitely worth a visit because it serves most traditional Finnish foods.  My favourite meal from there was the ‘salmon soup’ which had a strong flavour of dill, and the hot broth was soothing in the dry and cold Winter months.

They controversially serve reindeer meat there, and an array of Finnish pastries, so it is intriguing to walk around and see what might turn up on the menu.

Italian Restaurants

I didn’t expect there to be so many Italian restaurants in Helsinki, but there are loads, and they are always splendid.  Across the board, eating out in Helsinki is almost guaranteed to be a positive experience, and I believe that points to the quality of food served.  Every Italian restaurant I went to had a cosy interior design too, making the dining experience a pleasurable one.  I even tried one Italian place that only served 3 staple pasta dishes, which were all worth the restaurant’s placing its confidence in.

Before visiting Helsinki, I didn’t know what to expect from the food, but having lived there for a year, if I were to return to Helsinki, it would even be part of the reason why.