Territoriet — Restaurant in Oslo

Each time I visit Oslo, I have a memorable experience. Today’s visit to Territoriet (more like TerritoriAL) was no exception.

My partner and I arrived at 4pm to relax, have a glass of Cremant and a snack and wait for our photographer to meet us, to then walk around the neighborhood for our engagement photos. In that time, we also ate a very bland white bean hummus served with half baked bread while a woman had her breast out of her shirt feeding her persistently wailing newborn baby at the table next to us. This seemed to be of no issue to the staff, especially the barman who left in the middle of his shift to go grocery shopping. Though it destroyed the moment for us, we said nothing about it.

However, the barman wasted no time letting us know that we were disturbing him. Our photographer grabbed a few shots of us inside, and then recognized that we should move outside as not to disturb our fellow patrons. When we were outside and almost on our way to our next location, the barman confronted us with a lecture about how it was “maybe okay” for us to be taking photos but that it “would have been kind to ask for permission” because we were losing him customers. This man was nowhere to be found for the majority of our time there. Nobody was waiting to be seated and the place was dead. We also hadn’t planned to take any pictures there—it was on a whim, and a very quick and last minute suggestion from our photographer. All done within less than 5 minutes.

Needless to say, we apologized for upsetting him. When my partner closed our tab, he apologized again, only to be told the same thing about asking permission. Our kindness was not met with any grace. It was quite clumsy customer service in fact upon seeing the barman knock himself into wine bottles as he nearly ran away from our second apology.

Anyway, we moved on to Nektar wine bar within walking distance and had a much better and welcoming time. The mature choice by far and actually deserving of their ranking in top wine...

This space is small, achingly cool, and yes, it’s always packed — but for good reason. The vibe is electric and the wines… well, safe to say you won’t run out of good options anytime soon (or gin too, if that’s your thing)!

The stars of the show are the young, dynamic duo (I believe?) running the place. They’re friendly, passionate, and have a knack for recommending wines that hit the spot.

I particularly loved that nearly everything on the menu is available by the glass, so don’t feel like you’re limited by what is on the board!

If you’re up for a buzzy, intimate space with killer wine and great company, this place is...

Would not recommend this place. Was quite disappointed after a visit. The wine is pricey, which would have been acceptable if the service would reflect those prices. But the service was awful. The barman was condescending and rude in his tone. Too busy with his girlfriend at the bar instead of trying to make his guests feel welcome.

Or perhaps he acted this way to hide the fact that he wasn't very well informed about wines, or maybe his English just wasn't good enough. Either way, he just wasn't making much of an effort, something you'd expect when the cheapest wine is around 17...