Andorra. Photo Hanne Granberg.

The Kaurismäki brothers’ 20-year-old cultural complex Andorra has it all; pool tables and weekend brunches at Corona, movies at Kino, live music at Dubrovnik and a Soviet atmosphere at Kafe Moskova.

Even those who are the first ones to follow the changes in phenomena and culture seem to value the fact that some things never change. At the Corona bar, ROSA LIKSOM’s painting and the MATTI PELLONPÄÄ poster on the wall have witnessed countless after-movie beers, crowds by the corrugated iron bar and games of pool. That’s the way it has been and that’s the way it should be.

Next year the cultural complex Andorra on Eerikinkatu will celebrate its 20th anniversary. The Corona bar opened its doors in 1992 and since then the complex has grown to become an integral part of the city. Kafe Moskova opened a few years after Corona and the movie theater, Kino, and Dubrovnik Lounge & Lobby downstairs have been operating in their current form for some ten years.

Andorra. Photo Hanne Granberg.

Andorra was established by ERKKI LAHTI and KARI PULKKINEN who used to work for Lepakkoluola’s food service. They came up with the idea to set up a bohemian bar and pool hall on a trip to France.

The two men were joined by the Kaurismäki brothers, who are legends of the Finnish film industry, and who have been once again traveling around the world from one international film festival to another – AKI KAURISMÄKI with the highly praised Le Havre and MIKA KAURISMÄKI with the documentary film Mama Africa.

The two brothers were more than happy with Lahti and Pulkkinen’s plan. They had been dreaming of a movie theater connected with a bar themselves.

“Corona doesn’t have a specific profile because it’s a place for everyone. We have hipsters, yuppies, ragged artists, pool players and regular people,” says restaurant manager TONI BROFELDT.

A stagnant concept for lively people

“Often bars and restaurants try to attract customers by constantly changing their image based on the current trends. Our philosophy is different. We change little by little with our customers and with time,” says Mika Kaurismäki.

Kafe Moskova promises on its website to offer its customers “cold beer and freezing service”. Brofeldt assures that in reality the service is friendly – “but you’ll get freezing service if you ask for it”. Otherwise this “last monument to stagnation and BREZHNEV’s era” may fulfill the rude promise: the windows are covered by curtains, the door does not show opening hours and even if you managed to find out that the restaurant opens its doors at six, there’s no guarantee that an employee will be there at that time.

Andorra. Photo Hanne Granberg.

Kafe Moskova is at the same time an unapologetic, simple lounge and a popular tourist destination where travel agencies and airline magazines guide their customers. However, according to Brofeldt, Russians don’t frequent Moskova – the red plush furniture, Soviet time jukebox, samovar and Cheburashka doll are probably not to their liking.

Toasted sandwiches and thick mettwurst slices – if you’re lucky

During the busiest times, there is something going on downstairs almost every night from Tuesday to Saturday. It’s used as a venue for all kinds of private events from weddings to funerals. Public events include film festivals and clubs also.

Events at Kino and Dubrovnik can also include use of the catering service. Most customers order their food from Andorra’s lists, but Brofeldt says that you can order for example sushi if that’s what you feel like.

Kafe Moskova serves small Russian dishes, such as dark bread, salami and pelmeni. The drink list is full of Eastern European drinks from Saku and Baltika beers to Hungarian sparkling wine and herbal liqueurs.

On weekends, Corona serves a late breakfast – a relatively cheap option among the city’s trendy brunches. During the week people can fill their stomachs with popular toasted sandwiches.

“Sometimes people ask for salads, but I’m not sure this is the right environment for salads… If you could choose a salad or two sandwiches for eight euros, most people would take the sandwiches to go with their beer,” Brofeldt says.

Mika Kaurismäki says that the quality of Corona’s sandwiches is important to them. “It’s also important that if you do sometimes go to Moskova for something to eat that the mettwurst and cheese slices are thick enough. If you’re lucky you may even be able to get zakuska – unless the kitchen appliances are broken.”

The film brothers’ living room

The Kaurismäki brothers are actively involved with Andorra’s operations and love to spend time there whenever they are in Finland. “When I come to Helsinki, I always head to Corona first. It’s my second living room and sometimes an office too. I often have work meetings there,” Mika Kaurismäki explains.

“We took part in creating the setting – sometimes in overalls with a hammer or a paint brush in our hands. The decor is a mixture of personal influences from all over the world and different parts of our lives. That’s why the place feels both personal and universal.” †

Eerikinkatu 11, 00100 Helsinki. www.andorra.fi

Text Sirje Niitepõld  Photos Hanne Granberg

Photo Hanne Granberg.

Just spending a moment in an allotment garden makes your imagination run wild. The cottages are highly sought-after, but everyone is invited to walk around in the green oases or enjoy the public saunas.

An allotment garden is a festival of flowers. Miss peony and miss harebell curtsy and welcome the visitor. The army of Timothy-grass and clovers protects the gardens from the intrusive weeds. On a summer’s day, the atmosphere is like a page out of ELSA BESKOV’s story Flower Festival in the Hill.

Under the lemon yellow sun, AULIKKI RITARI slips through a gate surrounded by hawthorn hedge with a box of ice cream and sits down in the shade of a lilac. She’s about to enjoy a cup of coffee with her neighbors HETA and TUIJA KUCHKA, ANNE RUNSAS and AIJA VAINIO in the Pakila allotment garden.

Social life

Aulikki Ritari has owned her cottage for ten years and instead of gardening, she has concentrated her energy on having parties. Her greenhouse has been decorated with lights and the guests can choose a hat from her collection. There surely are plenty of guests. Neighbors are close in an allotment garden and one should be prepared to socialize.

