Restaurant Flät no 14 — Restaurant in Helsinki sub-region

Combines the worst of contemporary trendy places in Helsinki and the Nordics in my opinion. Severely understaffed: one waitress and another staff member behind the bar, catering to 15 or so tables simultaneously.

We had to wait for 20 minutes outside in the cold because there is inexplicably no booking in advance. Serve-yourself and seat-yourself attitude. We weren't given menus when we sat down, so we had to signal to the waitress for 10 minutes to get them because she was so busy. Then we were told to line up in a queue to order our meal. Of course, the queue already had 10 people in it, so my partner had to stand for 15 minutes just to get our meals coming.

45 minutes from arrival to ordering food, therefore. Then the food comes in child-sized portions for regular prices. We of course paid in advance before we get the food (which I don't need to tell you is no different from Hesburger) so screw us if we're still hungry after eating.

Finally, the acoustics were dreadful, and it was so damn loud in there. They also play bland music just to make it harder to hear the person opposite you.

One of the worst food experiences I've had in my five years in this city, and especially disappointing for a popular, supposedly decent place to eat at. My recommendation to Flät would be to hire another member of staff so that your one waitress isn't catering to 15 tables simultaneously and your clientele actually get a bit...

One of my most disgusting visits at any restaurant I’ve been to. The staff accidentally bought out another tables order to us. Whilst we were confusedly waiting for more dishes to arrive (the ones that were missing from our order) we went up to the cashiers register and returned certain dishes to the desk that we had not ordered. They in panic quickly took away all the dishes from our table, went to the back and walked out 5 seconds later with the same batch of food and placed it on the other guests table whose order we had accidentally gotten. They did not tell the guests those plates had already visited our table and that we had touched them. Mind you this was at a high point of covid and we had touched ALL of the plates since we (group of 7) had passed around each dish to the right person and then noticed we had surplus of certain dishes and missing others.

They gave food we had touched and breathed on to (lots of plates: a group of 5, who probably ordered 5-7 plates/person) to another group of customers. This goes against all hygiene laws. I felt sick to my stomach...

The food was amazing but the service ruined our experience.

We had an amazing time, albeit a very long wait time in the table waiting for our foods to arrive. I ate the Instagram worthy foods and tried to order more. This is when the problems started. They told me it’s not possible because of their IT systems and how it’ll confuse the kitchen. I’m a paying customer who wanted to spend MORE money in this cafe but instead, it felt like I am being punished according to rules that I was not told at the start. So, in the end, I wasn’t able to throw more money at them. Order what you will BUT ONLY AT THE START. Finland isn’t known for customer service so in a way, I am not surprised and it feels almost unfair to hold them accountable. (I’m Finnish.)

I hear the porridge was heavenly. I can say the same for the pancakes and fennel salami (which you can get from Rolling Cheese store too). The avocado was a bit of a let down, omelette was omelette, cheese was cheese.

All in all, great food, Finnish...