Scan Magazine | Restaurant of the Month | Finland
Restaurant of the month, Finland
Pure Finnish food Driven by an unwavering determination to create a better planet for the next generation, Restaurant C serves carefully crafted handmade dishes, made from the purest and freshest Finnish ingredients. From preserving birch leaves to scouring the woods for roots and herbs to generate interesting flavours, innovation and ecology is at the core of C’s ethos. By Ndéla Faye | Photos: Ronja Honko/Kohokohdat
Christina Suominen and co-owner Ilkka Isotalo launched Restaurant C, located in the heart of Tampere, in 2008. The restaurant opened serving handmade dishes, made from pure, Finnish ingredients. “Then the recession hit. We barely had any money to buy stock for the restaurant, and banks would not give us any credit,” Suominen recalls. “Luckily, however, small, local producers gave us ingredients on credit and we were able to keep afloat. Ever since then, we have forged close relationships with our local suppliers and haven’t looked back.” Fast-forward ten years, and it is clear 94 | Issue 115 | August 2018
Suominen and Isotalo have formed a perfectly harmonious co-ownership, and the restaurant is thriving. Suominen claims that she is the sensible one of the two, keeping their feet on the ground, while Isotalo brings innovation, youth and flair to the table.
Suominen says. The biodynamic approach to agriculture was conceived by Rudolf Steiner and considers a farm as a closed loop, made up of various organisms that thrive through biodiversity, with equal importance granted to the health of the soil, plants, animals and humans. “Nothing is brought into the loop from the outside, and, after cultivation, the soil is left in a better state than it was found in,” Suominen explains. “It’s an all-encompassing philosophy, and very important to us when sourcing ingredients. We want to leave the planet in a better state than we found it, for the sake of our children.”
Ethical, organic and biodynamic ingredients
Storing nature’s bounty
As far as possible, Restaurant C serves food made from scratch. “Our foods are carefully crafted, and we value ethically sourced, organic ingredients, with special attention paid to biodynamics,”
The menu boasts innovative twists on Nordic dishes, but is largely dictated by what is available from nearby suppliers. “Our fish comes from a fisherman at Lake Pyhäjärvi, for example, so the fish