Lapland food: what to eat, and what it costs

Finnish food first, then the north

Ask Visit Finland what Finnish food is and it gives seven dishes: rye bread, Karelian pie (a thin rye crust filled with rice porridge), salmon soup, sautéed reindeer, fried vendace, bread cheese, and new potatoes with herring. Only one of the seven is, in Visit Finland’s own words, a regional dish “especially in the north”, and that is sautéed reindeer.

What Lapland adds is what the land here supplies. Reindeer, because herding has been part of Sámi and Arctic Finnish culture for centuries, as Visit Finland puts it. Fish from rivers and lakes. Berries picked wild, cloudberries above all. And potatoes under almost everything, which Visit Rovaniemi counts among the staples.

What to eat in Lapland, dish by dish

Sautéed reindeer (poronkäristys)

Thin slices of reindeer meat, cooked slowly with onions and butter, often with a splash of beer or stock, until tender. Visit Rovaniemi describes the classic plate: sautéed reindeer with mashed potatoes and lingonberries, and both Rovaniemi menus we checked add pickled cucumber. If you order one Lapland dish, this is the one the region itself would put in front of you.

Bread cheese with cloudberries (leipäjuusto)

A mild cheese, usually made from cow’s milk, lightly browned, and known as “squeaky cheese”. In Lapland it comes warm as a dessert with cloudberries or cloudberry jam. Cloudberry is lakka or hilla in Finnish, and you will see both words on menus. Visit Finland adds that the traditional Sámi way to eat it is dipped in hot black coffee; for the culture that practice belongs to, read our guide to Sámi culture.

Salmon soup and Arctic char

Salmon soup (lohikeitto) is salmon, potatoes, carrots and leeks in a broth with a little cream, and Visit Rovaniemi counts it among Lapland’s well-known fish dishes. Salmon, trout, pikeperch and Arctic char are the fish it names on northern plates.

Fried vendace, rieska and the almond potato

Vendace (muikku) are small freshwater fish, and Visit Finland calls fried vendace a summer favourite. Rieska is a soft flatbread eaten with butter. Visit Rovaniemi names the almond potato among the local staples, and Lapland has a potato with its own protected name, Lapin Puikula. For something sweet at a café, look for kampanisu, a pastry named for its comb-like shape.

Which Lapland foods the EU protects

A protected designation of origin (PDO) means production, processing and handling all happen inside a defined area. A protected geographical indication (PGI) needs only one of those stages there. The Finnish Food Authority defines both; the European Commission keeps the register, eAmbrosia, and we read every Finnish record in it.

The three reindeer names come with a condition worth knowing when you buy meat to take home. The Reindeer Herders’ Association states that the products must come from reindeer born and raised in Finland’s reindeer husbandry area, with the meat cut, processed and packaged there too. That area covers 36% of Finland: the whole Lapland region plus the northern parts of North Ostrobothnia and Kainuu. So “Lapin” on a packet of reindeer meat means the herding area, which is a little larger than Lapland on the map.

What Lapland food costs on a Rovaniemi menu

Two restaurants on Valtakatu in central Rovaniemi publish their prices online. They are quoted because they publish, not because we rate them, and a menu changes with the season, so treat these as a guide to the level, not a promise.

On these two menus a Lapland main course ran from €24 to €36, before drinks. For what a whole trip costs, meals included, see what a Lapland trip costs and, if the number matters most, Lapland on a budget. We did not check menus in Levi, Saariselkä or Inari for this page.

Picking cloudberries yourself

Finland’s everyman’s rights let anyone pick wild berries and mushrooms, and Visit Finland names cloudberries in Lapland among the wild foods of summer and early autumn. The same rights forbid cutting trees or otherwise disturbing plants and animals. We could not confirm whether any local rule changes this in the northernmost municipalities, so ask locally before you pick there. If berries are part of your plan, look at Lapland in July and Lapland in August, not the winter months.

Finnish Christmas food

The Finnish Christmas table, as Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs sets it out, is ham, casseroles of rutabaga and carrot, rosolli (a beetroot salad), salted salmon, herring, rice porridge, and pastries filled with prune jam. It is a Finnish meal rather than a Lapland one, and we found no source that sets out a separate Lapland Christmas table. If Christmas is the reason for your trip, read Christmas in Lapland and Lapland in December.

Three things menus leave out

Bread cheese is not a protected Lapland name. The EU register holds two applications for bread cheese, one from Ostrobothnia and one from Kainuu, and neither was registered when we checked. Squeaky cheese on a Rovaniemi menu is good cheese, not a certified local one.

The dish is not the label. Poronkäristys, salmon soup and cloudberry jam are not protected names at all. Only the product names in the table above carry EU protection, so a menu that calls a dish “Lapland-style” is describing a style, not making a legal claim.

The reindeer on your plate and the reindeer by the road are the same animal. Reindeer in Finland are semi-domesticated, and every one you see is owned by a herder. Meat is one of the things that livelihood produces, which is why the same trip can hold a reindeer sleigh ride and a reindeer dinner without contradiction. For the animals you might meet while you are out, see Lapland wildlife.