Olo

Olo is a Nordic tasting-menu restaurant on Pohjoisesplanadi in Helsinki, in a 19th-century townhouse facing the Market Square. Its cooking puts a modern turn on Finnish and Scandinavian produce.

Four partners, Pekka Terävä, Petri Lukkarinen, Mikko Heinonen and Teuvo Salminen, founded Olo in 2006. It first worked on Kasarminkatu and later moved to the peach-colored townhouse near the Market Square. The Finnish society of gastronomes named it restaurant of the year, and in 2011 the Michelin Guide gave it a star, which it has kept since. The founders' company, Olo Collection, has grown into a group that also runs Emo, Ego, Brasa and the wine bar Banco Vini.

Head chef Tuomas Vierelä, who was chef de cuisine before he took over the kitchen, leads the menu together with restaurateur Katja Henttunen. Ingredients come from across the Nordic countries, with some flavors from further away. A long tasting menu has opened with king crab and trout roe on a steamed custard flavored with miso, next to fermented asparagus. Later courses have included umami salmon with salted cucumber and a broth seasoned with dill flower, monkfish with vendace roe and Mangalica pork belly, and sweetbreads of reindeer calf with winter truffle and salted lingonberries.

Bread is treated as a course of its own: a sourdough loaf with salted butter, to which caviar can be added. Another dish pairs a Japanese egg custard with trout roe and a dashi made from smoked reindeer heart. Desserts lean on Finnish wild plants, such as pineapple weed with bergamot, and an ice cream of sunchoke with coffee and miso caramel. A shorter menu runs beside the full one, with wine or house-made soft drinks to match.