If Helsinki reminds you a little of Prague in the magnificence of its architecture, it soars above the Czech capital’s duck-and-dumplings cuisine. The proximity of wild berries with the meat of its reindeer, elk and moose, root vegetables with more earthy flavour than I have eaten anywhere, abundant mushrooms as the forested land’s gift to its people, and even the sprouts of the trees themselves, makes this a cuisine that the Finns have developed quietly and without fuss, just as in everything they do. There’s no hint of the pretentiousness too often attached to fine fare; they just use their ingredients well, with finesse but without taming them either, and they’re generous in their portions. This is, once you have understood the Finns, utterly expected. It is just how they are.

An ornate passageway near my hotel. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The first hint of this Nordic world of trees, water, deer and berries is the juice on board the Finnair flight from Heathrow to Helsinki-Vantaa as we fly over Denmark and Sweden. Blueberry juice. There is no more blissful berry juice in the world, surely. Once we have descended over a million spruces, birches and pines, I will encounter berries everywhere, from the lingonberry juice on tap at the hotel (you choose it from a touch screen and it pours into your glass at the adjacent tap) to the little jars of jam and every meat sauce in every restaurant.

Finns call their country Suomi in the way we call South Africa Mzansi. Their use of it reflects their sense of pride and purpose in being Finnish and living in their beloved Suomi, a world all their own and nothing quite like anywhere else.

The central station. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The Finns are not quite Swedish or Norwegian but not Russian either; their accent when they speak English sounds, to me, somewhere between Swedish and Russian, with a hint of something almost like Dutch. Their English is flawless; they learn it as a compulsory language, as they do Swedish as well. Many Finns speak fluent German too.

The central station, inside. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

They feel, especially now, their past association with Russia, now a volatile neighbour right at their shoulder; they’re proud of the welfare state they have forged with sweat and muscle over much of a century; everything they have now has not come easy. They’re a nation that has “arrived”, and the freedoms and sheer style they have were hard earned. Nobody gave them anything. It’s the ultimate pull-yourselves-up-by-the-bootstraps culture. Finns are bright of intellect thanks to their nourishing education system.

Thanks to their efforts and determination the Finn of the 2020s can sashay in and out of department stores like Stockmann with bags full of the finest food, drink and fashion, and furnish their homes with designs they have become famous for, much of it in the wooden furniture and finishes that characterise the entire country. Their fashion style is all their own, and meticulously sustainable. Bars, cafés and taprooms abound; they craft everything from chairs and lamps to beers and heady liquors (I brought home a bottle of golden cloudberry liqueur).

Stockmann department store, established in 1867. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

In Finland’s food, you can taste the soil in which its trees are grown. Earth, smoke and char do a little dance on your palate in this elemental cuisine which has no pretence. Your plate is exquisitely presented because that is what Finns do: they make things beautiful in flavour, texture and sheer good looks. Everything from the soil around the entangled roots that support the brightly painted log and timber houses above seems to flavour your food. It is a cuisine with a robust vitality.

***

Being the food writer that I am, I know what my job is, but… first Babe, then Bambi, and now Rudolph; how was I going to explain to my daughter that I ate reindeer in Helsinki? And elk, and moose. When your job is to write about food, and you’re in a country you’ve never been to before, you head straight to the local delicacies, and you don’t shy away. So reindeer steak it would be, from the menu at my first foray into a Finnish ravintola, restaurant Löyly at the space-age sauna of the same name at the Helsinki waterfront.

Ravintola Löyly (pronounced something like loulou) at the sauna of the same name. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

I would, in a few short days, discover that the many things that will find their way onto your plate in a Helsinki ravintola include reindeer, moose, and elk; deer tartare and wild duck; pike perch, crayfish claws, salmon roe and caviar; lingonberries, blueberries and cloudberries; a world of wild mushrooms, and dishes finished with tantalising traces of toasted malt grains, nettle and sea buckthorn.

Mushroom soup. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

Wild mushrooms foraged from the feet of spruces, birches and pines are displayed at food markets and menus. I ached to buy a (sustainable) bag of golden chanterelles and take them home.

My starter from a set menu at ravintola Löyly was a creamy mushroom soup but the depth of flavour had me swooning. I had drooled for their starter of Jerusalem artichoke with chanterelles, blackberries and forest mushrooms but was rewarded the following night with another Jerusalem artichoke starter at ravintola Emo, off the Esplanade that connects central Helsinki with the harbour where ocean liners await their new customers and ferries dash to and from between the city and its islands and across the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn in their neighbouring Estonia. St Petersburg, unimaginably, is not far away. It is the closest I have been to Russia.

Yes, I ate reindeer steak. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The Emo starter was roasted Jerusalem artichoke with artichoke chips, “perfect egg” (sous vide for an hour), malt crumble, and trout roe cold smoked with soy and mirin. I had missed the media group’s lunch at Emo the day before, after being delayed in London with highly stressful visa complications, but my Kenyan teammate David Muchunguh, who runs the education desk at The Nation in Nairobi, suggested we have dinner there on the Thursday night so that I would experience the ravintola anyway.

