From the Kitchen
Stories, techniques & discoveries
Traditional Japanese dashi relies on kombu and katsuobushi. But what happens when you replace those foundations with Finnish dried mushrooms, birch sap, and smoked fish? We've spent three years perfecting our Nordic dashi — a broth that bridges two worlds without belonging entirely to either. In this post, Chef Virtanen walks through the philosophy, the ingredients, and the technique behind the broth that defines half our menu.
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Every Tuesday morning from May to October, our team heads into the forests around Nuuksio to forage. Wild garlic, wood sorrel, chanterelles, cloudberries, juniper berries, and dozens of other ingredients that never see a wholesale catalogue. This post documents a midsummer foraging trip, what we found, and how each ingredient made it onto the plate that same evening.
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When I arrived in Helsinki in 2018, I assumed sake would feel foreign here. I was wrong. The clean, mineral flavours of premium Junmai Daiginjo are a natural match for Finnish salmon, arctic char, and root vegetables. In this guide, I share my five favourite sake-and-Finnish-food pairings, explain what to look for on a sake label, and make the case for why every Nordic kitchen should have a bottle in the fridge.
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