Reijosfood

Late dinner in Helsinki? Typical time to start dinner in Finland is 6PM – 8PM. If you want to enjoy dinner “the Southern European way” and start it, for example 10PM, you have to choose restaurant carefully in order not to be forced to eat in rush. And I do not mean hot dog stands or McDonald’s.

As a pleaseant and interesting surprise noted that restaurant serves Slow food until 30th of November. You could choose from separate list Finnish delicacies which you could never usually eat. Meats and other rare foodstuff are purchased from small producers directly without middlemen.

Restaurant Teatterin Grilli is situated in Esplanade Park (Espa) behind Swedish theatre. Restaurant (dining room) is open until 1AM on Saturday but if you want to continue in the Night Club, it is open until 4AM.

Decided to order one starter from Slow food menu Broiled lampreys from Ulvila, mustard dressing and roasted archipelago bread and one from ordinary menu Cold smoked Baltic herring tartar, poached quail´s egg and vendace roe.

Never eaten lampreys. Sometimes you can get those at markets but in Helsinki restaurants I have not seen lampreys before. A little bit crisp and chevy at the same time. Closest food might be vendaces but in this case mustard dressing made the experience totally different. Herring tartar was delicious but amount of roe could have been greater.

For main courses again Slow food 2x Rosè-roasted grey partridges, creamed sugar beet and gravy-velouté.

Partridge is a rare fowl bird which can be hunted for a short time in the autumn. Breast fillets were rose as the name of the portion promised but bird legs were dry. Never seen sugar beet to be offered as side dish, as it is usually raw material for sugar. Anyway, worth to order and maybe not possible to repeat in the near future. The outlook of portion was not so attractive as it could have been at this price level.

Wine suggestion for partridges was Luna del Sur Pinot Noir from Bodegas Callia, Argentina. It paired perfectly with the bird.

Two desserts were available on Slow food menu but decided to choose desserts from traditional menu; Cranberry crumble with baked apple ice cream and TG- dessert trilogy; White chocolate mousse, arctic cloudberry soup and Granny Smith sorbet. Crumble was a little bit tart due to cranberries but soft ice-cream hided it nicely. Mousse was really sweet, almost too chunky and sorbet did not fit to the triangle so well.

Restaurant Teatterin Grilli does not let you down. Food is always delicious and it serves best gourmet burger in Helsinki. At 10PM when we arrived dining room was almost empty which is a proof tht Finns eat early. Waitering was still at good level dispite the late time.

REVIEW: FOOD 4/5 – SERVICE 4+/5 – OVERALL GRADE 4+/5

Ravintola Teatterin grilli