Hell´s Kitchen

Møllergata 23
0179 Oslo, Norway
22 11 20 00‎

I took notice of this restaurant after a newspaper (I don't remember which) wrote that this was the best pizza in town. Being a lover of Italian peasant-food, of course I had to go. I went there a couple of times and both times I took someone with me and made them have veggie pizzas, so that they could give me their opinions.

Hell's Kitchen is a very non-pretentious pizza restaurant in central Oslo. The customers seem to be younger leisurely trendy people. The place has become pretty popular, so it happens that you have to wait in order to get a table, especially if you go during the weekend. The restaurant is very retro-esque and the play vinyl records. Nice.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that vegetarian pizzas have their own section in the menu, so that you don´t have to plow through the whole thing looking for the carcass-free pizzas.
They have six veggie pizzas to choose from.

The kitchen is open (and very small). Open kitchens are always a good sign, as it shows that they have nothing to hide (like a sweaty chef with a giant parrot with bird-flu sitting on his shoulder).

Pizzas arrive quickly and the waiters are relaxed, helpful and friendly. My favourite at Hell´s Kitchen pizza is the one with aubergines, sun-dried tomatoes, and chillies. It smells good, and it is juicy. The chef seems to know how to handle his aubergines. I can tell when aubergine is done well. It gets soft, moist and it tastes a bit sweet. This one did. So yes, yum.

The crust is almost perfect. Crunchy and not "leaky".

You get pizzas with blue cheese, feta cheese, artichokes, the works.

The prices are very reasonable. You can have a pizza for under kr 150. If you're really poor (you probably aren't), you can order plain tap-water and they still won't chop your head off.

The best pizza in town? Naw.... Almost. I still prefer Arte Pazza. But if you want to go to a place where you can get a quick overview over veggie delights and above average pizzas, Hell's Kitchen will do. You probably won't have a celestial gourmet "WOW"-experience, but this is clearly better than your average pizza. You can tell they like what they do. And we like them

Arte Pazza

Arte Pazza
Ullevålsveien 61
0171 Oslo
http://www.artepazza.no/

When it comes to Arte Pazza, I must admit that I am a bit biased. For years, this has been my neighbourhood restaurant and I have had my dinner there more times than I can remember.

On the other hand, my numerous visits to this charming little Italian restaurant perhaps make me rather qualified to voice my opinion on it.

Arte Pazza started out as a tiny cafè/ restaurant in Parkveien, in the middle of the town, and then they opened the restaurant at Sankthanshaugen, a bigger and more ambitios place. The small place in Parkveien is still there, but now it only offers take-aways.

I love my pizza. I really truly love my pizza. And I love it Italian style, with thin dough, crispy crust and just the perfect amount of topping (a pizza is not a sandwich and it shouldn't drown in toppings).

Arte Pazza offers a rather wide range of veggie pizzas and pastas. If you go there several times, they are likely to remember that you always order vegetarian and if there's a pasta of the day with meat in it, they offer to make you a vegetarian version. I have tried and it worked like a charm.

Still, at Arte Pazza my love affair is with their Contadina pizza. As pizzas go, Contadina is a vegetarian paradise. They make it crispy, thin and delicious. The topping consists of tomatos, aubergines, zucchini, artichokes, some mushrooms and olives and parmesan. I like to dress it with some olive oil spiced with chilli. I order this so often it is actually a bit embarassing. It has come to the point where I actually can say that I want "the usual" and they will know what I am talking about (that is if their charming Swedish waitress is there). Contadina is fragrant, juicy, crispy and yummy. I promise. An no, they are not paying me to say this. :-) This pizza is spectacular.

If aubergines and artichokes aren't quite your thing, there's an array of other pizzas and pastas. A couple of the pizzas are very similar to Contadina, only with fewer ingredients and hence cheaper. Then there's Sarda with from four to six Italian cheases on it. I have had this one several times and each time I finished just because I don't like leaving uneaten food on my plate (my granny gene!). This was not because Sarda wasn't good (it's delicious) but because the cheases make it very heavy and powerful, so it's a capacity challenge for one person to deal with the whole thing. But it my world, this is fine.

The pastas are simple and good. I have yet to order a flop at Arte Pazza. The closest I came was a calzzone with tomatos. It was more air than tomatos and I felt it was very lunchy and not too inspired or filling. It was overpriced considering that you are left hungry afterwards. Not bad, but just boring and small.

