On our trip to the land of a thousand lakes a couple of weeks ago, we had to stop by restaurant "Ask" in Helsinki.
Ask is a fairly new restaurant, that opened up in September last year, if I remember correctly.
Run and owned by Filip and Linda, this homey, 26 seat restaurant is located on a quiet street, close to the cathedral.
Both have a background in michelin star restaurants, and Filip, who is a friend and old head chef of mine, have a CV ranging from 1-2 star michelin places a as head Chef, and former bocuse competitor for Finland.
It's not the crazy, technical complex elements on a plate, that makes the dishes here, with "ask" they try to emphasize the local and the organic/biodynamic. Most of the ingredients are from little farms and the surrounding lakes of Helsinki and the wines and juices are organic. That means the kitchen will change according to the season, meaning that when we were there it was very light flavors, and in the winter probably more pungent.
Here is what we had that evening:
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| Our menu for the evening. |
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| To start out, crispy flakes of rice chips with wild herbs, violet potatoes, oats and parmesan cream. I always liked starting out with crispy salty stuff so this is a pleaser for me, and it worked well with the champagne. |
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| Appetizer, beets, elder and cream. Nice little appetizer that evolved while eating is, very refreshing with earthy tones. |
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| This might be the best damn bread I have ever had. Tough, slightly sour and crispy. I could have had this bread all night and nothing else, and I would have been a happy mann. |
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| Danish Butter |
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| Salads and greens from a local farm, with tagetes mayonnaise. Light little starter. |
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| Presented as back to the 80s, with of course a little smile on, this old school poached egg with nettle pure, deep fried nettles crispy emmer and mustard vinegrette, actually turned out to be the best dish this evening. |
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| Slightly smoked wild salmon, mushroom reduction cucumber and herbs. Filip changed my dish to finnish entrecote due to me not eating salmon, and the quality of the beef are incredible up there, almost looking like waguy in the fat. |
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| New potatoes, roe and chicken infused cream with browned butter. The sauce in this dish was really a nice touch, only thing is i would have liked the potatoes a bit less cooked, but that is really an individual thing. |
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| Perch, new vegetables and a creamy champagne based sauce. Light, clean and not anything to put your finger on, pretty classic serving. |
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| Lamb two ways, fillet and braised brisket, onions and reduced braising liquid. Again nice, simple and light flavors, and really good quality lamb. |
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| Goat's milk as a cleanser. |
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| Different textures of rhubarb, that in the end tasted like a trifle. |
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| White chocolate, sorrel and buckwheat. Again a good example of light flavors, and a way of letting the ingredients speak for itself. |
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| Leizel had the non-alchoholic beverage pairing, and it all matched quite well, so did my wines, unfortunately I have lost the list of the wines I had this evening. |
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| Petit fours, with our tea. Lemon tart, with aerated foam, liquorice mareng (about time with the liquorice, we are in Finland:) and a fondant like little cake, very dense and moist. All in all we had a nice evening at "Ask" the staffs are very friendly and all dishes nicely explained by Filip himself (not just to us, but all tables).Though the style of the food is a bit too light for me, it really shines thru what the team at "ask" wants to show the diners.
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