What you must eat in Finland

If you only get six things: dark sourdough rye bread, creamy salmon soup, warm squeaky cheese with cloudberry jam, cold-smoked reindeer, a cardamom cinnamon bun with filter coffee, and one piece of salty liquorice so you know. That list is ranked by how badly you would miss the country if you skipped it, not by how much anybody likes it. Five of the six are on a market-hall counter within a hundred metres of the Market Square waterfront, and all six turn up across the guided walks in this city.

Items on this listSix, ranked

Where five of them liveThe Old Market Hall aisle

The one that splits a groupSalmiakki

The one nobody dislikesWarm leipäjuusto

Best-value hot lunchA bowl of salmon soup

Coffee per Finn each yearAbout 12 kg of beans

1. Ruisleipä, the rye bread

First because everything else sits on it. Dark sourdough rye, sour and dense, frequently baked in a ring with a hole in the middle so it could be hung on a pole to dry. Finns eat more rye than almost anybody. It is on all six guided walks in this city and it is in every supermarket and every hotel breakfast, which is the real test of whether a food belongs to a country. Eat it with butter and nothing else at least once before you start putting fish on it. More on rye.

2. Lohikeitto, the salmon soup

Creamy salmon soup with potato, leek and dill. It is the safest and best-value hot lunch in Helsinki, it is sold at counters in both market halls, and it is the dish more visitors go home and cook than any other. If you have one hot meal in a hall, make it this. It is also the first thing you cook on the home cooking class, which tells you something about how central it is. Salmon soup.

3. Leipäjuusto with cloudberry jam

Fresh cow's-milk cheese baked until it browns in patches, from Ostrobothnia and Lapland, served warm with lakka, the amber cloudberry that grows in northern bogs. It squeaks against your teeth, which is the point and not a fault. Of everything on this list it is the one I have never seen anybody refuse a second piece of. Squeaky cheese.

4. Poro, the reindeer

Cold-smoked slices on a tasting board, thin and dark and concentrated, or poronkäristys — sautéed reindeer with mashed potato and lingonberry — if you want it as a proper plate. It comes from Lapland and it is the clearest illustration of what this whole city is: the place the rest of the country arrives. It is on the city tour, the rooftop walk, the coffee walk and the island tasting. Eating reindeer.

A tray of Finnish korvapuusti cinnamon buns — Korvapuusti, literally a slapped ear: cut and pressed so the layers fan out.

5. Korvapuusti and filter coffee, together

The one genuinely local item on the list. Finland drinks more coffee per head than any country on earth, roughly 12 kg of beans per person per year, and the default is light-roast filter drunk all day. The korvapuusti, cardamom and cinnamon, cut and pressed so the layers fan out, exists to sit beside it. Eaten at four in the afternoon, not after dinner. Coffee and a bun is the closest thing Helsinki has to a national meal, and the coffee-culture walk is built around exactly that. The bun.

6. Salmiakki, once

Salty liquorice flavoured with ammonium chloride, sold as a sweet, an ice cream, a chocolate filling and a spirit. I am not going to claim you will like it. I am going to say that you cannot describe having eaten in Finland without having met it, and that the first encounter goes much better when somebody tells you what is in it beforehand. Salmiakki, honestly.

The next four, if you have longer

Karjalanpiirakka with egg butter: a thin rye crust with rice porridge inside, from Karelia, sold in every supermarket, eaten cold or warmed. The everyday one. Karelian pies. Muikku: small lake vendace, floured and fried whole and eaten head, bones and all, usually from a Market Square stall in summer. Vendace. Lihapullat: Finnish meatballs, smaller and softer than the Swedish idea of them, with mashed potato and lingonberry jam. Meatballs. Mustikkapiirakka: wild bilberry baked into a pie, from berries anybody may pick free in any forest. Wild blueberries.

Counter tip

Do the list in the right order. Cheese and reindeer early, when your palate is clean; salmiakki last, because it flattens everything that comes after it. Every guide in this city has worked that out, which is one reason a guided board tastes better than the same six items bought separately.

Where to actually find them

Five of the six live on one aisle. Vanha Kauppahalli opened in 1889 on the Market Square waterfront and has fish, cheese, charcuterie, bakery counters and small lunch bars along a single long aisle; it is the hall almost every food tour goes through. Hakaniemi, one tram stop north across the Pitkäsilta bridge and open since 1914, has the same food downstairs with fewer visitors and more people doing their actual shopping. Both are free to walk into. In summer the Market Square stalls outside add fried vendace and berries, and the orange tents are the giveaway.

If you would rather have all six handed to you in the right order with the explanation attached, that is exactly what the guided walks do, and what lands on each board sets out who serves what.

Cathedral and the Old Market Hall

Check dates & book

One thing worth repeating, because I was asked it most days at the counter: neither market hall charges you to come in. Vanha Kauppahalli and Hakaniemen Kauppahalli are buildings, not attractions, and the door is open to anybody. What you book on this site is the guide who walks you between the counters and knows which of the three salmon is the one you actually want. The halls with a guide, and the Old Market Hall on its own.

We are an independent guide, not a tour operator and not a restaurant. Booking links go to GetYourGuide and are affiliate links — if you book through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. See our affiliate disclosure.

Frequently asked questions

What must I eat in Finland?

Rye bread, salmon soup, warm squeaky cheese with cloudberry jam, cold-smoked reindeer, a cinnamon bun with filter coffee, and one piece of salty liquorice. Five of those six sit on one aisle of the Old Market Hall, which opened in 1889: the hall explained.

What is the one dish I should not miss?

Salmon soup, if you only get one. It is the best-value hot lunch in the city, it is sold at counters in both market halls, and it is the dish most visitors go home and cook. It is also the first thing you make on the cooking class.

Is reindeer meat worth trying?

Yes, and it is nothing like the novelty some people expect. Cold-smoked slices are dark, dry and concentrated, closer to cured beef than to game, and the hot version, poronkäristys, comes with mashed potato and lingonberry. It is Lapland food eaten eleven hundred kilometres south, and it appears on four of the six guided walks here: reindeer, explained.

Do I need a tour to eat these things?

No. Both market halls have open doors and will sell you all of it. A guide gets you the six items in the right order with an explanation attached, which is a different service from access: the honest yes and no.