In this guide
💡 The Short Version: Helsinki’s food rests on wild berries and mushrooms, Baltic fish, rye bread and filter coffee. A self-guided tasting walk works Monday to Saturday from 09:30 to mid-afternoon: filter coffee and a cardamom korvapuusti bun at Café Ekberg, cured gravlax and salmon soup at SOUP+MORE in the Old Market Hall, the metro to Hakaniemi Market Hall for Karelian pies (karjalanpiirakka), then craft beer or a grapefruit gin Lonkero at Helsinki Bryggeri. Or book a tour: a 3-hour food tour of Kallioad from €107 covers 8 or more tastings, and a 2-hour Old Market Hall tasting tourad from €99 stays in the market hall.
⚠️ Both market halls close on Sundays. The Old Market Hall on South Harbour and Hakaniemi Market Hall in Kallio are shut. On a Sunday, go to Hietalahti Market Hall (open 10:00 to 16:00) and the seaside cafes.
What Finnish food is built on
- Jokaisenoikeus (Everyman’s Right): Anyone may walk in public forests and pick wild bilberries, lingonberries, cloudberries and chanterelles for free. In autumn Helsinki restaurants build menus around them.
- Rye bread: Sourdough rye bread (ruisleipä) made with whole-grain rye flour is eaten at almost every meal.
- Baltic fish: Baltic herring (silakka), vendace (muikku), pikeperch (kuha) and salmon (lohi).
Salmon counter, Old Market Hall. Photo: Diego Delso, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Six essential tastes on a Helsinki food route
1. Kahvi ja korvapuusti (coffee and cardamom cinnamon bun)
Finnish coffee is a lightly roasted drip filter brew (suodatinkahvi), drunk all day. The usual companion is a korvapuusti (literally “a slap on the ear”): a soft yeasted pastry with ground cardamom, butter, cinnamon and sugar, shaped with folded “ears” before baking.
2. Karjalanpiirakka (Karelian pasty with egg butter)
From the eastern province of Karelia, karjalanpiirakka is a thin oval rye crust crimped by hand around rice porridge or barley.
Karelian pasties (karjalanpiirakka) with egg butter (munavoi). Photo: Olivia Fries, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- How to eat it: Warm, topped with munavoi, butter whipped with chopped hard-boiled egg.
3. Lohikeitto (salmon soup)
Salmon, potatoes, leeks and allspice simmered in fish broth with cream and butter, finished with plenty of dill and served with buttered dark rye bread.
4. Leipäjuusto with cloudberries
Often called “Finnish squeaky cheese”, leipäjuusto is a mild fresh cheese made from cow’s or reindeer’s milk, baked until it has a brown, leopard-spotted crust. It squeaks against your teeth. It is served warm with cloudberries (lakka or hilla), picked from northern peat bogs.
5. Salmiakki (salty liquorice)
Unlike sweet liquorice, salmiakki is flavoured with ammonium chloride, which tastes salty, sharp and slightly numbing. Finns eat it as hard drops, chewy pastilles, chocolate bars and in vodka shots (Salmari).
Salmiakki pastilles. Photo: Marcin Floryan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.
6. Lonkero (“The Long Drink”)
Created for the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki so that bar staff could serve crowds quickly, Lonkero is gin mixed with grapefruit soda. It is the usual drink after a sauna.
Self-guided food walking route
A 4-hour tasting walk:
| Time | Stop |
|---|---|
| 09:30 | Café Ekberg (Bulevardi) |
| 10:45 | Old Market Hall (South Harbour) |
| 12:00 | Hakaniemi Market Hall (Kallio) |
| 13:30 | Helsinki Bryggeri (Torikorttelit) |
Stop 1: 09:30 – Morning coffee and bun at Café Ekberg
Location: Bulevardi 9, Kamppi
Ekberg was founded by Fredrik Edvard Ekberg in 1852:
- Order a pot of filter coffee with a korvapuusti or an aleksanterinleivos (Alexander pastry with pink icing, created for Tsar Alexander I in 1818).
- The salon has 19th-century chandeliers and brass fittings.
