No Falling Stars

The Mighty Michelin Guide has been kind with the stars up the Finnish restaurant sky and decided to not let any drop. That means Hans Välimäki’s Chez Dominique keep their two, while Demo and Carma get to keep their one star.

It’s nice to notice that I’ve had the privilege of dining in all but Carma – and they were definitely all worth a detour. I especially liked Postres that one time.

In a time when fast food is about the only industry that does well it’s also good to see Helsinki retain it’s status as a capital in the Nordic Countries that has a two-star restaurant – like they all do nowadays.

I’m all for the star tradition. Maybe this will attract a tourist or two and help keep the places alive.

Hunger (not Thirst) for Information

Lulu Grimes of Good Food has had an encounter with a mean sommelier. While my experiences with sommeliers are generally pleasant, a visit to one of Helsinki’s star-spangled gourmet joints lately left me and a friend wondering whether the wine that accompanies a dish really is such a big deal that it seems to actually surpass the food it’s served with in importance.

It might sound familiar: you’ve ordered a special menu and chosen to trust the restaurant’s choices for the wines to go with it. After a while the sommelier arrives and tells you everything he knows about the wine, the area it comes from, how it was made, grapes it was made from, the history of the winehouse, the producer’s name, his grandma’s name etc. He pours the wine and leaves.

Some time passes. Finally the food arrives. The waiter hurries through the list of components on the plate and disappears. “What was this green stuff here?” your friend asks, leaning over. “No idea.” “Tastes of a herb… What could it be?” Asking a waiter, they tell you to wait a minute while they go and ask, of course, eager to fulfill every request the customer makes. In a while the waiter returns and gives you the bit of information, but leaves you hesitant to also ask about the little red things you found under the potato after the waiter had gone.

Obviously it’s not a good idea for the waiter to spend 15 minutes going through a pedantic list of every ingredient in every garment on the plate while everyone, except for the one enthusiastic home cook who demanded to know what everything is, is waiting to get their teeth into the dish, but sometimes one gets a feeling that enjoying the food is somehow a very different experience from enjoying the wine.

Or could it be the wine enthusiasts that visit the gourmet restaurants who differ so much from us amateur gourmet cooks? Almost like it’s impossible to enjoy wine unless you know the second name of the producer or that the wine in question is expensive and rare enough. Who gives a toss about what the green jelly wrapped in the red stuff next to the lamb was made out of if it tastes good.