Restaurant Kustaa Vaasa — Restaurant in Helsinki sub-region

Have you ever walked into your local eatery, wolfed down a snail starter and a hefty bowl of salmon soup. All the while thinking to yourself "There's too much cheese in my snails", "This broth has too much flavor" or "Theres not enough potato in my soup"? Sounds like an impossible equation, right? I mean, too much cheese? Too little potato?

Theres something odd about Kustaa Vaasa, and i can't really put my finger on it. The food is neither bad, nor particularly good. In some twisted way the food is always ruined with a small detail gone wrong, it's never the main act but rather a botched supporting-role. Never bad enough that your average confrontation-avoiding Finn would dare complain about it, yet never good enough that you leave with a sense of post-dinner joy.

Maybe the rustic try at budget fine-dining isn't working. Or maybe i just don't get it. Maybe i'm just getting old and grumpy.

Yet for some reason i keep returning. Mainly because all the other dining options around the area are ethnic in nature, and once in a while your average Joe fancies potato and an honest draft beer. I guess that's part...

Absolutely must have to see when visiting Helsinki. The house burger is a true masterpiece, with astounding chunk of grounded patty - and I do recommend to have it medium rare as they do know how to do it well. The salad to the burger was another great choice - their salad and sauce mix with the pomegranate is unbeliveliable. Tapas I took as a starter was worth it's own category, well complementing the burger. Another brilliant thing is the staffs knowledge about the beer and wine served at the tap or from the bottle - would recommend to go there alone for that. Definitely will keep this place saved on my map of Helsinki culinary map - keep...

Super-friendly staff translated the menu into English for me. Two vegetarian options, a kind of ragu, and a goats cheese burger without bread, I tried the latter and it was well done. A good selection of keg beers in a cosy setting with some booth style seating and high tables. [Original review 2018, revisited a year later] Still super staff and a lovely place. Vegetarian wings were kind of cauliflower tempura and really top notch stuff. Soy 'dinner' was a disappointment - not a single grain of salt on that plate I think. I'm told the soy is marinaded, but I could taste nothing, sadly a very, very bland...