TOP TOQUE
Ari Ruoho
When a country is home to Santa Claus, it’s no surprise that the locals take Christmas very seriously. In Finland, Christmas is as traditional as it gets. Celebrations last anywhere from three to 12 days. Many homes set up a Joulupöytä (Yule table) laden with festive dishes like Christmas ham, gravalax and casserole, complete with copious servings of glögi (Finnish mulled wine).
On the outside, Ravintola Nokka looks like a traditional diner that serves such dishes. It’s situated in an old brick warehouse that is part of the Helsinki Marina, complete with a large anchor and propeller stuck to the building façade. Inside, chef Ari Ruoho and his team of 12 chefs are often found busy plating refined Finnish dishes that use foraged ingredients and micro herbs. These include deer tartar with forest mushrooms and spruce mayonnaise, and white chocolate parfait with marigold and cloudberries.
When it comes to selecting ingredients, the 45-year-old will accept nothing less than locally-sourced ones. Only hunted game and Finnish farmed meat can be found on his menu; there’s no Wagyu beef or French ducks here. Seasonality is an emphasis. Ruoho was hunting wild duck and white-tailed deer a few weeks ago, but now with the upcoming festive season, moose and reindeer are on the menu.
Why is hunting such a big part of your restaurant practice? Hunting is a part of the Finnish heritage. There are currently around 300,000 registered hunters, and registration is an easy process. As our main goal in the restaurant is to elevate Finnish gastronomy, hunting has to be a part of that equation. And there’s really no better way to be sustainable then to hunt. It’s seasonal, extremely fresh, and highly beneficial to the environment. Hunters can help to cull overpopulation, provide census data for big game animals and prevent poaching.
How do you approach the food at Ravintola Nokka?
It takes some effort. I change the menu at least seven times a year due to the seasonal nature of hunting, but I stick to one principle. The food has to taste like what it is, especially so when working with strong tasting game meats. Then I decide on the
best technique to accentuate that flavour, be it smoking, grilling or curing, and finding complimentary flavours in the produce to boost that even more. I love using foraged ingredients, as often they are what these game animals eat. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
Where do you go to hunt and forage?
I stay in Espoo, which is quite close to Helsinki. There’s an abundance of green spaces nearby that contain a bounty of potential ingredients. I do most of my hunting here as well. In terms of what can be foraged, it’s quite diverse. There’s a ton of mushrooms, wild berries and sprouts that I use for garnishing or salads. My favourite is berries as there’s quite a wide range of wild varietals; from lingonberries, wild strawberries to sea buckthorn berries.
You make up the rest of the menu with farmed items. What are some of the farms that you work with?
We are quite fortunate to have a tight knit community of small farmers in Finland, and many of them have been supplying Nokka ever since we opened in 2002. They are mostly sustainable and organic, and many supply me with root vegetables like sweet turnips, Finnish potatoes and other berries. For meats, there are farms that provide specialty breeds; Herrakunnan Lammas has Kainuu Grey sheep, and there’s a farm in Petäjävesi that breeds Mangalitza, which are wooly pigs that sport fantastic marbled meat.
What is a Christmas specialty at Ravintola Nokka?
Reindeer. We work closely with a farm in Salla, Lapland that corrals reindeer during their annual migration. It’s a tradition in Northern Finland, and the farmers take really good care of the animals under them, which results in spectacular meat. At my restaurant we prepare it rather simply; we smoke the meat with reindeer fat and make a sauce out of the tallow. It’s a plate that exudes the true taste of a Finnish Christmas.