Stop 2: 10:45 – Seafood and soup in the Old Market Hall
Location: Eteläranta 9, South Harbour (15-minute walk from Ekberg along the Esplanade)
Walk down through Esplanadi Park to the brick Old Market Hall (Vanha Kauppahalli), opened in 1889:
- At the wooden counter of SOUP+MORE, order the salmon soup with dark sourdough bread and olive tapenade.
- At Kalaliike E. Eriksson, buy a slice of gravlax cured with salt, sugar and dill, or smoked whitefish.
- Stop by Scandinavian Cafe for a small bowl of warm squeaky cheese with cloudberries.
Stop 3: 12:00 – Metro to Hakaniemi Market Hall
Location: Hämeentie 1a, Kallio (Take metro line M1/M2 from University of Helsinki or Central Station to Hakaniemi, 4 mins)
Kallio is the old working-class district, and its two-storey Hakaniemi Market Hall has been restored:
- At Kallion Leipä or the Karelian bakery counter on the ground floor, buy warm karjalanpiirakka with egg butter.
- The reindeer counters sell cured reindeer jerky (kuivaliha) and smoked game sausages.
- Upstairs are Finnish glassware, Arabia ceramics and woollen crafts.
Stop 4: 13:30 – Craft beer and Lonkero in Torikorttelit
Location: Sofiankatu 2, between Senate Square and Market Square
Take the metro or tram line 7 back to Senate Square:
- Helsinki Bryggeri is a microbrewery restaurant in the 18th-century merchants’ quarter of Torikorttelit.
- Order a tasting paddle of beers brewed on site, such as the Helsinki Pilsner or Baltic Porter, or a draught grapefruit gin Lonkero.
- Try the house-pickled cucumbers with forest honey and smetana (thick sour cream).
Guided food tours vs independent exploration
| Feature | Self-Guided Walk | Guided Food Tour (GYG / Local Expert) |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | You pay for what you eat | The tour price covers the tastings |
| Flexibility | Move at your own pace; pause anytime | Structured 3 to 3.5 hour schedule |
| Choosing stalls | You pick from this guide | The guide picks the stops |
| Context | You read ahead | The guide explains the food as you eat it |
Practical food touring advice
- Bring a contactless card: Market hall stalls and food trailers take cards and phones.
- Go before 13:00: Market hall lunch counters are freshest from 11:30 to 13:00, and after 14:30 some soups and baked items sell out.
- Ask for tap water: It is safe to drink; ask for hanavesi at cafes.
- Alko hours: Drinks above 8.0% ABV are sold only in state-run Alko shops, whose hours are listed by branch on alko.fi.
What to explore next
- Sit-down dinners: Where to eat in Helsinki.
- Between stops: Helsinki Cathedral and Senate Square.
- Free sights: Free things to do in Helsinki.
Common questions
What should you eat on a self-guided food tour of Helsinki?
Cardamom cinnamon buns (korvapuusti) with filter coffee, warm Karelian pasties (karjalanpiirakka) with egg butter, salmon soup (lohikeitto) in the Old Market Hall, fried vendace (muikku) at Market Square and salty ammonium chloride liquorice (salmiakki).
What is the best day of the week for a market food tour in Helsinki?
Tuesday to Saturday between 10:00 and 14:00. The Old Market Hall and Hakaniemi Market Hall open Monday to Saturday from 08:00 to 18:00 and close on Sundays. Midday is when the bakery batches and lunch soups are fresh.
What is Lonkero in Finland?
Lonkero is the Finnish 'long drink', a pre-mixed blend of gin and grapefruit soda. The Hartwall brewery created it for the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games to serve foreign visitors quickly. It is sold in supermarkets, bars and saunas across Finland.
Can vegetarians enjoy a Helsinki food tour?
Yes. Most cafes offer oat milk, and soup counters like SOUP+MORE cook vegetarian and vegan soups daily. Karelian pies are baked with rye flour, so they are not gluten-free.
How much coffee do Finns drink?
About 12 kilograms of roasted coffee beans per person a year, among the highest in the world, or roughly four to five cups a day.
