Pingvinen — Restaurant in Bergen

We chose this restaurant based on the glowing reviews and the reasonable (for Norway) prices, but wound up being really disappointed. While we accept that we may not get/appreciate traditional Norwegian cooking, we found the dishes we received to be uninspiring and bland. The food was competently cooked, but both dishes (meatballs and fish pie) lacked basic seasoning and just didn’t taste like much. After all the rave reviews of the fish pie, we were shocked to be served something that was drier than the Sahara desert and more akin to a fish cake (and desperately needed a sauce of some kind); we’re not sure what about this dish constituted a gratin/gratinated since it is genuinely just a crumbed block of flaked white fish (no other ingredients). All veggies were just boiled and tossed on the plate, also without basic seasoning (salt and pepper). Simple food can be good, but even then there should be some basic seasoning! Our meals came out within 3 minutes of ordering, which suggests everything is pre-made rather than cooked to order, and it’s obvious in the textures on the plate. Service was cursory and not overly attentive, which maybe is the Norwegian way. Despite the lackluster food, this place is really popular so if you do want to eat here, make a reservation in advance. However, if we were to return to Bergen we would definitely try...

Truly disappointing experience. We saw this place highly recommended online and made a reservation several days in advance. We went for dinner on a Thursday night (around 20:30) and at first all was fine. We ordered a beer and starter (the fish soup), which was good. But after that we waited for over an hour for our main dishes. None of the waiters offered any explanation for the delay until we asked. One waiter gave us peanuts while we waited, but no one refilled our water (and it was difficult to flag someone down). Finally when we asked again about our food, a waiter said it should be about 10 minutes more and that “the kitchen is a chaos”. If you know how many tables are reserved, you should anticipate a busy night and plan accordingly. When the 10 more minutes were up, we saw a waiter coming to our table with food and we were so relieved, only to see that he was bringing the food to the table next to us (those people arrived considerably later than us and ordered their food after we had not only ordered but already received our starter). This was the final straw and we left without our main course. At the end we were only charged for the beer and starter and they gave us a 50% discount, but the whole experience was disappointing...

We were very disappointed with our visit. The reindeer dish was stiff and hard, and the Lapskaus was even worse. We were told it was made with lamb along with sausage. When it arrived, we asked the waitress again, and she confirmed there was sausage inside. However, after trying it, we found nothing but suet – large, unpleasant chunks of fat. We asked again, and only after speaking to the chef did the waitress admit they don’t include sausage anymore, but claimed it “wasn’t a big deal” since the meat was still lamb.

It was a big deal – not only was the description wrong, but the dish was inedible. We took only two bites, both full of suet, and couldn’t eat more. The waitress was dismissive and impolite, unwilling to accept that the food was not as described and missing key ingredients.

After the intervention of the supervisor, we were offered a free dessert, which we appreciate — but this did not make up for the poor food quality and unprofessional service.

Overall: misleading menu descriptions, inedible dishes, and disappointing service. We will not...