Basso Social - Oslo — Restaurant in Oslo

Not recommended! The service was great, or at least our server was very informative and attentive and engaging in helping us having a good dining experience. Drinks were also great! However, the food was not that great. We bought the tickets to the 13-course Sunday Tasting and we concluded that the main problem of the food was the lack of balance. We informed the kitchen that we are very sensitive to overly salted food and they were trying their best to accompanied that. The first serving was great, which consisted of 4 different small bites/snacks. The watermelon tart was the best, and honestly, that is the only single bite that we thought was good and delivered in flavour. The dinner was just going downhill from there. The next serving are the appetizer or mellomrett. We started with a cold, rich seafood broth with mascarpone mousse. It was good but the broth was so condensed with seafood which make it naturally salty and hard to enjoy. The fried scallops were mediocre - the pickled fennel was actually better than the scallops themselves. The burrata tomato salad was very refreshing - great, sweet tomato and creamy burrata. And then a cauliflower dish - both of us were puzzled what exactly it role was because it was very unremarkable. The problem of unbalance started appearing from this serving - all 4 dishes were TOO rich, with excessive amount of cream and fat in total. We were almost full and lost most of our appetite after this serving, which was ridiculous because they were suppose to be appetizer. Then come our main dishes, which we disappointed the most. First was the porchetta, which was inedible for us because it was ridiculously salty. We informed the server and she made her best effort to make replacement. But the kitchen informed that there were no other meat dish to substitute (which is ridiculous because they serve meatballs and chicken on their normal menu everyday and it's not like everyone coming on Sunday will have a Sunday Tasting menu). So they gave us asparagus with beurre blanc sauce. The other mains are a homemade pasta dish - which was again covered in cream and cheese and was very hard to eat when it got cold, a risotto with truffle and cream and cheese (again) - the rice grain was a bit weird and it stick to our teeth constantly, and finally a mini corn dish with confit garlic sauce, which was the only thing we could finish in this serving. Everything was just cream and cheese, too much fat without anything to cut through so it was extremely hard to enjoy the food. The dessert was an olive cake with balsamic vinegar and strawberry compote, served with ice cream. The ice cream is great, I did not think the balsamic vinegar component worked but my sister liked it.

Overall, it was not a good dinner and definitely not worth the money - we paid NOK 1000 for a dinner for two (food only) but what we got was mostly vegetarian dishes. The food was unbalance, and for us, food is the only reason we will ever come back to a restaurant. Thus, unfortunately, we will...

Went for the 13-course menu for the second time, hoping to give the restaurant another chance after a disappointing first visit. The first time around, we were told the kitchen was overwhelmed. Unfortunately, we got the same excuse on our second visit. At these prices, you’d expect far better. The food itself was just passable—certainly not worth the premium price. One dish, a pasta with pesto, was so flavorless that after two bites we left it untouched as you can see in the picture. It tasted as if the pasta had been boiled in unsalted water, and the pesto had virtually no taste.

On top of that, we waited well over an hour between the third and fourth serving of the five-servings sequence. Afterwards, the staff was quick to usher us out, presumably to make room for the next seating. If the kitchen cannot keep up, it’s unreasonable to rush guests who have already endured long waits.

Frankly, I won’t be back, nor would I recommend spending 800 NOK on the 13-course menu and another 700 on the wine pairing for such a lackluster experience. For a restaurant that carries a 4.4-star rating, the reality falls painfully short. I hope this feedback encourages them to step up their quality, hire more people and timing, because at the moment, it’s just not worth it.

We would give 1 star but actually the waiters were quite nice during almost the whole serving and very friendly therefore the extra...

I found this restaurant through Google while looking for a dinner spot, as the reviews seemed decent. At first glance from the outside, I was hesitant to go in, but my companion was hungry, so we decided to try it.

We were greeted and seated after reviewing the menu. The restaurant offered set menus with multiple courses, but based on my first impression, we ordered just three dishes. In the end, only two were served: an asparagus risotto (appetizer portion) and a half of a grilled romanesco salad.

The portions were very small for the price, and the food itself was underwhelming. The flavors were flat, and while the presentation was tidy, it lacked creativity or finesse. The service included explanations of the dishes, seemingly to create a fine dining impression, but the quality of the food and overall experience did not match this intention.

For anyone with a genuine interest in food, I cannot recommend this place. If you enjoy cooking at home, you are likely able to prepare better meals yourself. This is not the kind of experience I seek...