Birgitta Palmqvist
Porvoo is a great food city! I work as a tourist guide and people often ask me for tips on good restaurants and cafés. It’s terribly difficult to put the different places in any kind of order, as there are so many good options. When I go out for lunch or dinner, I try to choose a little bit of variety. Sometimes I go to an industrial area or even to the lunch restaurants in the local garages. I always get good food. Porvoo’s restaurants and food culture attract tourists. For years I’ve been running food tours where we go around for 3.5 hours, having an appetizer in one place, a main course in another and dessert in a third. Along the way and at the table, I tell food stories about Porvoo. It was difficult to choose the three best places to eat, but here are my recommendations.
Stories of Tee- ja Kahvihuone Helmi
The Helmi café is almost an institution in Old Porvoo. This is the number one place for tourists.
Every room in the café has its own story. One tells the story of Runeberg, another about the 1809 Diet of Porvoo and the third describes the restoration. The cafe’s products are excellent, the tea selection is extensive and old French music plays in the background. The upstairs salon, reserved for private functions, is so beautiful. In summer, tea, coffee and delicacies can also be enjoyed in the courtyard. There is an international atmosphere in the pearls. Here you can listen to the stories of tourists from different countries.
Bohemian Aatos Café
The atmosphere at Aatos Café is relaxed and somehow different. There are a lot of regulars from Porvoo: mothers with their children, telecommuters with their computers and local artists hanging their work on the walls.
I often go to Aatos Café for various events and I always find the place so lovely. In a way, I feel like I’m doing a responsible thing when I eat Aatos Café’s vegetarian lunch from recycled dishes, in the space of a former cinema. It’s a thrill to see the art on the walls at the same time.
When Aatos Café was first established, many people said it wouldn’t be successful because it was so far from the city centre. But it’s not far at all!
I recommend you check it out, it has such a unique spirit.
A recent newcomer Bistro Mestari
Bistro Mestari is one of the newest additions to the Porvoo restaurant scene. The food is good and tasty, and the menu is different. At Bistro Mestari you can get wiener steak with veal and pytti pan with whole meat and dijon snapper. You can’t get food like this anywhere else!
The service is friendly and the atmosphere is relaxed. I believe this restaurant will become a favourite of mine and many of my friends.
Try also
When a long-awaited restaurant, Vanha Laamanni, opened in Old Porvoo, next to the cathedral, in the 1970s, it quickly became popular. Set in a 17th century log house, the restaurant, decorated in a Gustavian style, attracted visitors from far and wide. It was the number one place for tourists.
In 2019, the Salt Restaurant took its place. I love how they managed to combine the new and the old and create a relaxed atmosphere in the restaurant. The food is delicious and there are shareable portions, which I love.