Photo Hanne Granberg.

These friends take it as an extra benefit and often cook together. The neighbors are also invited over on baking days.

“We’re always partying,” Ritari says with a serious look on her face and everybody bursts into laughter.

“If you want a cottage here, you should be aware that the cottages are very close to each other and that this is not a temple of peace.” According to the group of neighbors, other disadvantages are snails, pompous nags, the difficulty of going back home, weeds and the nuisance of constant watering.

The risks of idleness

When the allotment gardens were established at the beginning of the 1900s, the purpose was to provide salvation to unhealthy workers who lived in miserable conditions. The gardens offered fresh air and nourishment as well as reduced the risks related to idleness.

Today, the cottages are oases of luxurious relaxation, where the dangers are present just as much as in the city. Anyone is free to enjoy the garden atmosphere, even if they don’t own a plot of land there. All the gardens are owned by the city and they are open for anyone to walk in and look around. However, don’t intrude into private property without permission.

There are also public saunas in the allotment gardens. The sauna in the Marjaniemi garden is open twice a week. The warmth of the sauna attracts people especially from the nearby areas. LEO PUSA, chairman of the sauna committee, says that the large sauna has plenty of space for outside visitors as well.

The Oulunkylä and Tali gardens also have open saunas. In Tali you can enjoy a game of tennis before heading to the sauna as there is a tennis court available for anyone to rent.

A sought-after hobby

As local travel and a natural lifestyle are becoming more popular, the interest in allotment garden cottages has also increased. In the springtime, the notice-board is full of messages from people wanting to buy a cottage and the prices go up every year.

LULU NENONEN, a board member of the Tali allotment garden association, advises people to pay attention to their messages.

Photo Hanne Granberg.

“This spring, three cottages got new owners. It may be that older people don’t have the energy to come here anymore. The owner has to be a Helsinki resident, so you have to give up the cottage if you move elsewhere.”

Young couples especially wish to dig around in a garden.

“Urban farming is the in thing to do at the moment. What some people don’t realize is that gardening requires a lot of time. You have to go to the cottage regularly and cannot go away for a long time during the summer,” Heta Kuchka says.

The city is trying to meet the growing demand by planning new allotment gardens. The plan includes creating new gardens in different parts of the city, such as Siltamäki and Mellunmäki. The aim is also to extend the Pakila allotment garden. The drawings are still on the city planning department’s table and it will take years before the cottages are ready. There are also plans to build allotment gardens in Espoo where there is currently only one.

One more seed

Let’s go back to the shade of the lilac. The melted ice cream has gone and stories have been told. Now the women are wondering what the most beautiful moment in the garden is.

“Rain and thunder are amazing. And spring mornings when you wake up in the attic and smell the lilacs,” Heta Kuchka says.

Photo Hanne Granberg.

“Or when the moon rises from behind the forest,” Aija Vainio suggests.

“Warm August nights are fantastic,” Aulikki Ritari says.

After the crops have been harvested in the fall, it’s time to move back to the city. People stop spending their nights at the cottages around September and October.

“At some point you almost begin to yearn for the time when you get to go back home. There is so much to do here, so it’s a bit of relief to go back home,” says Anne Runsas who spends the entire summer at her cottage.

In the wintertime when the gardens are covered in snow, gardeners go there with their skis or trudging along the paths formed in the snow.

When the days get longer again, the waiting begins. The friends meet in the city, browse through gardening books and visit gardening events.

“Every year I decide that I won’t buy more seeds. All the beds are already full,” Runsas says.

However, some new seeds have to been given an opportunity to push their slender stem through the soil. It is so wonderful to follow the growth of the young flower girls. †

www.siirtolapuutarhaliitto.fi

—

It’s sauna time!

Oulunkylä

Wednesdays men 17–19, women 19–21. Saturdays men 16–18, women 18–20.

Sauna fee 3 €.

www.siirtolapuutarhat.net/oulunkyla

Tali

Sauna fee 5 €.

www.siirtolapuutarhat.net/tali

Marjaniemi

Saturdays 1.5.–24.9. Men 14–16, Women 17–19.30.

Wednesdays 24.6.–31.8.  Women 16–18, Men 19–21.

Sauna fee 4 €.

www.siirtolapuutarhat.net/marjaniemi

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Text Ida Kukkapuro  Photos Hanne Granberg

Ville Relander. Photo Sanna Lehto.

Organic food for kids, farming in the city, great parties, pop-up restaurants and new food stores. Food strategy of the City of Helsinki seems to be all that is up-to-date in food.

Morning coffee on a roof terrace in the shade of box plants and fruit trees, lunch by the fire near the seaside and a meal of freshly caught fish cooked on the fire. An afternoon reading a good book at a second-hand book store and café, browsing through interesting books and sipping tea.

Tukkutori. Kuva Sanna Lehto.

VILLE RELANDER, the project manager for the Helsinki food culture strategy, gives the thumbs up to my dream restaurants and cafés. He cannot do wonders alone, but he listens carefully and conveys my message to the officials.

The development program for the city’s food culture was created and published last year. The project manger began his work in March.

“I was positively surprised to find out how well people know what is going on in the world,” Relander says.

The development program was created by a group of eleven employees of the city. While making the program, the group consulted experts, such as EEROPEKKA RISLAKKI from Eat&Joy and HANS VÄLIMÄKI from Chez Dominique.

Relander is running an extensive project, which includes encouraging the city as well as entrepreneurs to be creative, meeting operators, decision-makers and heads of agencies as well as serving as a food specialist for the World Design Capital project.

