A food hall in an old ironworks, and the cheapest way to eat well in an expensive city.
Mathallen opened in 2012 in a former ironworks building on the Akerselva, and it did for eating in Oslo roughly what the food-hall model has done everywhere: made good food available without committing to a restaurant.
Why it matters here specifically
Oslo is expensive, and restaurant dinners are where that bites hardest. A hall where you can eat a plate of something very good for a third of what a sit-down main costs is not a novelty in this city; it is a strategy.
Around thirty traders: a fishmonger doing plates as well as counters, a cheesemonger, charcuterie, a very good baker, tacos, ramen, Spanish, Italian, a chocolate maker, and several bars.
Communal tables in the middle, no bookings, and a mezzanine.
Fiskeriet and the seafood counters are the thing to prioritise — Norwegian fish, simply handled, at prices that will look reasonable against anything else you eat here.
Vulkan
The surrounding district is a redevelopment of an industrial site, and it is well done.
Dansens Hus, the national stage for contemporary dance. A hotel with a rooftop beehive and a geothermal well. Blå, a long-standing music venue on the riverbank with a Sunday jazz session that has run for decades. Ingens gate and the graffiti along the river.
The Akerselva itself runs through it — the river that powered Oslo’s mills, was an open sewer for a century, and has been cleaned to the point where salmon run up it again.
The honest view
Mathallen is not cheap in absolute terms. It is cheap for Oslo, which is a different claim.
It is also very busy at weekends and the acoustics under a hard industrial roof are what you would expect.
Closed Mondays, and some traders keep shorter hours than the hall itself.
Other ways to eat well for less
Vippa, a street-food hall in an old warehouse on the waterfront at Vippetangen, with a strong focus on food from immigrant communities and a fjord view. Cheaper than Mathallen and more interesting on the day it is busy.
The supermarket. Genuinely: Norwegian supermarkets sell excellent bread, cured salmon, brown cheese, prawns and berries, and a large proportion of Oslo’s summer eating happens on grass with a bag from Kiwi or Rema.
Lunch deals. Restaurants that cost a fortune at eight o’clock serve a dagens at noon for a fraction. See how much Oslo costs.
