One annoying and recurring problem in Helsinki is that many of the best restaurants are closed for the summer season. This is pretty incredible as most tourists visit here during the summer, but I guess the cooks need their summer vacation also.. Anyway, during the midsummer party (Juhannus) the situation is the worst as most restaurants, good or bad, are closed for the weekend. So when we were going to eat out (sponsored by the in-laws) on the midsummer eve, options were somewhat limited.
Luckily hotels rarely close and their restaurants thus have to stay open also, so we chose to go to restaurant Macu, located in the Crowne Plaza hotel in Helsinki. Even they were serving a limited 3 x 3 menu, but luckily it contained most of the best bits of their real menu. In addition to the generally nice and wide but also limited enough even when regular menu, the wine selection at Macu was quite extensive with a cool wine “cellar” in the middle of the neatly decorated and elegant dining room. While the decoration didn’t include any dramatic elements and was done in a safe hotel-fashion, it was a pleasant place and had a nice atmosphere anyway – definitely slightly better than your average middle-of-the-road hotel eatery.
For starters, I went with the Shellfish ceviche with lime dressing (€12,30) which was quite close to a perfect starter – fresh prawns and a delicious, light lime dressing to top it off. Even the asparagus, which I generally don’t care that much about, was quite agreeable. The portion also wasn’t too big to spoil the appetite for the mains, but was of a decent size anyway – i.e. it didn’t just leave one angry 
The mains on the limited menu included fish, duck and meat, and wanting to take the safe route here, I took the Grilled fillet of beef with sage potatoes, morels and thyme sauce (€27,20). It proved to be a good choice as the fillet was grilled perfectly as requested (medium minus) and was all around delicious. Most others in the party went with the duck (Roasted duck breast, couscous seasoned with apple and dark raspberry sauce at €23,10) and I only heard comments of approval about that, too.
As far as service goes, it was very efficient, friendly and attentive – really the only minor minus came from the baby high chair not being ready waiting for us though I had requested one when making the reservation. But that was peanuts and overall the experience was very enjoyable. Prices, as you can probably tell, were somewhere in the average-upper average scale as far as restaurants in Helsinki go; more importantly, the price-quality ratio was good. Given that, I can easily recommend Macu, once again proving wrong the old adage that hotel restaurants are best avoided. Not so.
You forgot to praise my salad of goat cheese with pistachio and passion sauce, it was fantastic!
That looks like a really tasty dish. Where is this Helsinki restaurant?