Gastrobar Emo is easy to step in to enjoy easygoing service and good food. Emo (Dam in english) was opened on the 21st of August 2013 in the same place where Michelin star restaurant Olo used to be. Owners are partly the same which should be a proof of excellent food experience.
There is also separate wine bar which provides opportunity to enjoy an aperitif or glass of wine. With drinks you can order snacks from bar menu. We visited wine bar after dinner, there is narrow corridor between dining room and bar but it also has separate entrance.
Quite soon after you arrive you will get some snacks and fresh bread with celery butter which was really tasty. Brown paper bag is one way to serve bread but it would have been easier to take bread from bread basket.
You can choose your dinner from 3 “starters”, 4 “main courses” and 3 “desserts” up to assemblage of 6 foods. Our group decided to go for 3 courses and ordered first 2x FINNISH VENDACE’s and 2x WILD DUCK WITH RED CABBAGE AND APPLE.
Name Finnish vendaces might be misleading; we got Finnish fish but the way it was prepared was actually better than traditionally fried vendaces. Frying in oil instead of frying in a pan with butter made vendaces more crispy but not so greasy. On top of that side dishes were a perfect match.
Next courses were 3x GREENLAND HALIBUT WITH POTATOES “GOBBAS GÅRD” and 1x WILD DUCK WITH RED CABBAGE AND APPLE.
Halibut was bull’s eye. Cooked to a turn and two different ways to serve potato complemented fish nicely.
If you take wild duck for starter it is served on stone plate, which is clever idea to convert “main course” to “starte”r. There was three different ways to serve duck and again duck paired perfectly with cabbage and apple.
And for dessert 3x EUROPEAN CHEESE SORTIMENT and for me second main course 1x GREENLAND HALIBUT WITH POTATOES “GOBBAS GÅRD”
There were 3 different cheeses on the plate: blue cheese, cow and goat cheese. Apple and onion conserves supplemented taste of cheeses nicely.
One kind request; please make portions a little bit bigger 
Or maybe intention is to eat at least 5 portions which hopefully are not too small. Otherwise Emo manages food part fine and earns a place as laid-back little brother of Olo.
We asked recommendation for dry riesling and waitress suggested MAX FERDINAND RICHTER MülHEIMER SONNENLAY RIESLING ZEPPELIN 2012 MOSEL from Germany which we ordered. After tasting, as wine seemed not to be dry, asked for the amount of sugar. 35g for “dry” is quite a lot, but wine itself was basically OK. A positive thing is the pricing of wines; most of them were less expensive than they usually are in a fine dining restaurants like Emo is.
Waitering was thoughtful and professional but we could have managed without overflowing twitter.
REVIEW: FOOD 4,5/5 – SERVICE 4+/5 – OVERALL GRADE 4,5/5
Filed under: Bar, Food, Helsinki, Restaurant, Restaurant review, Travel, Wine
