The dining room of Hetan Majatalo has managed to keep its atmosphere and look through rapidly chancing world. Majatalo’s dining room has been made in the beginning of the 1950s and some of the recipes we use are at least as old.
We serve traditional Finnish and Lappish food from buffet.
Hetan Majatalo’s buffet is widely-known of its wide range of salads, home-made and tasty main courses and delicious desserts. As bravura at Majatalo there is for example home-made beer, courses from reindeer and fishes like salmon, home-made biscuits…
Please notice that in Finland we are used to eat dinner really early, even at 5 p.m. and that buffet is not served every day / all year – only when ordered for a group / more people having half board.
Please ask the times of buffet in advance and
please always let us know well in advance if you have any dietaries or allergies.
Delicacies of Majatalo
King bolete stew and mushroom salad are made of mushrooms from the surrounding woods.
Homemade salads are an important factor in making the buffet of Majatalo famous in the whole country.
The secret behind the sautéed reindeer and fried salmon lies in the way of preparing them with butter and salt only.
Nowadays, almost all dishes of Majatalo are with no lactose at all. We also prepare delicious meals for vegetarians and those with gluten-free diet and other allergies.
Steaks of reindeer liver are served with fried onions and lingonberries crushed with sugar.
Paula and Pekka, the entrepreneurs of the bakery Tunturi-Lapin Leipä, have baked fresh bread for Majatalo for decades.
Reindeer blood sausages were commonly made at home just one generation ago. Nowadays certain ingredients, such as intestines, are not easy available.
Aunt Hanna’s cakes are made with the secret recipe of Maija.
Home-made beer is still brewed after the secret recipe of Maija-Ämmi. (The word Ämmi stands for Grandmother and is used in Finnish Lapland only).
The cold crowberry drink of Majatalo is made of crowberries growing in abundance in the neighbourhood.Whitefish of Pöyrisjärvi, vendace and sometimes arctic char are delivered to Majatalo by local fishermen.
Crushed lingonberries belong to every reindeer meat dish.
Whipped cream is served with almost every dessert.
Crepes made by Tiina at campfire taste especially good, even though Tuula prepares the crepe dough in advance. Perhaps the nature of Lapland and the carbon black coffee pot have something to do with the taste.
Cloudberries are most often served with vanilla ice cream.
Petri knows best how to make delicious food at campfire. He also makes excellent vanilla coffee cakes and dry cakes. When Tuula is cooking in the kitchen, Petri is learning the secrets behind her back, the same way as Tuula had to do with her mother-in-law. Petri will certainly bring his creative input to the delicacies of Majatalo.
Reindeer tongue sauce is one of the oldest dishes of Majatalo and is still served occasionally.
Swede casserole and carrot casserole are served all year round, not only at Christmas time.
Thursday is our traditional day of salmon / pea /reindeer soup with waffels / crepes / pancake as a dessert.
Fish heads and reindeer shinbones were the favourite delicacies of Kalle and Matti.
Blueberry soup and lingonberry porridge are made of self-juiced berries.
On our whole day excursion the tasty rice porridge is let to simmer in its thermo box and is ready to be served e.g. on the shores of the Arctic Sea together with other picnic provisions.
Lingonberry porridge as well as cloudberry and rhubarb kissel are made of natural ingredients of Lapland.
Plum kissel cream has been one of Maija’s favourite desserts. Tuula probably preferres the strawberry curd.
Teenage groups visiting Majatalo are well aware of the fact, that on the last day of their stay at Majatalo they will traditionally get sautéed reindeer for dinner, chocolate kissel for dessert, and stuffed cake after the evening snack.
Tuula has brought to Majatalo many recipes of cookies and other pastry products as a heritage of her mother.
Mouth-melting donuts and baked rolls with a dab of butter are baked in large quantities every season.
Gravlax and salted whitefish are sometimes served for breakfast as well as for dinner.
Teenage groups are served with homely fare, such as macaroni casserole, minced meat sauce, frankfurter sauce, meatballs, Pyttipannu, risottos, sausage soup etc.
Dream Swiss Roll made with the recipe of Maija also became the specialty of her son Matti.
The cakes of Majatalo are traditionally stuffed with cloudberries, glazed with whipped cream and decorated with Tuula’s marzipan figures.
Simmering the morning porridge gently makes it taste especially good.
Lapin leipäjuusto, a Lappish cheese, is a tradition at our festive coffee buffet.
Lapin Puikula, also called Almond Potato, thrives best in Lapland. EU has protected the name Lapin Puikula in 1997.