Three Belly's Pizza Bistro — Restaurant in Helsinki sub-region

The food is superb, but the restaurant is just ok. In summary, based on one dining-in experience only, the best part are the pizzas, which can beat any pizza made in Italy any day.

Based on a large sample of pizzerias accross decades, a pattern has begun to emerge: Finland (read: Helsinki mostly) has some of the best quality and innovative pizzas in the world, and this is among the top. It's a good sign, that you see no [typically conservative] italians in the kitchen or in the restaurant as a barrier for experimentation and innovation.

The two seasonal autumn pizzas made in a real pizza oven were like nothing we've ever tried. My dining partner praised the dough, wheras I found it a bit too doughy and undercooked for my own liking - however that's likely due to the many wet toppings and the fact that I prefer Roman style thin crust pizza over Napolitan.

The wine selection was good and the "excellent" level wine (14€/glass) suited perfectly. However, when 2 glasses is 28€, one might consider buy a bottle of Amarone instead for home and ordering takeaway. Also for other reasons:

The place is very popular and it's hard to find a table booking. The place is small, noisy*, and the tables are so close you cannot but hear the conversations at the tables next to you. Not the place for intimate dining conversation, talking business and trade secrets, first dates or venting about work, gossip, or talking personal things. The small space also forced everyone to hear the menu and drink suggestions over and over again by the loud voiced and friendly staff each time new tables filled up (10-15min intervals).

Even if a fan of 80's and 90's music with anything from Snap "I got the Power" to Coolio, Gwen Stefani etc soft rock, rnb and rap, the ambience was not helped by a playlist that doesn't match the 80+ euro dining experience where you get to play "name that tune". Maybe works better at lunch time, which others praise as good - or when eating alone.

I will likely try the lunch for dining in next time, but am likely to prefer ordering out and enjoy the best part, which is the food.

Also, in Finland where we take pride in not needing to have a tipping culture for the waiting staff to make a decent living, and where the surcharge is already in the bill (18-22€ per pizza), it was offputting to have a device handed to you with a default "nudge setting" of +10% tipping handed to you, with visible options to lower it to 5% or raise it to 15 or 20% and figuring out how to opt out. This is not a trend we need in Finland, even if there's a hotel nearby and ignorant tourists...

Super good pizza! I very highly recommend this place. This restaurant really sets the bar really high for any pizza place. Finally, I found a pizza place making top notch pizzas that doesn't also burn the pizza crust. For some reason other high end pizza places like to burn their crust as if it's a badge of honor. The appetizers are worth trying too --super good mozzarella. I really loved the music 🎵 🎶 (90s hits), it reminded me of my childhood. It gives a casual, upbeat vibe. The lighting and vibes and design of the space are perfect.

I'm a big tiramisu fan and the tiramisu was just okay in my opinion, but I'm not an expert and recipes seem to vary. It seemed to have a lot of bread/cake compared to cream, and I usually see a darker cocoa powder on other tiramisu recipes. There are different tiramisu recipes but I'll likely pass on this one going forward (just my preference). It is sized for one person which is fine (a bit small to share). Personally I'd like it 30% bigger, 2-3x more cream, a darker chocolate powder, and 30% more coffee flavor.

Anyways I'll definitely be back for more pizza! Definitely give this new...

Amazing meal! I went in with my partner, loving the idea that we can have different small portions of everything. We cannot usually finish one whole pizza each without feeling too too stuffed so we were very happy with the menu at Three Belly’s.

We started with house bread with rosemary butter, burratine with roasted beetroot pesto (recommended!), reindeer tongue cacio e pepe (also couldn’t recommend enough), and crudo. Our pizza was the Kamikaze which has amazing flavor and everything there compliments each other perfectly. We finished our lunch off with tiramisu, which to me, was just right. Ah and not to forget that our drinks selection was also very spot on, the reisling recommended to us was so bright and refreshing! We left the bistro feeling full at the very right level which is rare for us whenever we go out to a pizza place.

Plus I personally loved the tableware and...