It turns out that unplanned dining in Helsinki can be a challenge on Friday nights. With no room in any of our traditional casual dining-places downtown – namely Colorado Bar & Grill, Santa Fe, La Bodega and Cantina West – we had to go up a notch towards fine dining and finally managed to get a table from La Tour. I would classify La Tour as “almost fine dining” – it has all the right elements but the paper napkins somehow don’t fit the bill. Anyway, it had been a while since we were there the last time and we were in no hurry, so we decided to go for a full three-course meal with appetizers, wine and all.
To start with, I took the Creamy lobster soup seasoned with armagnac which was exquisite and a very good choice considering we had just walked in from the cold outdoors. My main course choice was a rather boring one, but nonetheless delicious: Pepper steak flambéed in cognac, château potatoes and vegetable bake, which is nicely flambéed and partly prepared tableside. I think a few of the other customers hesitated slightly about their selection of main course at this point.
I was a little worried as the waitress didn’t ask whether I wanted my steak well done or medium or rare, but the concern was luckily unfounded – it arrived as a perfectly cooked medium, which is the only way they’re supposed to be done after all. Finally, for dessert I went with the Warm pistachio and chocolate cake baked in a glass with fig ice cream and cognac syrup – a thoroughly wonderful dessert, though a little bit too small..
I don’t know why, but I like the fact that different kinds of liquors are liberally used here to flavor up the dishes. The alcohols that you can order directly in the form of the wine list could, however, be more extensive (for example, only one rosé wine is available), but it does the job adequately – just doesn’t leave room for much variety with less than half a dozen choices of red and white each. The service, overall, was excellent despite the fact that our waitress had an uncanny aptitude for dropping her pen every single time she was going to write something down. Overall, the dinner was quite excellent and the price/quality-ratio quite good: with everything, under €60 per person. As a ranking, I’ll give it 4½ out of 5; in other words, highly recommended.
Update (summer 2006): La Tour is no more, as it has been replaced with an entirely different place called Virgin Oil Co, which I haven’t visited yet.
