5 Best Restaurants in Helsinki, Finland

Situated on the north side of the Esplanade amid stylish design boutiques, this café is a great place to sample a giant version of the korvapuusti, roughly translated as a "slap around the ear"—a sweet bun fresh from the oven and made all the more delicious by virtue of the cinnamon spinkled between its folded layers. Salads, filled bread rolls, and other enormous confectioneries are on offer, eased down with some of Helsinki's best coffee or something stronger if required. It's a good option for evening snacks as well as lunch.

Just a short walk from the Stockmann department store, this cozy restaurant has become a lunchtime favorite; come evening it's given over to artists and journalists. Menu highlights draw on Scandinavian and Russian elements and include reindeer, fried vendace, perch, trout, and cèpe mushrooms. Chilled chocolate cheesecake makes a superb dessert. The high ceilings and understated interior lend a Scandinavian air of simplicity and elegance. Happily, some things never change, and Kosmos has retained its character since 1924. 

Hidden away in the Eira district on Helsinki's most elegant art nouveau residential street, tiny Ora is the antithesis of pretentious gourmet dining, although its creativity and sense of fun has earned it a Michelin star. All ingredients—apart from salt—are produced or foraged locally, and the menu is exquisitely crafted, with foraged herbs and fresh seasonal vegetables complementing fish and meat creations. Intimacy is not sacrificed in what feels like an expanded home dining room, with tables turned toward the open kitchen. When the owner-chef Sasu Laukkonen is cooking, be ready for an especially cheerful, proud, and enthusiastic greeting. Possibly the best of a confident new wave of Michelin-awarded eateries in the capital, Ora is hard to beat for a cozy, special-occasion splurge in Helsinki.

This hotel restaurant has a magnificent view of the South Harbour. Chef Eero Vottonen has steered it to Michelin-star status with a sumptuous seven-part menu that covers almost every conceivable fresh Nordic ingredient, from crispy rye sourdough bread and smoked trout roe to Norwegian king crab and scallops with asparagus. There's a shorter Menu Palace version as well as a delicious lunch.

A 1930s functional design interior provides the backdrop to the innovative contemporary cooking at this hotel restaurant. Interesting combinations on the menu might include herring with a salad of new potatoes, pepper steak à la Torni, and chocolate cake with berry salad.