Apples and cookies

When Relander was young, he loved school food. He also did his bit for the cause.

“In the fall I brought apples to the school and at Christmas time I baked cookies for the other children,” he says.

However, hotel and restaurant studies were not an obvious choice. Relander pondered whether to choose journalism, economics or drama school.

“In my work, I have combined elements from all these fields. Running a restaurant is kind of like being in a theater and business sense also comes in handy.”

For years Relander worked in St. Petersburg where he set up restaurants in Sokos hotels. In addition to restaurants, he is also familiar with the world of trading.

“In St. Petersburg I began to think differently. I wanted to do something that matches my values. After coming back to Finland, I felt that there is a need for change in the grocery store world,” he says.

Relander considered setting up his own store specialized in local and organic food. However, after running into the Porvoo-based Anton&Anton grocery store, he became a minor partner and opened an Anton&Anton store in Töölö, Helsinki.

Organic food for children

The city’s food strategy aims to emphasize the Finnish food culture, but also to replace half of the food served in day care centers with organic food by 2015. The transition to organic food will happen gradually. This year they will begin to use organic grain and next year organic milk.

Ville Relander. Photo Sanna Lehto.

“There was a big school food reform in Rome, starting from organic vegetables. You have to start somewhere.”

Another aim is to make it easier for people to grow food for themselves.

“Urban farming is an increasing trend. People have to wait to get a plot of land, even though everyone should be given a patch. Hopefully there will be some cool solutions in the new Kalasatama and Jätkäsaari neighborhoods,” Relander says.

While making the city better for the residents, the city also tries to attract travelers. In June, Helsinki food expertise will be displayed in Berlin at the DMY Design Festival.

“The city will host the design dinner at the closing ceremony. One of the ideas is to have fires there. It will be great,” Relander says excitedly.

A foretaste of things to come was the hit of the London Design Festival, the HEL YES! restaurant that was opened in January in an industrial building at the Wholesale Market.  Relander promises that there will be more pop up restaurants in 2012.

Groceries from a market

At the moment the Wholesale Market mainly serves food industry professionals, but the city of Helsinki is planning to open it up to the public. The Helsinki Wholesale Market in Hermanni accommodates vegetable, fish and meat wholesale businesses. The first services intended for the public will open next year.

The plan includes restaurants, a marketplace, a teaching kitchen as well as stores. In the future, the Wholesale Market is supposed to be a good food center and serve the residents of Kalasatama and other neighborhoods.

“It would be great to have something new and experimental there. A group of architecture students made a good suggestion regarding the use of the Wholesale Market. I hope that we can cooperate with the students when planning and implementing the project,” Relander says.

Jungle of licenses

Selling food is not so simple in our hygienic and strictly controlled city. Relander promises to do everything he can to make entrepreneurship easier. Finland has reached a good level of safety.

“Perhaps the legislation is outdated. The city is, after all, for the residents and entrepreneurs. Food is safe in Finland. Now we have to invest in quality.”

Relander gets excited when he hears about the restaurant day planned by the citizens. The idea is to have unlicensed restaurants all over the city on one day in May.

“It would be great if the city got involved in the project. For example, if Palmia took part in it. But it cannot be anything illegal, of course,” he says.

Apparently the city’s food strategy which could be seen as a stiff government officials’ project has found both a face and listening ears in the form of Ville Relander. †

Text Ida Kukkapuro Photos Sanna Lehto

Photo Kaarle Hurtig.

It’s agonizing to offer fresh ideas to a debate that is in ferment. The problem with food and other Important Debates is the fact that the debates become boring before you find clear answers to them. There were already immigration debates last year. There were veils in Paris and cars burnt in Gothenburg. Or was it in Malmö? It’s difficult to get excited again in front of the Romanian beggars. Food talk also seems so, um… old.

This week’s media flood, however, has been quite active in the food department, that’s for sure. Yle tells that one fifth of Finnish women are vegetarians. The Evita magazine explains how our system cannot really digest food after 9.30 pm. A friend says on Facebook that oysters are becoming extinct. The Kirkko & Kaupunki paper welcomes Easter by talking about the Bread of Life. There is an entire Seinfeld episode based on the high content of tryptophan in turkey, making people sleepy.

At the same time by a lake, in Grandma and Grandpa’s house, the radio, television and newspapers seem secondary. It’s more important to be by the lake and ponder things alone. Meals are served every two hours, which means that you cannot escape food talk. It also means an inevitable stomachache.

Photo Kaarle Hurtig.

Our grandparents live in their own peaceful eco-idyll where they have gotten stuck without a bigger dream of an eco-idyll. A new garden is already being organized for the summer. It’s almost like an urban patch, just by a lake. We would like to grow chard in the garden, just like in Kalasatama, but Grandma is not sure how it grows.

In the city, people make a fuss about propellants, rain forests, pesticides and carbon emissions, depending on what the hot topic of the decade is. The people by the lake may or may not listen. The debate topics in the studios change, but the calm and firm hands keep putting the dried milk cartons in the fireplace as always. They wash and pile up yogurt cups, leave plastic bags in the store, pick strawberries from the local patches and buy mushrooms when it’s the right time to do so. The Kolava landfill is a real place and not an imaginary bottomless void where you can dump yesterday’s worries. It’s a place where only three plastic bags a year are taken because there are other places for the other things. (Besides, the waste service offered by the city is so expensive.)

Photo Kaarle Hurtig.

