Oh, what a night ...

My wife is here in Helsinki for the weekend and we have just got back from an amazing evening.

We started with dinner at Luomo, a restaurant just around the corner from my apartment.  It has been getting high praise on eat.fi, a site I contribute to (as finn-mark) and have now reviewed 45 restaurants in the last two years, suprisingly putting me among the top 5% of their users.  Without doubt, tonight's meal was not just my best in Finland, but the best ever.

We didn't even see the menu before we were offered a selection of amuses-bouche; a pork and bacon sampler on a bayleaf, chicken and foie-gras ball rolled in vegetable muesli, pumpkin shreds with a blue cheese cream and a small glass of carrot and blood orange juice topped with blood orange foam.

Luomo's full menu offered a seven course meal, comprising three starters, two entrees and two desserts. We chose a more modest five courses, together with matching wines.

The first starter was a tuna tartare, served with wasabe, soy sauce cream, mango and partnered with an Austrian riesling.

Our second starter was called "deer and forest", a combination of rare venison served cold with fruits of the forest and mushrooms, including some freeze-dried berries and a herb cream. This was partnered with a German blanc-de-noirs, a white wine made from Pinot Noir grapes not left on the skins to ferment.  Mushroom bread and home churned butter was served on the side with this dish.

Before the main course, we were served a home made drink, produced from Cola nuts imported from Africa, which is the origin of the more sugary and artificial cola drinks to be had elsewhere.

Their main course was duck, "sweet and/or sour". To the left of the beautifully cooked wild duck was a sour braised red cabbage, to the right a sweet onion cream.  The maitre-d had paired this very well with an Italian Chianti Classico and another bread, olive foccacia, arrived with this course.

Before the first dessert, another palate cleanser arrived in the form of a tiny cone filled with lemon verbena cream.

A glass of a fruity, slightly sparkling Italian red wine was poured before the first dessert, a marriage of fresh and freeze dried raspberries, pistachio ice cream and a pistachio nut cake.

Finally, a French dessert wine accompanied the final dessert of chocolate and Porcini - a mushroom flavoured chocolate brownie topped with a chocolate ice cream, Porcini cream and a wonderfully tart, orange, Sea-Buckthorn ice cream.

The portions were sufficient to enjoy the meal without feeling bloated and I have never had such well matched wines for each dish.  My only regret is that we didn't take all 7 courses, and so missed the third starter (a goat's cheese and beetroot combination) and the second entree (a bouillabaisse).  We will definitely be returning - they change their menu every six weeks or so.

After two and a half hours in the restaurant, we were ready for a walk, so headed to the Svenska Teattern (Swedish Theatre) to catch the late showing of Pink Noise by Fork, a four-piece acapella band, who I saw perform last month at the Nokia World party in Stuttgart.  They put on a great show, which rounded off a wonderful evening.  And the weekend has only just started, as tomorrow (well, later today) we are off to the Hartwall Areena for the second time in two weeks, this time to see Elton John and his Red Piano.  I can't wait.