Norwegian food had a poor reputation for a long time and it was not entirely undeserved. A cold country with a short growing season, a Lutheran suspicion of pleasure, and a century of prosperity built on things other than agriculture did not produce a great restaurant culture.
Two things changed it. The New Nordic movement, which began at Noma in Copenhagen in the 2000s and gave Scandinavian chefs permission to take their own larder seriously. And money — Oslo has enough of it to support restaurants that would not survive anywhere else.
The result is a city with a genuinely excellent high end, a good middle, and a bottom end that is mostly your own responsibility.
The traditional dishes
Brunost. Brown cheese, made by boiling whey until the sugars caramelise. Sweet, fudge-coloured, sliced thin with an ostehøvel — the cheese slicer, a Norwegian invention of 1925 — onto bread or a waffle. Visitors are divided and Norwegians are not.
Fårikål. Mutton and cabbage with whole black peppercorns, boiled for hours. Voted the national dish, eaten in autumn, and much better than the description.
Kjøttkaker — meat cakes with brown sauce, peas and lingonberries. The everyday Norwegian dinner.
Raspeballer or komle — potato dumplings, regional and heavy.
Lutefisk. Dried cod rehydrated in lye until it becomes translucent and gelatinous, eaten at Christmas with bacon, peas and mustard. It is genuinely challenging, Norwegians know it is challenging, and being offered it is a form of test.
Pinnekjøtt — salted and dried lamb ribs steamed over birch sticks, the Christmas dish in western Norway and increasingly everywhere.
Rakfisk — fermented trout. Approach with respect.
The fish
The real strength, and the thing to spend money on.
Skrei, the migrating winter cod from the Lofoten grounds, January to April. Firm, white, and traditionally served with its own roe and liver, which is worth ordering the once.
Salmon, farmed and wild, as gravlaks cured with dill or røkelaks cold-smoked. Cheapest from a supermarket and excellent there.
Reker — cooked prawns, bought off a boat at the City Hall pier in summer and eaten on the quay with bread and mayonnaise. The best cheap meal in the city.
King crab from Finnmark, and fiskesuppe, the creamy fish soup on every menu.
Sweet, and the bakery
Kanelbolle — the cinnamon bun, with cardamom in the dough. Skolebrød, with custard and coconut. Krumkake and kransekake at Christmas.
Vafler — Norwegian waffles, heart-shaped, soft rather than crisp, eaten with brown cheese or with sour cream and jam.
Cloudberries — multer — the orange bog berry that Norwegians go to some trouble to pick and will not tell you where.
Where to eat, by budget
High end. Oslo has several Michelin-starred restaurants and a serious tasting-menu scene, most of it built on local and foraged ingredients. Book weeks ahead and expect to spend properly.
Middle. Mathallen and Vippa are the food halls. Grünerløkka has the densest concentration of good restaurants at reasonable prices. Grønland and Tøyen, east of the centre, have the city’s best cheap food — Pakistani, Turkish, Somali, Eritrean — at prices that will surprise you.
Bottom. The supermarket. Norwegian supermarkets sell very good bread, cured salmon, prawns, brown cheese and berries, and a large proportion of Oslo’s summer eating happens on grass. Kiwi, Rema 1000 and Coop Extra are the cheap ones; Meny is the good one.
And the pølse. The hot dog is the national street food, sold at every kiosk and petrol station, served in a bun or wrapped in a lompe — a soft potato flatbread — with fried onions, remoulade and prawn salad. It is what Norwegians eat at two in the morning and on 17 May.
Lunch is the strategy
The single most useful piece of advice about eating in Oslo: the same kitchen charges a fraction at lunchtime.
The dagens — dish of the day — at a decent restaurant is a genuine meal at a genuine price. Restaurants that would cost a great deal at eight o’clock are affordable at one.
Drinking
Read the alcohol section of how much Oslo costs before you plan an evening. In short: spirits and strong wine come only from Vinmonopolet, which shuts early and is closed on Sundays; supermarket beer sales stop at 8pm on weekdays and 6pm on Saturdays; and a bar round is expensive enough to change your plans.
Akevitt is the spirit — potato or grain, caraway-flavoured, and in the case of linie aquavit, shipped across the equator and back in oak casks because someone discovered in the nineteenth century that it improved it. That is still done and it is printed on the label.
Beer is where Oslo is strongest — the craft scene is serious and Grünerløkka is where it pours.
Practical
Book for anything good, particularly at weekends.
Kitchens close early by southern European standards — many stop around nine or ten.
Tipping is not expected. Service is included.
Tap water is excellent and free, and asking for it is normal.
Vegetarians and vegans are well served in central Oslo and will find a traditional menu difficult.