An exquisite dessert at ravintola Emo. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

We tell old journo stories; a vintage reporter in a foreign clime encountering a brother is something worth celebrating. I found myself deep in wine and conversation, and Kenya swiftly moved up on my places-to-visit list. David’s a real family man, cooks roast dinner every Sunday for his wife and three daughters; there’s kinship here and I tell him about my daughters and GrandBoy. We sit beneath a black Helsinki night knowing what it feels like to have the African sun on your neck. I get a tad misty-eyed to hear of how The Nation group of newspapers (and a TV channel) is doing compared with certain others in my home country that are not what they once were. It feels like stepping back to an age when our city newspapers in South Africa were as thick as door stops and full of things worth reading.

My main course at Emo is exquisitely sensuous pike perch, steamed with dill, served with tiny mussels, spinach and salsify (a common ingredient here), after spreading salty whipped butter on deeply satisfying chocolate malt bread. At every restaurant there is whipped soft butter, creamy and perfect. And everything I ate in Helsinki tasted surprisingly salty, just on the border of being too much; I admired the way every chef pushed the salting to the last moment before you might complain. David’s domestic beef (that’s what the Finns call it) had been cooked sous vide for 48 hours and finished on an open-fire grill.

At ravintola Löyly the previous night, I had spied on the cocktails menu a Sauna Mimosa (it’s pronounced sow-na by the way, like cow, not sawna like prawn) of marigold, rooibos, rhubarb, orange and sparkling wine (there are “redbush” tea bags in my hotel room too). I was intrigued that the Afrikaans word for it was used. Another cocktail was enhanced with butterfly pea flowers. My Smoky Caramel Sour boasted Bulleit bourbon, wood smoked rye whisky, red apple, salted caramel, angostura and lemon.

The beautiful pavilion housing ravintola Kappeli. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

On my first morning in Helsinki (it’s pronounced HELsinki, not HelSINKi), before meeting a world of journalists for breakfast and off into the day, I strolled down the Esplanadi and found ravintola Kappeli, a magnificent pavilion-like restaurant that first opened in 1867 and has a history of association with poets, writers and artists. It must be on your Helsinki agenda. I made an online booking for the Friday evening when I knew I would be alone (the tour ended on Thursday) and found myself in a curtain-swathed corner booth.

But first, after a morning of discussions about the country’s remarkable and world-beating education system and school meals programme, lunch at ravintola Töölö, on the ground floor of the premises where we were to enjoy delightful presentations at Mia-Stiina Heikkala’s remarkable EdTech Incubator. Heikkala joined us for lunch before ushering us upstairs where Bright Young Things told us about their clever education startups, most impressively for me, Mightifier, a social-emotional learning and character development programme that South African schools would do well to subscribe to. Others worth exploring include MoovKids, TinyApp, Silta, which helps kids focus, and MARKed. The rise of these apps in Helsinki is a consequence of the deep education the Finns are blessed to have.

Wild duck pastrami and edible kale at Töölö. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

It was at ravintola Töölö that I had my first taste of Helsinki seafood in a bouillabaisse of white fish, prawns and scallops, after a very Finnish starter of wild duck pastrami with beetroot tartare and a smoked créme.

Seafood at Töölö. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

On the plate were deliciously crunchy little red leaves that had been brushed with oil and oven dried. Puzzled, I asked what they were. Kale. I actually enjoyed eating kale. I shall never live that down. (Yes, even the kale is good in Finland.)

***

En route to ravintola Kappeli on the Friday evening, I stopped at Pyynikin Taproom, home to some of the country’s superb beers; so good that my taste for beer returned. I gave up drinking it years ago.

Fat Lizard Kivimies lager, pictured here at the Pyynikin Taproom in central Helsinki, is produced by Fat Lizard craft brewery in Espoo, Finland. It is a light-bodied, aromatic and freshly crispy American-style lager, and moreish as hell. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

At Kappeli, I ordered tartare of Finnish venison, the specific deer not named. It’s an artwork on a plate, with fried capers, egg yolk, pickled red onion, yellow mustard seeds, garlic and a sourdough biscuit.

At Kappeli, I ate venison tartare. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

I followed it with juniper-glazed elk brisket with a creamy game reduction sauce, deeply flavourful, pickled wild mushrooms and the root vegetables you find everywhere in Helsinki In autumn: young, tender roots redolent of the soil they’re grown in.

Elk brisket with lingonberries at Kappeli. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

There was carrot, parsnip, turnip, beetroot and salsify, and happiness in a corner booth. I finished with apple and cinnamon pie with roasted butter ice cream and apple compôte, and a glass of Dow’s Late Bottled Vintage Port as a rare treat.

Superb baked apple at Kappeli. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

Next morning, I wandered aimlessly and chanced upon Senate Square and an anti-Ukraine war protest which had me in tears. I spoke to the organiser when the protest ended, a young woman whose parents are “near Kyiv” and, asked if they were safe, replied, “You are not safe anywhere in Ukraine. The missiles fall everywhere.” She thanked me for caring; the courtesy of the thoughtful, in context of thoughtless malignant power.

