Restaurant Nili, Rovaniemi 01-2013

It takes a pretty special restaurant to have me (or anyone for that matter) trudge through -6C cold and snow for 20mins just for dinner. Luckily for Nili they had the credentials to lure me and even force myself to make a reservation a month in advance during the cold January quiet season.

Other than the Tripadvisor #1 spot, reputation for serving Lappish cuisine, winning the award for 2012 Rovaniemi Menu and simply there didn't seem to be any other places in Rovaniemi that appealed to me. It also helped that the menu had less common items such as arctic fish, reindeer, snowgrouse and bear.

The Rovaniemi Menu is comprised of local seasonal ingredients agreed upon by the chefs of Rovaniemi and each restaurant creates their own menu with those core items. I couldn't decide between the restaurant's classic dishes (cep soup and reindeer cooked two ways) or the seasonal menu. The waitress opted for the seasonal on my behalf:

- complimentary rye bread and potato bread with homemade butter - continued the trend of dry friable bread in Finland, nothing but a filler;
- starter of salmon mousse on a cracker
- Powers of Bear (shot of bear consomme) - deliciously mild-game, slightly sweet meaty soup served with a slice of tasteless cheese;
- Autumn's Harvest (Holopainen´s creamy porcini mushroom soup and rosemary foam) - beautiful creamy mushroom blend with a hint of rosemary mixed in;
- complimentary crowberry sorbet - similar to a blueberry/cranberry cross, more sweet than tart;
- Forest Delicacies (tenderloin of elk á la Chef Kyllönen, strong game sauce, Rovaniemi cranberry jelly, potatoes fried with churned butter) - luscious tender medium-rare elk with a texture of quality beef eye fillet with a taste that reminded me most of a mild game kangaroo, meaty sauce and nice combination of roast potato, carrot and swedes;
- Glimmer of Sun (pannacotta á la Nili with cloudberries from Inari and buckthorn from Mieslahti) - very thick pannacotta filled with vanilla seeds, a layer of sweet cloudberry film and fresh buckthorn berries adding a very strong tartness.

Next time I would order the Rovaniemi menu again for a first timer - the ingredients, flavours and combinations were fantastic. For a second visit I'd be more curious to know what the other signature dishes are like, such as reindeer, snowgrouse and particularly bear steak.