Plating up, foraging with Sami Tallberg, Helsinki

Sami Tallberg Finnish foraging lunch

ByQin Xie 04/10/201319/05/2020

Menu from a lunch at Ravintola Grotesk in Helsinki, Finland, with chef Sami Tallberg creating dishes out of foraged and wild ingredients (with wild ingredients in brackets):

Sparkling birch sap

Salad of Brussels sprouts, Finnish “ricotta” and wild herbs with pine needle dressing

(scots pine, garlic mustard, wood sorrel, sheeps’ sorrel, common sorrel, dandelion, orpine, wall lettuce)

Sea pike-perch with wild mushrooms and polypody jus

(pike-perch, yellow leg chanterelles, girolles, common polypody)

Angelica posset with sea buckthorn and bee pollen

(Garden angelica, sea buckthorns, bee pollen, Japanese rose petals, pansy flowers)

Chaga tea

Sparkling birch sap, foraging with Sami Tallberg, Helsinki

Foraged herbs, foraging with Sami Tallberg, Helsinki

Salad of Brussels sprouts, Finnish "ricotta" and wild herbs with pine needle dressing, foraging with Sami Tallberg, Helsinki

Sea pike-perch with wild mushrooms and polypody jus, foraging with Sami Tallberg, Helsinki

Angelica posset with sea buckthorn and bee pollen, foraging with Sami Tallberg, Helsinki

Qin Xie

Qin Xie is a London based food, wine and travel journalist and trained chef.

When not infiltrating Michelin restaurants as a kitchen tourist, she writes about food, drink and travel. Her work has appeared on Yahoo, FT, The Times and CNN.

Her first cookbook, co-authored with YS Peng at Hunan Restaurant, is out March 2014.

According to friends, her watch is always set to UTC -- ready for the next big adventure. In reality, she is happiest at the dinner table or by the sea.