Grotesk

Extravagant and sensational. This was the treat-​meal of our vacation.
The services was friendly and courteous.
We ordered the house made charcuterie, bacon and sauerkraut, and calamari sliders. All excellent.
We has the 14 day aged ribeye and Waygu with the mushroom bernaise. Incredible.
I appreciate the «shared plates» concept as well.
This restaurant is worth making time for. Check the menu online. It’s fantastic.

Modern, stylish and pleasant establishment. Me and my girlfriend want it talk eat well and also drink something nice. Service was excellent, we had 3 course meal and starter and desert was nice but main course let me down. I had fish and it was blend :(wines that they recommended with the food was nice. I will go again, as it was today’s specials I will give another try to see what they have this time to offer.
Relaxed, stylish, great service

Great cocktailbar! I have read the reviews of this place, however they were all for food. I recommend that you go here for cocktails. I went on a Thursday and there were few people there. Back on Saturday the place was packed! Cocktails are great, service was good and there was a dj playing vinyl. It’s a terrace in between buildings, when the weather is good, go there!

i admit it. i was on a damn cruise and was let loose in helsiniki for a day. i’m not sure how we ended up here but i’m SO glad we did. we got in at an off time, around 1pm on a tuesday or something like that, so the restaurant was pretty much empty. the service was friendly and attentive. of course the food was delicious, fresh, and really pretty on our plates. if/​when i’m ever back in town, you can bet i’ll go back.

Highly recommended. Staff is friendly and attentive for the most part. Not as knowledgable about wine as some but no attitude either.
We had the chefs tasting menu (4 course). It was brilliant. The wine flight was good as well. Good Pinot Noir from Vienna, who knew?
The place does a good job of comfortable and hip at the same time. Some good downtempo lounge music would help rather than just the bass from the patio bar in the back. The speakers were there just not in use.

Grotesk offers some really good food and the restaurant as well as the bar also felt like just a nice place to have dinner or hang out for drinks. The service was however a bit slow and not as knowledgeable as I would have expected at a place that appears to have fairly high ambitions.
Food quality was excellent — everything that was served up was of great quality and there was a clear thought behind it all. The price level also makes it a requirement for them to deliver good food — it was not expensive but not at all cheap either so I do expect good food at these prices.
Wine list was also pretty good but the staff seemed to lack knowledge on the wines that they serve. Still a very good choice for a nice dinner in Helsinki.

A couple of blocks to Esplanadi.
We tried three white wines, and they were all good. The home-​made bread was wholewheat (which is nice) and the saltiest I ever tasted (which was not).
We had the white fish terrine with potato pancake as an appetizer. The terrine was not one at all: just a piece of cold white fish, the pancake was just ONE silver dollar-​sized Russian-​style pancake (blin), topped with pretentious little violet flowers and a weird green powder which was so salty, it totally ruined the dish for me (which would have been just very average otherwise). Bottom line: inedible (particularly if you try with the salty bread –ouch).
Then I had a nice piece of salmon, very well cooked, and a decent mushroom sauce. Too bad it only came with 3 tiny potatoes. Once you polish them off, it’s back to salty bread with you… My wife had the Caesar salad with scampi. The scampi were OK, but cold. The best thing that can be said about the salad was that it was forgettable.
For 2 glasses of wine, 2 starters and 2 entrees at over Eu 100, it was a large waste of money. We had a much better dinner for cheaper at Kappali on the previous night.
They seem to have a very popular outdoor courtyard, for which you need to make a reservation to have any chance to get a spot.

Had a leisurely and enjoyable evening here on Saturday with friends. First, the good — the place had good ambience and a decent touch of style in the décor. The tables are well spaced and the accoustics, which had been an issue in the restaurant’s previous incarnation, have been dealt with. The appetizers I tried, including my pumpkin soup with crab meat, where tasty — a perfect dish for an autumnal evening. The suggested matching wine, a sweet white Czech number, was fun and different. My main, pan seared lamb with gratin dauphinois, was delicious — some of the best lamb I’ve had for a long time — tender, tasty, well cooked. Probably twice as good or more than a more expensive dish served at Societe du Couchon not far away. The saucing was rich and complementary, and overall rounded out a successful dish. Good work. The suggested matched wine, an Australian Shiraz called ‘Director’s Cut’ (such pomposity should be reserved for Coppola’s wine efforts!) was a little too heavy and edgy for my taste, but not bad. For dessert I kept it light and went with the milk chocolate mousse with berry sorbet and assorted berries. Served in a tumbler glass, it was delicious. Now for the source of the lost review star. The service, though well intentioned, was slow and amateurish. My fish loving friends who opted for the Pollock (that’s a fish, as we guessed!) found it both too salty and not super fresh. So, to summarize, worth a visit, but expect to exercise patience with the service, and you’ll likely have an enjoyable evening. This place is a fairly recent offering from the guys behind Demo, which we like a lot, so hopefully they’ll get the service and the few minor menu execution glitches sorted out. The location and space have a lot of potential, and there’s plenty of big tables to accommodate larger parties. I hope they can take this one to the next level.