Ravintola Karu Izakaya — Restaurant in Turku sub-region

Me, my friend and my brother from Scotland visited Finland and during our stay in Turku, we decided to try an Asian restaurant. We were unbelievably glad we decided to visit Karu. This was the best meal we had during our holiday to Helsinki, Tallinn, Espoo and Turku. This is high praise as the food quality we experienced was next-level and this was by far the most delicious meal we had eaten. We were recommended to try the taster menu, which we decided to do, but we ordered our own drinks separately.

The tasting menu started with a delightful light selection of tiger prawn, mussel and sashimi. These all had the most wonderful and unique flavours, all homemade. We also tried some locally-sourced whitefish which was absolutely delicious.

There followed another 3 courses of increasingly larger and unique savoury dishes before finishing on a beautiful sorbet and pannacotta dessert.

We were offered hot Japanese green tea with honey to finish which settled our stomachs well.

As far as drinks were concerned, we enjoyed a beautiful warmed fruity sake which was a fantastic introduction for our friend to try sake for the first time. Then we also tried some perfectly balanced japanese cocktails and umeshu plum drinks.

Our table was topped up with extra water every time we ran low as well.

The servers were extremely nice to us and were more than happy to answer our questions and recommend new foods and drinks. The women who served us most of the time even came over with a bottle of lemon sake to let us try absolutely free which I thought was a classy touch.

I'm not one to go to the same place twice, but if I'm ever back in Turku I would 100% go here again - one of the best dining experiences I have ever had. Even the music was very atmospheric and chilled out.

Also the bathrooms had the most amazing scented handwash!

Thank you to the servers and chefs of Karu Izakaya - you have made 3 extremely...

The service and atmosphere were top-notch. The food was good but not quite on par with the price. The sweetness of many dishes was overwhelming. The experience was saved by the double-fried Korean chicken that was maybe one of the best pieces of poultry I've ever tasted.

We had the tasting menu with the matching wine package. The sake and the wines were excellent and were introduced well. All in all, the served sashimi and sushi were quite plain although the rice element had a better texture than in an everyday sushi place. The soft-shelled crab sliders were excellent but the bun was cold and stiff when they arrived at our table.

Ribs and rare beef portions were nice but somewhat overwhelmed by the sweetness of the sauce. Btw. Those kimchified Brussels sprouts served on the side were amazing! After finishing these main courses, the waitress inquired us if we were still hungry and would like to have a second round of mains at no extra cost. Well, of course we did, and now arrived the Double-fried Korean crispy chicken that was just amazing with the kimchi-infused kochujang sauce where the balance of sweetness and acidity was right on spot. Don't miss this one!

The dessert was a beautiful and delicious sorbet that was a nice ending...

We tried different fine dining restaurants in different countries (Europe and Asia), this is the worse one we had tried.

Overprice and they use the really low cost ingredients to make most of the courses. Over €100 per head.

Only took two pics as There’s the only sashimi and sushi appeared and they are not fresh ( the colour of tuna is dark red) and we could not taste the real fish taste as they used too much vinegar sauce it’s sour. Fusion?? Chinese soy sauce pork ribs, thick paste kimchi? The taste is not good. It needs huge improvement in the future.

Even emphasised on the Japanese style restaurant, we can see the certificates on wall but it didn’t mean anything as the sushi rice is too wet and soft to eat also the waitress when she introduced the SAKE the information is not correct.

Wine pairing €47 , on the menu didn’t mentioned the size of the wine and extra charge for refill, they provided the smallest size (8cl) for the wine when we asked the other glass, we received over €10 per glass in the bill.

The restaurant is too small between the table is too close. For this price we can have a...