There's a new
If you haven't yet been to or heard of Restaurant Nolla, the restaurant with zero waste, I recommend you to stay tuned.
Restaurant Nolla is a restaurant serving local and organic products prepared with love and perfection. The concept is great as they thrive to have zero waste which I don't think many restaurants have achieved. I really love this concept and hope other restaurants will learn from the knowledge of these entrepreneurs and aim to do the same....and not only restaurants but even households.
So how is all this possible? These 3 musketeers have a compost machine that turns all (almost) their waste to soil in just one day, which they then give to the farmers who deliver their veggies. All the stuff delivered to them comes in reusable containers or boxes. Nothing should be used only once. They order the oils and vinegars in big bulks and have even contacted other restaurants in the area to co-join the delivery to save on transportation. I mean yes, they say zero waste but in all truth they will have a little bit but the amounts are split to none compared to the ridiculous amounts of waste that is produced by a restaurant in general.
The concept truly is something I lift my hat to...and so should you.
You can even make a visit the compost room which is right next to the dining area, which they will proudly present to you.
Well enough talk about waste. Even if its a good concept we don't want to put too much emphasis on that. You must be more curious on how the food was...right?
Restaurant Nolla (meaning zero btw.) have a changing menu consisting of either 3 or 5 courses (45/59€ excl. drinks) put together by three talented boys. These guys did not just wake up one day to start a restaurant. They have all worked in some of our finest restaurants in Helsinki. Carlos Henriques from Portugal @ Olo, Chez Dominique, Luca Balac from Serbia @ Olo, A21, Emo, Hoshito, Kuurna and last but not least Albert French Sunyer from Spain @ Chez Dominique, Olo and Grön.
We ordered the full 5 course menu.
To begin was a sugar and salt cured Pike with a very rich 50%cream, refreshing apple and a turnip escabeche sliced thinly on the top.
This was a really good start and already I was hungry for more.
Next up was a crispy waffle topped with mushrooms and a kind of pork lard similar to Iberico speck called Mangulica (a pork from Serbia)
After the delicious waffle was an even better dish. A deer tartar with beet roots, a beetroot sabayonne and grilled red currants, giving an amazing smokiness to the dish. I definitely think this was the best dish throughout the whole evening.
Tender meat, acidity and smokiness....just perfect...and something I had never tried before. It just ticks every box of deliciousness.
As a main course was a beautiful Burbot tail. I'm used to eating burbot mainly in a soup so I think it's nice to see this fish get a bit more attention. The flesh is really tender and a bit firm. Almost similar to cod. The fish was served with potatoes, meadowsweet and a really succulent butter sauce.
The dessert was really surprising. It was made with celeriac which normally doesn't belong to the favourites of root veg. I have however, been getting some amazing and surprising dishes made from this root and have definitely started to like it. Like in this dessert it was really the star of the dish. If you weren't told what you were eating I'm sure you wouldn't even have guessed the key ingredient. The dessert had cake and ice-cream made from celeriac and it was just wonderful. the taste was almost a nutty caramell-like flavour.
Last but not least we also had he cheese which unfortunately I don't remember more details about (may have been due to the few glasses of wine).
I definitely recommend you to book a table or just pop by for a small snack.
This restaurant will also be one of the few restaurants taking part in the best festival ever
Taste of Helsinki in the middle of June.
P.S. I'm sorry for the bad quality pics...it was really dark and I struggled with the lighting...I guess a higher ISO would have helped.
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