The world isn’t such of a concern, but wastefulness is. The attic is insulated for the winter and lights are switched off. Not because the CO2 levels could get out of hand or because Russia is making the availability of energy unstable, but because “every penny counts”. The kitchen fireplace is filled with buttermilk cartons and wood from the yard’s trees. Bats are chased in the attic with a Ghostbusters-style trap made from an old fishing rod and butterfly net. Everyday life is combining and a continuum that cannot be made easier with money.

Stinginess is also present at the dinner table. The amount of food made is just enough to fill your stomach or another option is to make the grandchildren, who you call skinny as a toothpick, have seconds. The leftovers come back for an encore in the Weekly Review. A rhythm of life that has become regular over the decades provides different kinds of opportunities to plan your consumption, unlike the food talk city. The amount of tryptophan in turkey no longer seems like a relevant piece of information.

The carbon footprint by the lake is exemplary small. The debate over the strain on the environment is not unfamiliar to Grandma and Grandpa, but they only accept clear and rational advice, not the tryptophan talk. The rationality is assessed on a factual basis without paying too much attention to the speaker’s background. The information is not received with uncontrollable fuss, but slowly refining and rationalizing. Functional food products become part of the Weekly Plan if the doctor says so.

If you’re not by a lake, you may not always have the time or possibility to pay that much attention to your consumption. It’s often easier to pick a warning from Seinfeld, a quick tip from Evita or someone’s opinion on Facebook. Modern behavioral studies illustrate how people want to do what other people like them are doing. An example from one’s peers affects one’s responsible choices more than an encyclopedia. Fussing spreads like the plague when we look for answers from others who are lost. The best recommendations, however, probably come from time and stopping. More coffee? Then we can worry about how to make the compost container frost-free. †

Text Antti Vassinen and Simo Vassinen Photos Kaarle Hurtig

Simo Vassinen is a researcher at the think tank Demos Helsinki and his brother Antti Vassinen a researcher at the Aalto University School of Economics.

Chef & Sommelier. Photo Anna Kiuru.

A restaurant of your own is like a child: it takes lots of love and care, say Chef & Sommerlier’s SASU LAUKKONEN and JOHAN BORGAR.

The restaurant door is open. The smell of coffee urges you to step in and sit down. Sommelier Johan Borgar brings some mocha and cookies to the table, and before long, chef Sasu Laukkonen joins us.

There are no tablecloths, but HANNA KORVELA has designed woven tablets to silence the clatter of dishware. The cutlery is nonchalantly displayed in a wooden box. The word du jour seems to be casual – and organic.

Chef & Sommelier set up shop last October after Borgar and Laukkonen noticed that there were no organic fine dining restaurants in all of Finland. The restaurant is located in the same premises in Eira that Chez Dominique started out from, and that later played host to La Petite Maison. Laukkonen and Borgar met while working at the latter, and soon the idea of every chef’s dream, a restaurant of their own, was born.

Chef & Sommelier. Kuva Anna Kiuru.

”The premises and their location are the most important things for a restaurant, and this place was on the top of our wish list. We’re very happy,” Borgar says.

Between bistro and fine dining

After the fine dining wave at the start of the new millennium, many bistros arrived to soften the restaurant field. Chef & Sommelier tries to walk the line between these two ideologies.

”We just make food and serve it with wine,” Borgar simplifies.

”Food and wine can’t be too expensive. We want to avoid the image of an over-priced place, and maybe woo some new customers as well. We’ve been getting a lot of couples in their twenties coming in, which says something about the restaurant,” the duo ponders.

Both Laukkonen and Borgar are self-taught. Neither had a great master to create a shadow on their path.

”It’s really liberating to be and to do things when you don’t have to think about who’s best. We can do whatever we want together. That’s much more important than to have a bunch of boys fighting at the playground,” the guys enthuse.

From steak and wine to purely organic

In the restaurant business, days can be long: ”A working day can easily be 14 to 18 hours. The tough thing is that you don’t have much time to cook at home,” laments Laukkonen, who has a one-year-old daughter.

He accidentally drops a glass that shatters with a bang.

”Good luck,” says Borgar. ”No biggie, I’m still up 6–1 this week.”

Chef & Sommelier. Photo Anna Kiuru.

Seating 20, the restaurant has been full on many a night. The night before our interview, there was a loud group of suits in one table, a young couple in love in the next one, and a family of three generations next to them. The rest of the tables seated some foreign collaborators and a farmer.

”It’s awesome when you can take the prejudice of the ’steak and red wine’ type guys and turn it completely around,” Laukkonen recounts.

Ah, prejudice. Organic food is a hot potato that divides people’s opinions. If you wanted to exaggerate, you could say that the old and new generation are in a tug-of-war about the matter.

Chef & Sommelier tries to shy away from the ethics debate, because some customers might not appreciate extraneous argumentation.

”Organic food to us is more about quality,” Laukkonen states.

90% of the food on offer is organic, which makes Chef & Sommelier the most organic restaurant in Finland. The produce is ordered from local and organic farms all over Finland. The meats and roots are Finnish organic produce; the mushrooms, fish and berries come from the wild. Arugula, olives and lemons may be trickier to find. The menu is changed at will as well as seasonally.

”Making organic food is easy, because you don’t have to cover up tastes. Everything tastes pure. However, you have to be able to trust your professional skill and vision – the thing that you want to do and how it’s done.”

The right taste at the right time

Beetroots have been toasting on a bed of sea salt in the oven through the night. Although the beets resemble moon rocks, the insides have transformed: the appearance is gel-like and perspiring, the taste soft and soothing.

Goat cheese from Sodankylä, in the north of Finland, goes together with the beets ridiculously well. Handpicked wood-sorrels bring a fourth dimension to the flavor mix. Simple and cosmic.

