Don’t sound so surprised, pal. Reindeer is a part of Finnish cuisine and of course there’s Finnish food at the airport — when it’s an airport in Finland. If you’re like me, though, you probably don’t know much about Finnish food. I’m a professional food writer and I couldn’t name the top dish in Finland if you held a käsiase to my head. While the New Nordic food movement has swept across Europe (centered around Rene Redzepi’s excellent Noma) and now the world, traditional Scandinavian foods are still limited to mostly the upper Midwest. Here’s a (somewhat incomplete) list of restaurants where Finnish food is served. But back to the airport food…

Finavia operates all of the airports in Finland including Helsinki (HEL) and they think it’s about time you flew into HEL (save your jokes, demons) to try some of the best of what Finland has to offer. So what does that include? Let’s start with the reindeer burger from Seasons Restaurant & Cafe. If Rudolph doesn’t sound tasty, maybe you’d prefer some local sausage favorites? The Helsinki Sausage Co. serves Yönakki, Rööperin Grilli, Vehmaan Maku lamb sausage, and bratwurst. The Fly Inn seems to be the most ambitious of the Helsinki airport restaurants with a full menu of modern Finnish favorites (barley risotto with fried pike, frothy cauliflower soup, braised reindeer shank) and they even have a tasting menu (see below)! When was the last time you found an airport restaurant with a tasting menu? I don’t know about you, but I think a trip to Finland is order…

Want to learn more about Finnish food? Head over to Amazon and buy one of these Finnish cookbooks to get going on some karilian and liha pirrakkas.

Source: Finavia

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Some rights reserved by Robin McConnell