The Salmon — Restaurant in Oslo

Never underestimate the power of the sun at 20°C. After spending the whole morning walking around Vigeland Park, I nearly felt like I was getting heatstroke. To top it off, we had to walk further to reach The Salmon restaurant at Tjuvholmen. By that point, I was exhausted and ready to collapse. Luckily, the area had several shopping centers where we could take a quick break indoors. We arrived at the restaurant just in time for our reservation, and since we had booked in advance, the staff promptly seated us.

When I made the reservation, the restaurant’s website asked how long we planned to stay, with a maximum option of two hours. I found it a bit odd at first, but once we got there, it all made sense. The restaurant is located in such a prime spot by the harbor that if they didn’t set a time limit, people would probably sit there for half the day just soaking in the view.

The menu was really fun—it looked like a newspaper, filled not only with the dishes but also plenty of information about salmon. Since we don’t drink alcohol, we ordered a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling tea, which was a refreshing and innovative choice. With so many tempting options, we decided to start with a variety of appetizers: oysters, scallop sashimi, salmon roe sushi, and fried salmon skin.

When the oysters arrived, I’ll admit I was a little disappointed at first—the four oysters were small and thin. But once I tasted them, I was hooked. They were so fresh, with a perfect texture. The scallop sashimi was excellent, and the salmon roe sushi was exactly what you’d expect. The fried salmon skin, topped with salmon roe, diced onions, and sour cream, was a creative combination that balanced the fried flavor really well.

Since we enjoyed the appetizers so much, we decided to order more: salmon soup and grilled salmon, both of which were equally satisfying. Even though we were exhausted from all the walking, the meal made it feel completely worth it. This restaurant is definitely top-notch among its kind. I have to give special mention to the servers —they were incredibly patient and never tried to upsell anything, making the experience feel as natural and relaxing as the harbor...

Food was good, but somehow left us slightly disappointed. I love salmon and maybe came with too high expectations, but the salmon dishes lacked any "wow" factor for me.

There was the factor elsewhere - particularly the halibut aburi was perfect and wouldn't be out of place in a high-end Tokyo omakase place and the Norwegian oysters were great as was the house white wine and the "chocolate temptation" was absolutely amazing. On top, the view of the Oslofjord was pleasant and I'm sure the terrace is a treat in summer, so I would say this place is still absolutely worth a visit overall.

But in the end, as someone who considers salmon their favourite food, coming to Norway, to a restaurant called "the Salmon", I couldn't help to be slightly let down. There was nothing "wrong" with the salmon dishes. But, I didn't feel the smoke salmon (for which they had a whole long backstory about how they hand smoke it) to be any better than the Carrefour own-brand smoked Norwegian salmon I usually pick up in Brussels. The spreads and bread were also quite understated, perhaps to not interfere with the taste of the "salmon trilogy", but ended up just adding to the underwhelmingness.

The grilled salmon was fine, but nothing I couldn't fry up myself after a trip to the local fishmonger and the salmon roe maki was OK, but honestly paled a bit compared the rainbow trout roe you can pick up in many a market in my native Estonia.

Maybe I'm being too harsh and maybe I should instead be happy that the Norwegians don't sell the rest of Europe only the "cheap stuff", but if you tried fresh buffalo mozzarella in Campania or freshly prepared pesto Genovese in the Ligurian mountains and compare that to the store bought varieties, even top shelf ones, then you won't find the same kind of difference here.

On the other hand, if you go without too high expectations, you will likely have a very...

We have been here before and really enjoyed it which is what brought us back. Last time we sat indoors and had a nice view even sitting in the middle of the restaurant. We saw both the kitchen and the Harbour.

This time we booked outdoors, and we strongly want to warn about this. The sunny weekend turned rainy, and as there was no information online regarding what they do a rainy day, we just assumed there were a roof over the outdoor section. Turns out only part of it is covered, and the rest of us were moved into this darkly draped conference room in the far back. It's so the opposite of both the indoor restaurang and expected outdoor seating. There were still seats outside under roof as we could see, but according to the staff it was fully booked and the rest of us were moved indoors to the temporary room in the showroom area. We, and our fellow guests, were equally dissapointed of this significant downgrade. Had we known when booking, we would have chosen indoors, or canceled once we knew the weather changed.

The rooms is furthest in. Dark drapes along the walls with some larger screens showing some shifting Ocean images. It's tight between the seats, and felt more like a speed dating room than cosy dining.

The service was alright. Neither good nor bad. The food is excellent, same as last time we visited, and we will most likely come back for the food. We can recommend the 3 course meals. The salad, tater, sashimi and soup are all delicious for you who like fish.

We strongly advice against booking outdoors unless you know for sure it will be nice. The option you might get otherwise is such a downgrade that we were about to leave after having been seated. Next time we will book indoors to be sure to get the view both inside and out.

We each took a 3 course meal, plan 1 and 2, and shared a bottle of wine. Total price around 2050 Nok...