Chef & Sommelier aren’t afraid to try out new things. At the same time they use ingredients that other would throw away. Leek leaves burnt to a crisp in the oven not only add to the aesthetic, but also fill your gums with a dark, carcinogenic taste. However, as I noticed, you have to be careful about how much of it you use. For a great snack, you can deep-fry parsnip skins seasoned with unrefined sea salt.

”Delicateness is the key to everything. A Michelin inspector told me that the best thing he had ever tasted was a piece of mango in Japan. If he had eaten it an hour earlier or later, the taste wouldn’t have been perfect. Time is at its best when you can linger in it,” Laukkonen says, visibly moved. He sums up everything into an episode from earlier that morning.

”My little daughter put her winter clothes on voluntarily and said the word ’vetoketju’ (’zipper’) to me for the first time.”

The importance of lingering in the moment. †

Huvilakatu 25, 00150 Helsinki. www.chefetsommelier.fi

Text Juhana Hurula  Photos Anna Kiuru

Photo Juuso Noronkoski.

Nima Ehsani, the owner of Café Caneli, quit bartending for coffee, tea and superfoods.

Once you walk past the sex shops on Iso Roobertinkatu, there’s a faint scent of coffee in the air. A stylized sign on the tiny premises says Caneli. Some fashion-sensitive clients are sipping their colorful beverages in the small but cosy café. The soundtrack of Swedish The Knife’s electro tunes is broken by the sound of a blender.

Behind the counter, a warm ”welcome” rings out in English.

Caneli’s owner, 29-year-old NIMA EHSANI makes me a smoothie with acai berries, lemon, lingonberries and blueberries. Soft and sweet. I can feel my karma points increasing.

The benefit of a small café and no rush is that the owner can deliver quality and service. Every smoothie and cup of coffee has been tailor-made starting from weighing coffee beans, and the owner has time to chat with every customer.

Son of a nurse and a businessman, Nima Ehsani hails from Teheran, Iran. Ehsani was raised with healthy food ideals, and in 1999 he moved to Lappeenranta to study engineering. He graduated seven years later in Helsinki majoring in media design, and is now working on his Master’s thesis on service design.

Nima Ehsani. Photo Juuso Noronkoski.

Ehsani worked in bars for years, until he got tired of getting people drunk. He decided that he wanted to offer his clients healthy drinks instead. He has lost 13 kilograms himself since starting her own business, and entrepreneurship isn’t to blame.

”The body is a temple,” he says. ”Is food to you a fuel or an enjoyment of life? Do you eat so you can walk, or so that you can sit down in good company and let the hours melt away? Food is supposed to do us good.”

A drink for every mood

Ehsani wanted to open her café on Iso Roobertinkatu. He found a spot at the far end, where there isn’t as much action as on the pedestrian street. ”’Roba’ has many restaurants, but there’s never been a café here,” he rationalizes.

He hopes that Caneli will become a meeting point where people can see each other over drinks, plan their next move – and move along. ”When you wake up, you can come here whether you’re wearing jogging pants or having the worst hangover. We don’t sell alcohol at all.”

Nima Ehsani. Photo Juuso Noronkoski.

He doesn’t want the café to become a hectic place that serves its clientele as fast as possible. Suits with a craving for a quick caffeine fix and no time to wait for it aren’t welcome. You have to accept the fact that here quality trumps speed.

”90% of people want quantity, not quality. 90% or bar workers want money, and only 10% think of service,” Ehsani states.

In Caneli, the beverages are customized according to individual customers’ tastes. When a regular customer comes in with teary eyes having the worst day of the year, Ehsani tweaks their favorite chocolate smoothie with an anti-depressant such as the trendiest ingredient right now, raw chocolate. It’s said to help with every imaginable problem. The recipe of the chocolate smoothie has also been constantly evolving since the customer’s first visit.

Superfoods for home cooking

Although Caneli has been around for only a couple of months, it has already received a lot of media attention. Bloggers have in unison praised the new café and smoothie bar, but the most notable of all is a mention in The Financial Times, encouraging Helsinki-goers to stop by for sour milk.

For his smoothies, Ehsani keeps an assortment of a couple of dozen different berries and fruits to pick ingredients from. The smoothie list includes around 50 different flavors. Tea choices add up to around 50 as well, while coffees top off at around two dozen.

In addition to beverages, Caneli sells ingredients for home cooking. You can make your own smoothies with a wide range of ingredients including goji and acai berries, lucuma powder, spirulina, pink salt and almost any superfood you can imagine. Everything is organic, some are fair trade, and some are direct trade. Ehsani’s pride and joy is her selection of teas and coffees, which includes the world’s most expensive coffee (Kopi Lowak, 25 €/100 g). It’s made of cat shit, or rather coffee beans that have traveled through the digestive system of a cat.

Mmmmm. †

Iso Roobertinkatu 46 C, Helsinki. www.caneli.fi

Text Juhana Hurula Photos Juuso Noronkoski

Illustration Klaus Haapaniemi.

In London’s temporary restaurant Hel Yes! you can enjoy traditional Finnish food from a recycled plate beneath trembling aspens.

Pop-up restaurants, diners appearing for a brief moment in surprising places, are one of the hottest recent trends in the food world. This fall Londoners can experience a totally new type of pop-up restaurant thanks to a team of Finns. Hel Yes! is part of London Design Festival, and for a fortnight it will offer not only culinary treats but also top design – and something totally new springing from the union of design and food in completely new circumstances.

“Hel Yes! is a visually strong venture combining hospitability and mystique, blending new and old,” describes HANNA HARRIS, the programme director for arts and culture at the Finnish Institute in London.