I chanced upon a protest against the war in Ukraine. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

Contrast is everything in drama and life. It was a bleak counterpoint to the joy of the food, the gorgeous boulevards (or “katu”), the magnificent architecture, the smartly dressed people dipping in and out of cafés, bars and high-end shops selling Finnish fashion, fabrics and blond furniture. Finland shares Europe’s longest border with Russia, 1,340 km of it, almost as far as Joburg is from Cape Town. You try to imagine what it would be like if Putin turned his gaze their way. The missiles fall everywhere. You shiver, you shudder, you dismiss the thought, and walk down to the water’s edge to find succour and light. You find this…

The magnificent redbrick hall at the harbour… (Photo: Tony Jackman)

And inside, you find this…

… and the world that awaited me inside. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

A colourful, aromatic world of wonders met my senses; stall after stall of food and drinks from Finland and the nations with which it seems to share an affinity. There are many Asians in Helsinki, Japanese in particular, and Vietnamese too.

… and many wild and wonderful things in tins. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

I quickly found myself tasting Siberian sturgeon caviar and a slice of traditional Finnish salmon pie.

More delicious things in tins.( Photo: Tony Jackman)

You can venture to Vietnam to your left and Sweden to your right; buy Lappish deer products and Finnish tableware; tip the tray held by the (effigy of an) elderly gentleman standing sentinel outside the Swedish Café, or buy cloudberry or blueberry jam, or wonder what sea buckthorn is, then Google to learn it is the fruit of a thorny shrub.

There’s more than chicken and beef in a Finnish meat pie. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

You might buy a can of fish shavings or smoked freshwater roach in oil, or a tin of smoked pike perch or vendace, a freshwater white fish. Pike perch, aka zander, is a ray-finned fish found on many Helsinki restaurant menus.

Traditional Finnish salmon pies. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

I espy little tins of sweets made from brambleberry, cranberry and arctic cloudberry; fresh Finnish honey; Finnish meat pies filled with reindeer, moose, chicken or beef.

Don’t forget to tip the man. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

You can buy tarry black lozenges flavoured with honey, spruce extract and pitch oil; I bought a can of reindeer meat that came with recipes for reindeer soup and reindeer casserole; and a little jar of spruce sprout syrup. You can eat the spruce tips straight off the tree in the spring when the sprouts are new.

***

On my last night, every muscle in my body is aching after days of walking around 16,000 steps a day. I take the lift downstairs to the restaurant in the foyer of Hotel GLO Kluuvi, called The Tray, and order wine and Lobster on the Beach: a bowl of a magnificently flavourful broth containing a pair of chunky crayfish claws which look as if the shells are still on, but they have been expertly pulled out and are just superb to eat. And right there, in the lobby.

Crayfish claws at The Tray. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

I followed that with Finnish beef cheeks, another speciality, dubbed Cheeky Beef on the menu.

Beef cheeks at The Tray in the GLO Hotel. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

They had been slow-cooked and were delicious alongside the savoy cabbage and draped in a darkly compelling smoked garlic sauce, but the portion of meat was so generous that, very unusually, I could not finish it.

***

It’s Sunday morning at the GLO Hotel Helsinki, and Neil Young is on the tannoy again with his Harvest Moon, as if wishing me well as I prepare to head for the airport and home, up into the sky and just a little closer to that ever watchful moon, leaving behind me worlds of Nordic memories and a heart full of joy and meaning. There is meaning in everything in this extraordinary society they call Finnish.

The moon has followed me here from the Karoo via London and on, over Denmark and Sweden, and now it will guide me home. Over eastern Sweden, passing above Stockholm and on, only four days earlier. Over the Gulf of Bothnia, I had looked down and saw a circular rainbow in the clouds below. I saw two more of them before we descended to land at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. With hindsight, they seemed to me to be silent messages that everything would be alright, that new hurdles behind me and up ahead would be resolved. All of that, the stressful underbelly of this extraordinary eight-day trip, is for my next column, the third and final in this Finland Found trilogy. (Read Finland Found, part 1: Loving Helsinki, city of water, knowledge and light)

Moon over Helsinki; Esplanadi Park in dawn light. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

But my rainbows were with me. Whenever I saw the moon over Helsinki, I marvelled that it is the same moon I stand under in my Karoo, at my braai spot and imagining other eyes far away seeing that same moon. Last week, back home, I stood at my braai, looked up and saw the moon, and imagined other eyes in Esplanadi Park gazing up at that same benign orb before wandering into the Pyynikin Taproom for a glass of fine Finnish beer. I remembered the faces of my little world of Fourth Estate compatriots; Mahabir from Nepal, Jane from Philippines, Margherita from Chile, Esther from Korea (not South, just Korea please; it’s Korea and North Korea, she explained), Cesar from Colombia, Dante from Brazil, Laura from Mexico, David from Nairobi, Wossen from Addis Ababa, and the guiding hands of my Helsinki angels Anu and Rima.

I toasted them all beneath the moon that unites us all. DM/TGIFood

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