Oulu Restaurants

Cafe Bisketti is by far the best café I have encountered in Oulu. The cakes and buns are big enough to cater for the whole day (and maybe big part of the following one), the selection is excellent, the service is swift and prices are decent. The location at the Rotuaari walking street is superb, too.

The place may get crowded during busy hours and sometimes Bisketti gets too noisy.

Well, I don't think is is the place you are looking for a fine dining, but it is quite close to where I live and me and my roomie end up here once in a while. It is a pizza/kebab/everything place with lunch starting from 4euros. So good for student budget.

Favorite Dish: Well, Hanna prefers pizza. I try to change the portions everytime. Pizzas are pretty good. Ask more of garlic.

Pannu was one famous of its pan pizzas, but now it has much more to offer too, but pizzas are still good, I have heard. I think this is the nicest place around here what comes to decorating and atmosphere, the wooden tables, design lamps and changing art is what I prefer. This is a good place for a date but they can also easily arrange business meeting with long tables on the center.
I would name this to be on TOP3 restaurants in Oulu. It is popular among everyone, not too pricy and offers very good food with great variety.

Favorite Dish: I like many of those, goat cheese salad was great. Their strenght is to have wide range from vegetarian to beef, to pork, to birds, sometimes even to buffalo. Plus then pizzas and wines. Menus are also available in English too.

If you want very good food and central location and you are willing to pay a bit extra, Istanbul might be your choice then. This restaurant has a good reputation and old group loyal customers, not without a reason. Bahri, the owner, has done an excellent job building and maintaining this restaurant over years and years. It is definitely one of those places, where you go to have a good food and great service.

Istanbul has won many prices in Garlic Eve festival for its great developed garlic portions and especially for the vegatarian ones. Plus Bahri, the owner, has the titel of Maître Rôtisseur.

Favorite Dish: I like the garlic ones. All of them I guess;)

Crecian is a small greekish restaurant in my old neighbourhood. This little bistro offers fantastic and unique food and despite of its bit remote location, it is gaining popularity more and more. It's good to make a reservation a couple of days earlier, especially if you are having a group of people and you would prefer weekend times.
Crecian serves delicious greek food and the cooks are from Cyprus. So, the food is traditional, quaranteed, from feta cheese to souvlaki.

Crecian is not excatly in downtown itself, even it is located on main street Kirkkokatu. It is very easy to find and only some 5-8 minutes walk from Stockmann. Just keep going to South. Right next to Heinätori park.

Favorite Dish: There are so many good options. You have to taste them on your own and make a decision then...a good ending for a delicious meat is a strong cup of greekish coffee;)

There are couple of good chinese restaurants in Oulu. One of them is located near Kauppatori, called Dong Hai. There is a buffet during weekdays at lunch time. It costs 7 euroa, for students 6,50 euro.
You can eat everything from chicken to spring rolls, from steaken rice to pork. There are several choices. You get also a drink and coffee, plus a dessert. The minus here is that everything is deep fried. I mean everything. Even the vegetables. So you cannot really get out different variety. That is why I don't eat here.

Oulu is well known because its cheap pizza places. Here you can get a pizza with only 3 euros. That's very cheap (compared to Helsinki where cheapest ones start from 6-7) and there are more than 40 pizzerias around the town. Most of them are opened until 4.am. on the weekends.
You can guess that apperance of pizzas is not like the greatest and the ingredients are somebasics from peppers to ground meat, ham and tuna, but students appreciate the price and generally in Finland the quality of food is always good.

Favorite Dish: One of the cheapest places is Selma in Hallituskatu. Good one is Max in Kauppurienkatu. They make good pizza, which costs about 4-5- euros.

There haven't existed many good restaurants in Oulu, but the situation is (hopefully) seeming to improve. It's very hard to find here a typical Finnish restaurant, but try Erätupa near market place, if you feel wanting reindeer or bear.
Fransmanni itself is located in Sokos Hotel Arina and there you can eat French style food. Atmosphere can be noisy sometimes, so this is not the best place for a peaceful dinner.

Favorite Dish: You can eat here salmon and reindeers, many foods are -fortunately - made by Finnish ingredients. i have tasted whitefish au gratin, and it was good one, I prefer, But here you can also eat good vegetarian food, for example Pasta à la Provençale: Marinated tomatoes, olives, garlic and herbs in tomato sauce with Parmesan and penne.
They do also have some special weeks, where they have selected items on the menu, such as Beef Weeks. Winelist is pretty wide and good.