The project started from Harris’ discussions with chef ANTTO MELASNIEMI, known for his restaurants Kuurna and Ateljé Finne.

“London is one of the capitals of design, and it’s important that things presented here have a strong new idea or social aspect. At the Institute, we thought about a venture that would let us combine different aspects of design in a way that would work in London. Antto, the conceptual lead and restauranter, had previously visioned pop-up restaurants focusing heavily on design,” Harris says.

Photo Adam Laycock.

Recycling stories

Melasniemi used to work in the esteemed gastropub Cat & Mutton, so he knows London well. He managed to recruit two other Finnish Londoners, graphic designer MIA WALLENIUS and illustrator KLAUS HAAPANIEMI, into the creative group.

The rest of the group is made up of respected professionals. LINDA BERGROTH will handle the interior design, HEIKKI SALONEN is in charge of the waiters’ clothing, HARRI KOSKINEN will design the lighting and glasses and MARIA DUNCKER will create video art.

Recycling is very much present in the Hel Yes! concept. The restaurant’s tent-like tables have been made from trembling aspens that Bergroth salvaged from being chopped up in Fiskars. The plates have been donated in an event in which people could give away their old Arabia and Iittala diningware in exchange for dinner. Many of the dishes came with a story from their previous owners.

The seating choice for the restaurant is ALVAR AALTO’s lesser-known classic 403, which will get a new pattern especially for Hel Yes!. Hanna Harris sees a nice parallel in the chair selection, especially regarding the restaurant’s location.

“Artek, who manufactured the chair, are celebrating their 75th anniversary, and one of their first ever presentations was held in London’s Fortnum & Mason department store.”

Menu stemming from a whole

British journalists got a taste of Hel Yes! earlier this year when they were flown into Finland to take a closer look at the project.

Photo Adam Laycock.

“We took a group of reporters for a cup of coffee at the Hakaniemi marketplace, and then to the market hall to buy groceries. As we walked past a slope, one of the reporters noticed some nettles and pulled Antto’s sleeve. Soon they were collecting recently sprung nettles together, and we got to eat them as a part of the meal Antto prepared that same night,” Harris recalls.

Of the restaurant’s ingredients, game, mushrooms and berries will be imported from Finland. Melasniemi reveals that he has researched traditional Finnish foods for Hel Yes!. However, the actual menu is yet to be finalized.

“For me, a menu in and of itself isn’t an interesting enough starting point for a pop-up restaurant. I’m focusing mainly on mastering the concept. The menu will come naturally along with the planning,” Melasniemi states.

In recent years, Melasniemi has put together several events combining food and design, e.g. for Artek, Nokia and Flow Festival.

“I’m interested in restaurants as a whole, not simply about the food. Design is a key tool in this.”

When the aspen tables and 403 chairs go back into storage after October 3, an experiential project will come to an end. However, the work on Finnish design in London will continue.

“We’re working with design all the time, and the process currently in motion will continue at least until Helsinki’s World Design Capital year 2012,” Harris says.

Hel Yes! might also get a continuation in some form.

“More pop-up restaurants are definitely incoming,” Melasniemi promises. †

Hel Yes! during London Design Festival 16.9.–3.10.2010. www.helyes.fi

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Text Ville Aalto  Illustration Klaus Haapaniemi Photos Adam Laycock

Restaurant Kaartintupa. Photo Kaarle Hurtig.

The new definition of a low-carb diet doesn’t involve counting carbohydrates, but rather carbon dioxide emissions. The idea of climate-friendly food is expanding to include more than just local and organic foods. Helsinki restaurants haven’t taken up a low-emission menu yet, but change is in the air.

Eco-trends don’t always portray the full picture. The debate about whether to buy a plastic or paper bag is easily solved by looking at the final mile: if you pop by the hypermarket in your car, it doesn’t really matter whether you pack your groceries in paper, plastic or fabric – or if you just carry them in your hands. The most important thing is what’s in your shopping bag – or your plate. As a climate-friendly rule of thumb, eat more vegetables and seasonal food – and empty your plate. A full fifth of Finnish emissions comes directly from food, so it makes sense to combine food politics and the climate debate.

Restaurant Kaartintupa. Photo Kaarle Hurtig.

In the restaurant world local food is still a big hit, but local doesn’t always mean climate-friendly. Almost half of all food emissions come from production, but packing and shipping only counts for a seventh of the total amount. Freighter ships can carry food by the ton, and the amount of emissions per mango isn’t much. Compared to that, the green house cucumber from your sympathetic local farm is far more damaging to the climate.

Organic production euthropicates the land less and causes less green house gas emissions, but for example organic poultry production can be more damaging to the environment. Talk about a tough call. The slowdown of the environmental food craze could be caused by the difficulty of exact emissions calculations. However, broad policies can be made. Restaurant giant Fazer Amica, familiar to students and office workers, will try a climate-friendly lunch in the fall. In effect, they will use more local grains, roots, vegetables and berries. Green house vegetables will be used less and rice will be dropped in favor of barley.

The most obvious climate-friendly diet is a low-meat one. Helsinki’s vegetarian restaurant offering isn’t quite vast yet, but lunch times are starting to be hectic at Kasarmitori’s Zucchini and Hakaniemi’s Silvoplee. Finnish ingredients such as root vegetables are held in high regard also at Restaurant Juuri, which opened up a grocery store to compete with market halls for the local food crown.

