My first restaurant review

There’s an old saying that if you  have a good experience you tell 1 person and 5 people if it’s a bad experience. Well I thought I should do a little research and it turns out that these numbers aren’t so exact. Rule of thumb seems to be that you’ll pass on the good news to one or two people and anything from 5 – 10 will hear about the bad experience.

Well, I’m here to turn that around. I had a great experience at Ravintola Motti earlier this week. The head chef I’ve known for the past 6 years (his daughter and Mr. 12 have been classmates during that time) and he’s also known from TV appearances. Before that, Risto has been a great  contributor to our class events! Guaranteed, if we arrange for everyone to bring a plate, his plates are always empty first. For a little taste of Risto, you can find his blog (in Finnish) here.

So, my colleague K and I had a girls night out. Well, not really. We spent the whole night talking. I was home by 22:00 (10 pm). (Come on!  it was a school night).

The food was sublime. Swede Cappuccino with this fantastic fennel foam. Potato macaroni and a white current dipping sauce. Crab ice-cream for K and a reindeer roulade for me. Melt in the mouth stuff. Beetroot and chévre mini tartlets. Beetroot is one of my favourite vegetables and I will eat it whenever it’s on the menu. Tarte Tatin for dessert, with creamiest apple ice-cream I’ve ever tasted. This is Finnish food at it’s best. Silvio Berlusconi  and Jacques Chirac were mistaken. Badly.

The table setting was simple, classic crockery and glassware. The bathrooms are really cool without being ‘too cool’. The service was attentive, the wine was paired very well and I’m sure I know the head waitress from somewhere. Two days later and I’m none the wiser. It will come to me eventually.

I like open kitchens.  Even though it was a quiet night, the kitchen noises weren’t loud or disturbing during service and we could go to say thank you and farewell to Risto and his team.

One of my favourite finnish words is suosittelen or I recommend. Absolutely I recommend! As Molly Meldrum was in the habit of saying: ‘do yourself a favour’ and check this place out. One day when I’m free in the middle of the day I’m going to check out the lunch offering.

PS: Remember my two little words post from earlier in the week. Well, Ravintola Motti will get one of my cards too!