SKAAL Matbar — Restaurant in Oslo

This place became our favorite after several visits. Although I don’t live in Oslo anymore, having a meal at Skaal has become a must-do for me every time when I’m back here. However, our experience this time disappointed us, big time. I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant to anyone anymore, at least until they change the menu again. The two stars I gave here are even a bit generous, but one of the stars is for the good wine, the other one gives credit to the good job they used to do.

First, the service had been extremely friendly, helpful and passionate before. I could recall the waiters still smiling to everyone and trying to engage with the customers all the time on full-house rush hours. This time though, some of the waitresses had this “I don’t give a s**t” kind of attitude — sort of rushing us to order, never explained the food in details like they used to do before, and didn’t even notice that our water bottle was empty. (Please note that we were one of the 4 tables dining at the time) We were shocked that the service style went from maximal attention down to less than minimal. Worst of all, no one ever asked how our food was, which was incredibly strange. We had 6 dishes, which means they had plenty of chances to check on us but they simply didn’t.

Second, as mentioned above that no one ever cared to ask if the food was good, here’s an answer: generally awful — bear in mind that this is not a cheap eatery. In regard of the pricing, one of the dishes was good, three were ok, two were just edible.

The only good one was the oysters. They managed to buy good quality oysters and opened them without leaving pieces of shells on the flesh, bravo. The clear slightly spicy sauce served with the oysters, which was obviously allegedly a style of “leche de tigre”, was good. Maybe change the name before Peruvians get mad.

The Bolinhos had good flavors, but were cold inside, and had an unpleasant rancid taste probably from the frying oil. Crispy Aubergine had been our all-time favorite dish, but the sauce was way too acidic and salty this time. The hummus wasn’t seasoned properly as they did (to perfection, which beats most Middle Eastern places in Norway), and the aubergine was soggy. The tastes weren’t balanced to our surprise, becaue it’s what we found the most impressive at Skaal. Broccolini was deep-fried beautifully, sauce was ok-ish, but the pickles were meh.

The Veal Breast (Kalvebryst) was weird. The meat itself wasn’t seasoned enough, but the sauce was so heavy and greasy that the tastes and mouthfeels combined weren’t that pleasant. It’s edible but not enjoyable.

The Laksa Curry was a real disaster — first, yes, fusion sometimes can be a bit of a confusion, at Skaal as well, but in a good way. They were excellent at playing with flavors. This thingy we got didn’t remotely taste like curry laksa. It was missing too many elements that it could only be called, at best, Norwegian Thai curry. Second, the fish (skate) had a good texture, but an awful irritant aftertaste that disgusted us a bit. Maybe it’s supposed to taste like that, but we felt sick as we finished the dish.

We didn’t really talk about anything else than how disappointed we were. Our conclusion was maybe they have a new team now — different chef, waiters, maybe owner, so much lower quality. I asked the waitress if there had been any changes with the team, she simply said “no, everything is the same” and left without caring about why we asked. We wanted to confirm if the chef was in a bad mood that affected the food but she seemed to not allow follow-up questions.

Although they seems to not care about reviews here that much, I do hope they will manage to read what happened as mentioned above. Simply because they could do much better, like they used to, providing one of the best dining experiences in Løkka. Also because we left the restaurant with disappointment and confusion, and it used to be satisfaction with exceptional food and amazing service a...

So, I travel quite a bit to see the natural wine scene worldwide. On two occasions while visiting Oslo, I went here. Both times, I was pretty uncomfortable and sad because they had a great wine selection.

Reason for being sad one might ask.

When I went there today, I asked what the pet nat of the day tasted like and where it was from. The lady at the bar pours a sip in a glass, stirs the glass, takes a sip herself, and answers Spain and citrus. I just took it because I was waiting for my partner.

Why I wenf, it was to see again if they would do as last time.

The last time was worse, and I asked what orange wines they had, and I asked if he could recommend some or if I could taste them. He poured me a glass and left it on the table.

Like, come on, if you do not know, let me know. But tasting it yourself or just pouring it is very unusual behavior..

Bad natural wine style and...

I come here every once in a while since its very proximal to my home. I'm very impressed with this restaurant. They have a great atmosphere, great waiters that know what there serving (charismatic too). They update their menus and keep their ingredients very seasonal. There aren't a lot of places like that these days.

Their dishes are fairly small so you would have to order a couple dishes to get really full but I kinda like it like that (careful though, the price can add up quick) . The many dishes makes it a lot more eventful and experience worthy than a single dish. It's a perfect place to bring a date or a special night with friends.

I love the passion these guys have for food. Every bite explodes with a lot of...