On the pulse by chance

In Copenhagen, climate-friendly restaurants and other climate change-aware businesses can apply for the city’s climate certificate. The Klima+ network was boosted by the United Nations’ Climate Summit in December, and now has over a hundred members. A climate-friendly restaurant must offer at least one clearly marked climate-friendly menu option. Some take it even further: restaurant Julian has changed their whole way of operation, from kitchen appliances to menu design and logistics. Their location on the top floor of the National Museum has also inspired them to research the history of Danish food, which has also influenced their menu.

Restaurant Kaartintupa. Photo Kaarle Hurtig.

In Helsinki, at least Kasarmikatu’s cafe-restaurant Kaartintupa would be a good pick for a climate certificate. However, this small corner cafe’s ideology was born without an extensive network. The menu includes seasonal delicacies and TAPIO RAUTAVAARA’s music fills the air. A ballroom dance-like atmosphere and climate-friendly food in the same place – how 2010! However, owner PIA SAHANEN doesn’t think of it like that. To her it’s just about good food in a good mood.

“To me this kind of thinking comes naturally. I want simple Finnish flavors instead of mozzarella and olives. I just try to offer the best of what I can get at the time. If you want to call it climate-friendly food, so be it. The market for purely climate-friendly food is still a small one,” Sahanen says.

Think seasonal

The idea behind Kaartintupa is simple, but rare.

“I wanted a mix between a bistro and a coffee shop that serves, for example, nice homemade cakes. I’ve seen too many cakes flown in from the US or Belgium. Some of our cakes may be a bit crooked, but at least they’re made right here,” Sahanen claims proudly.

She doesn’t like intensive food production anyway. The most important thing is to make customers happy. “We try to make our service as personal as possible, and I do different variations on our dishes based on special diets. If you’re a vegan, I can replace your brunch yoghurt with an oat milk smoothie, or whatever I can think of. And so what if something isn’t exactly the same every time, or if our recipes aren’t set in stone,” Sahanen asks somewhat rhetorically.

Her unplanned climate-friendly menu includes lots of vegetables, roots and Finnish fish, and less meat. “We don’t have a strict policy, but we tend to value seasonal quality ingredients and prefer vegetables. I don’t understand why you should eat so much meat. By marinating and roasting roots you don’t need tomatoes or cucumbers, and you shouldn’t eat them during the winter. I have to admit that I’m looking forward to the summer and new ingredients, though.”

Market hall, wholesale and small farms

Sahanen gets her ingredients for lunch soups, Saturday brunches and dinners from various places: the market hall, through friends and also from wholesalers. She says wholesalers now even have a nice supply of smoked vendace and Raikastamo’s organic apple juice. A small operator wants to support other small operators, and not least because authentic flavors are more often found where they are so dearly valued. “Small is so much more personal, and the flavors are right. Thursday’s pea soup is made with actual smoked pork side from a small curehouse instead of some ham roll. Alongside the traditional pancake we serve proper jam from a winery in Elimäki instead of processed jelly,” Sahanen clarifies. Kaartintupa is all about nostalgia. This is evident in the choice of music, the table-serving, the old dinnerware, the small-scale produce on offer as well as flavors familiar to older customers. Climate-friendly dining doesn’t mean you have to travel back in time to the 1950s. As Sahanen points out, it can be “just about good food.”†

Kaartintupa, Kasarmikatu 26, 00130 Helsinki, www.kaartintupa.fi Text Simo Vassinen Photos Kaarle Hurtig

Q-Coop. Photo Hertta Kiiski.

Up for some Kurdish, Ukrainian or Ethiopian food? Bon appetit, enjoy your meal.

What makes cities like New York or Berlin irresistible? It’s often their gastronomic offerings we come to think of – experiences created by food from all over the world. We would like Helsinki to become a melting pot of all kinds of interesting cuisines as well. What is it like opening a restaurant in Helsinki? What needs to be taken into account? How do the keepers of ethnic restaurants see their role in making Helsinki more interesting and enjoyable?

In Helsinki, there are tens of thousands of immigrants who have all brought their memories, habits and delicacies with them. However, for some reason this is barely visible in the cityscape. AHMET ASLAN, the owner of Café Caisa, the only Kurdish restaurant in Helsinki, explains how difficult it is for a foreigner to open a decent eatery in the city. “When I came to Finland in the nineties, I wanted to open an à la carte restaurant serving food from my home country,” Ahmet says. “However, I didn’t have a Finnish education at that point, so I wasn’t able to get a license for serving wine – so, I ended up opening a lunch place first. When I finally received a local diploma, I returned to my original plans and put up a proper Kurdish à la carte restaurant in Kaisaniemi.”

Café Caisa offers oriental homemade food including meze plates and fresh salads. “On the side, I also try to provide the customers with some insights to Kurdish culture,” Ahmet adds. He hopes that the Finnish government would learn from the likes of France and give more support to entrepreneurship within the restaurant industry. “That way, we might soon be known for our rich food culture, too,” he notes.

Food with social aspects

Opening an ethnic kitchen in Helsinki wasn’t easy for half-Israeli, half-Ukrainian ALEXANDER BITSAK, either. Alexander moved to Finland a couple of years ago because he considered the country to be, in his own words, the best place in the world. He found a perfect space on Kustaankatu in Kallio for his Ukrainian pelmeni restaurant but, coming from Israel at the time, was denied entrance to the country by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “So, I left my beautiful space, went to Kiev, and decided to try again,” Alexander explains. “Finally, I returned to Kustaankatu with a Ukrainian passport. After that, I renovated my restaurant and tried to make it special for customers and Finnish friends alike.”