In general, right now this might just be the pizza place in town (forget the calzzone). I have had pizzas at tons of places, so I know.

As for the desserts, try the tiramisu. it's bona fide and orgasmic. If you want to take something with you, to pig out on in the privacy of your own home, I suggest you go for the canneloni. they're pretty firm, so you can transport them safely and still they're creamy and the mascarpone filling is pure perfection.

As if I need to say it after all this, but still here I go: As non-vegetarian restaurants go, Arte Pazza's food rocks. It does. So there. Go. Now.

Bistro Brocante

Bistro Brocante
Thorvald Meyers gate 40
0555 Oslo
22 35 68 71

http://www.bistrobrocante.no

Bistro Brocante is a small and cosy bistro-style restaurant in Oslo's semi-swanky Grünerløkka. The menue sports a relatively wide range of quite simple, moderately priced (you can have a good main course for less than kr 200) dishes. The guests seem to be younger to middle aged upper middle class people. Bistro Brocante offers no vegetarian courses on the dinner menue. If you aim for a meat free lunch though, there are a couple of dishes to choose from. The lunch menue is served till 17:00. I went there to have dinner.

Seeing that they had no vegetarian meals on the dinner menue, I asked whether the chef could accomodate my non-carnivor needs. To my great joy, this was no problem whatsoever (always a good sign) and the waitress came with some suggestions (potato-mash, stewed vegetables etc.). I said I was open to try whatever the chef was inspired to make for me. While I waited, I had a glass of white wine, a riesling also chosen by the waitress. It was on the sweeter side, but it was perfectly fine for my slightly infantile tastes in wine.

As a simple appetizer, we got some olives, pickled baby cucumbers and slightly stewed green beans with salt and spices. They arrived in just the perfect amount so that we wouldn´t starve before the main course arrived but also so that we couldn't go wild and stuff our faces and be full before dinner. The appetizer was no coulinary spectacle, but was refreshing and nice. It did exactly what it was meant to do.

The main course arrived, very well timed after the appetizer. I chose to stick to my white wine.

The chef made the following for me: A hearty slice of omelette with baked-in veggies, a good portion of mashed potatos, all on a bed of stewed vegetables. You get a nice serving of good quality, semi dark bread with the main course.

My first thought was that an omelette with a potato mash was a bit of an overkill, a bit like eating two side dishes without a main act. On the positive side, both the omelette and the potatos had lovely structure and texture. Perfectly cooked and presented well. The veggies were flawless. Everything tasted fresh and was rich in taste and combined well.

I LOVE mashed potatos. That is, I love potatos in general. I could have mashed potatos three times a week. The mash at Bistro Brocante, although the texture was superb, tasted somewhat flat. So did the omelette. Both the egs and the potatos had a very "safe" taste, with very little spices you could actually taste, so I had to adjust salt and pepper in both. Having said that, the combination worked better than what I expected when the dish arrived to the table. And, as I said, the veggies were beyond yummu.

Still, my impression was that the chef at Bistro Brocante is a "meat-chef" without an especially well developed sense of what a well composed vegetarian dish is. Meaning: For the chef vegetarian simply equal no meat. True that, but to prepare a real meal, you need your food to taste as a main course and not a string of side dishes arranged on one plate.

As I write this, I feel concerned that I am making this sound overly critical. Which it isn't. Bistro Brocante is a good place for us plant-eaters when we want a decent, uncomplicated meal for a reasonable price. But you will probably notice that the chef(s) aren't well schooled in vegetarian cookery. Which isn't too impressive if you cook for living. So, this is not a place you want to spend a ton of money at. You don't reward uninspired cooking.

To end on a great note: My desert consisted of a SPECTACULAR chocolate fondante, marinated sour cherries and vanilla icecream. The fondante was beyond perfect, from texture (all cake-ish and immaculate on the outside and warm, fragrant, and runny on the inside). The cherries complemented the powerful chocolate taste of the fondante exactly as they were (probably) meant to. The icecream was good, especially given the fact that I really don't like icecreams. But mixing it with the chocolate fondante, and coated in some cherries, oh well, I almost loved it. Which means that for a person who appreciates their icecream, it would probably rock.

The conclusion? Go to Bistro Brocante if you want a nice meal and you're going with a carnivore friend and you don't mind them eating meat. Just don't expect fanfare and fireworks in the tastebud department. More like a low-key and nice, quiet celebration. Not more but not less either.