Ravintola Villa Lilla — Restaurant in Helsinki sub-region

Absolutely lovely old house in the middle of a modern building area.

It was my birthday dinner.

The starters were all tasty, perhaps the beef tartar could've had a bit more flavour and volume, and the roasted onion felt like the one you but from the store.

My son liked all his food, both the beef carpaccio and the steak. My wife loved her roasted cauliflower with pea paste, as well as the fish main dish.

Unfortunately the entrecote was not available, so we needed to settle for the flank steak. Again unfortunately, they only had one left, so we ordered it for my son.

I had to settle for the liver, which was completely unacceptable in taste and texture. Black fried on the surface and far too thick pieces, making it uneatable at least for me. It did not taste fresh, either. I still feel sick from this experience even a good hour afterwards, I was offered to get it re-done, but I just could not even think about eating anything anymore at that stage.

So, only two stars for the food (zero stars for the liver, four+ stars for the rest). Two stars for the service. If you want to be a fine dining place, you can't have menu items missing and just swap the meat type (and then not even have enough of that cut!)

And you must be able to make the right cuts and accurately fry what you do have on the menu.

I should add that we chose this restaurant due to an AMEX promotion, but we had a third guest joining for whom we paid in full.

Needless to say, we dined here for the first and...

Location: Is a little off the beaten path for somebody based in Central Helsinki, but the building itself is classic and beautiful.

The food; We had one main and a dessert each, these were actually really good, we enjoyed these.

The service. This is where the review takes a turn for the worse. I would have given this review 2.5 stars (not possible to give half stars on Google Reviews), with all of the stars going to the food. The service earns a zero. Main waitress we were dealt by was extremely rude. Also we ordered bread to come with the main, and we had to stop eating the main to wait and avoid the bread coming as a weird in between dish (between main and dessert).

Service is such a huge aspect of any experience at a restaurant. Therefore we will not be coming back, nor will we recommend this restaurant to friends and family. With that being said, we did enjoy the food and left praising the main course. Such a shame that one of the more easily fixable issues played such a huge role in a negative...

Staying at a lodge in a national park just north of Espoo we were advised to dine at this restaurant and we weren't disappointed! Located in a residential area where you wouldn't expect such a restaurant and ample parking available right in front of it. The interior is old Finnish and there are various seating arrangements in a number of separate rooms Welcome was friendly and service very efficient. Interesting element was that lunch was operated until 3pm and after that dinner was served We were surprised with the menu which had both a four course set menu and a choice of a la carte dishes We selected the four course dinner which also included a creamy mushroom soup and grilled reindeer fillet All food was delicious, well presented and served at the right temperature, which is really rare these days Definitely one of the highlights during our short visit to Finland and highly recommended to those after a great regional culinary experience in a pleasant...