Alexander used to have a pizza place in Israel, but didn’t want to start one in Finland, as he believes we have enough pizza already. “As a matter of fact, in addition to Ukrainian food like pelmenis and soups, my menu consists of traditional Finnish delicacies such as Karelian roast (karjalanpaisti) and Finnish fish pasty (kalakukko). You really feel at home at Alexander’s restaurant Pelmenit – and not just because of the familiar food. “The customers don’t come here only to eat, but rather to meet me,” Alexander says. “I ask how they are, how their family and health is.”

Like Alexander, Ahmet and us, MARINA LINDSTRÖM from the multicultural co-operative Q-Coop also thinks that Helsinki needs more ethnic kitchens. That’s why she’s planning to open a big restaurant and central kitchen in Kalasatama, a harbour area opened up to residential construction only a few years ago. Her idea is to bring together people and cuisines from all over the world (e.g. West African, Iranian, Ethiopian, Indian and Kurdish) under the same roof to organise lunches, dinners and events as well as to prepare food to be sold in smaller kiosks around the city.

The Finnish-born Marina is working together with two Nigerian women, ESTHER ADEMOSU and FLORENCE AWOYEMI. Together the three used to run the Yoruban Kimito Kitchen in Sörnäinen. Just like many old harbour areas worldwide, food might help bring interesting people and activities also to Kalasatama. But Marina isn’t really interested in city planning in its traditional sense. She’s more into helping immigrants integrate and making Helsinki’s food culture – and with it, the whole atmosphere of the city – more international and open. After all, it’s the cultural aspects that make a true city. †

Text Anni Puolakka & Jenna Sutela / OK Do Photo Hertta Kiiski

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OK Do is a creative think-and-do tank tackling emerging questions at the intersection of design, art and science.

Veen Waters.

Water from Lapland is tingling the taste buds of waterholics both in Helsinki and around the world. Veen water, sold in a trendy designer glass bottle, got its name from the Mother of the Water in the Finnish national epic Kalevala.

Water bars are becoming more common around the world, and the consumption of bottled water is growing. For some people, bottled water is the only way to drink water, for others it’s just a way to appear trendy. However, a microscopic portion of the seven billion people on Earth wash themselves and flush their toilets with the same water for which some people pay a pretty penny bottled. Among these people are the villagers of Ylitornio’s Aavasaksa who are lucky enough to have Veen water running in their plumbing.

Veen is simply following the lead of Evian, Perrier and Voss. One can only wonder when MADONNA will be seen jogging holding a bottle of Veen water, instantaneously blowing demand through the roof. Granted, Veen isn’t doing half bad as it is. It was originally designed for hotels and restaurants, and made for drinking at the counter of a trendy bar. Not bad at all for an idea conceived in a sauna by a group of army friends.

Veen Waters.

Common threads

Veen’s ideology comes from the mystic Finnish national epic Kalevala. It’s named after the Mother of the Water (Veen Emonen). However, the glass bottle design doesn’t fully conform to Kalevala’s standards. The modern simplicity of the bottle has been awarded the Good Design Award in 2007 and the Red Dot Design Award in 2009.

“Style and fashion are an integral part of Veen and its joint ventures,” states Veen Waters CEO TOMI GRÖNFORS. “From early on, we were heavily involved with a fashion house called Qasimi. Although we come from completely different backgrounds with KHALID AL QASIMI, who was born in the Middle East, we’ve been able to share ideas from the very beginning. Future collaboration has been a given. Even right now Veen is in Paris with Qasimi,” Grönfors says.

Unity is power, and Veen has made its way to the big leagues. Last year Veen was invited to the 25th birthday party for luxury group LMVH’s cosmetics brand Make Up For Ever. “Both parties found the collaboration interesting. Who knows what will happen in the future.”

“Collaboration and partners are always important to us. After all, we’ve worked together with [metal group] Nightwish and [Finnish] artist KAJ STENVALL. Veen has been fortunate to find opportunities for co-operation with similar-minded parties. We’ve managed to fulfill common values through working together.”

Turning wine into water

Veen Waters.

US water specialist MICHAEL MASCHA has said that water is the new wine. Tomi Grönfors is somewhat sceptical of water bars taking off in Finland. “At least in the near future it’s more likely that we’ll see Finnish restaurants and wine bars expanding their selection of water. Water is an important part of the restaurant experience, and in that sense the juxtaposition of water with alcohol isn’t necessarily the best idea for the end consumer.”

You don’t have to go all the way to Lapland’s Aavasaksa to enjoy this luxury water. “Veen is available in many Helsinki restaurants. Some of the most interesting ones at the moment are Postres, run by young chefs, Luomo, which was recently opened, and Sea Horse, which has become somewhat of a classic,” Grönfors lists.

Good luck aplenty

Water is undoubtedly water, but how do you brand tap water from Lapland? “I don’t know if we’ve done much to brand our water as luxurious. I just hope we’ve managed to make clean Finnish spring water into an inspiring product called Veen,” Grönfors shrugs and smiles.

At least the company’s attitude is on point: you can’t win if you don’t try. “We’ve had lots of ideas, tried many things, done foot work, and faced a whole lot of failures. When you do a lot of things, you’re bound to do something right,” Grönfors reasons. “We’ve been very lucky to have received such a warm welcome.”

Grönfors doesn’t admit to being a waterholic. He seems more like a moderate user, although he confesses that he does take water quite seriously. “You always have to maintain a healthy balance and tolerance in life,” he says. “In other words, we are firm proponents of building a full restaurant experience instead of just preaching the gospel of water. It’s the sum of the parts that matter.”

Ps. Next time you’re at the bar, in the spirit of Kalevala, don’t forget to ask Veen for good fishing luck and nice weather. †

www.veenwaters.com

Text Petteri Kainulainen