Norwegian food to try in Oslo: from brown cheese to fårikål

Norwegian food: a cuisine worth understanding

Norwegian food has spent years as the punchline to jokes about bland Scandinavian cooking — all boiled potatoes and grey fish. That reputation was never fully deserved, but it’s now essentially obsolete. Oslo has one of the most interesting food cultures in northern Europe, shaped by world-class seafood, excellent lamb, creative fermentation traditions, and a generation of chefs who grew up eating simple food and decided to make it extraordinary.

This guide walks through the essential Norwegian dishes you should try in Oslo, from the everyday (kanelboller at a bakery) to the adventurous (rakfisk that will divide your group into converts and sceptics). Each comes with honest tasting notes and where to find the best version in the city.

Smørbrød: the daily bread of Oslo

The word means “butter bread” but smørbrød is really a whole philosophy of eating — the open-faced sandwich elevated to an art form. Dense, slightly sour rye bread, thin-sliced and buttered, topped with an ingredient that’s taken seriously.

The canonical Oslo smørbrød toppings:

Røkt laks (smoked salmon): The baseline and the benchmark. Norwegian farmed salmon is the finest in the world, and smoked with alder or birch it becomes something complex and oceanic. Served with lemon, dill, and either cream cheese or butter. Any bakery in Oslo will have this; quality varies. The best: Smørbukk at Mathallen (NOK 95–115 / $10–12 per open sandwich).

Reker (fresh boiled shrimp): In summer, the shrimp boats moored at Rådhusbrygga and Aker Brygge sell fresh fjord shrimp by the container. Buy a bag (around NOK 150–200 / $16–22 for a meal-sized portion), peel them on the spot, and eat them on white bread with mayonnaise. This is the quintessential Oslo summer eating experience.

Egg og tomater (egg and tomatoes): The simple smørbrød that Norwegian grandmothers make — hard-boiled egg, sliced tomato, a little salt, maybe anchovy. Humble and perfect. Every older-style Norwegian café has it for around NOK 65–80 ($7–9).

Makrell i tomat (mackerel in tomato): Canned mackerel on bread sounds unglamorous. Eaten on good rye with a squeeze of lemon and a few capers, it’s genuinely excellent — the kind of food that tastes like a coastal country’s honest relationship with the sea. Available in shops for DIY; the tubes of mackerel paste (makrelltun på tube) sold in supermarkets are an iconic Norwegian thing.

Brunost: brown cheese explained

Brunost deserves its own section because it’s the most polarising and most fascinating food in Norway. More than half of visitors either love it immediately or need two or three exposures before it clicks.

What it is: caramelised whey cheese. When you make Norwegian brown goat’s milk cheese, the liquid whey left behind is boiled down until the water evaporates and the milk sugars caramelise to a deep brown. This is then pressed into blocks. The flavour is sweet, slightly salty, fudge-like, with a distinctive tang that’s neither like regular cheese nor like caramel but genuinely its own thing.

Gudbrandsdalsost is the classic brown cheese — a blend of cow and goat milk. Geitost is made entirely from goat milk and is more intensely flavoured. Fløtemysost is a milder cow-milk version. The full guide to brunost and Norwegian specialties is in the specialties deep dive.

Where to try it in Oslo: Any café serving Norwegian breakfast will have it. For the full range, Gutta på Haugen at Mathallen does tastings. Buy a block of Gudbrandsdalsost at Meny or Coop Extra (supermarkets) for NOK 45–75 ($5–8) per 500g block and eat it with crispbread (knekkebrød) in your accommodation.

Fårikål: Norway’s national dish

Fårikål means “lamb in cabbage” and that’s almost exactly what it is — bone-in lamb pieces, whole black peppercorns, and white cabbage layered in a pot and simmered for three to four hours until the meat falls off the bone and the cabbage has absorbed all the lamb fat. The simplicity is the point. Norwegian autumn lamb from mountain-grazing sheep is some of the finest in the world, and the recipe lets the ingredient speak.

It’s a seasonal dish, made in autumn as Norway’s lamb harvest happens. You’ll find it on menus from September through November. Outside that window, the frozen version exists but the fresh seasonal dish is what you want.

Where to eat fårikål in Oslo: Engebret Café (Bankplassen 1) is Oslo’s oldest restaurant, dating from 1857, and serves traditional Norwegian food including seasonal fårikål. Expect to pay NOK 265–295 ($28–32) for a main. Brasserie Paleo and Olympen (Grønlandsleiret 15) also serve it seasonally. Some food tour operators include a tasting of fårikål or a close relative in autumn.

Kanelboller: Oslo’s favourite daily pastry

The Norwegian cinnamon roll (kanelbolle, plural kanelboller) is not the same as a Swedish kanelbulle. It’s denser and more bread-like, less sweet, coiled into a spiral, sometimes dusted with pearl sugar or cardamom, and eaten warm. Virtually every Oslo bakery makes them daily and virtually every Norwegian eats one several times a week.

Cardamom is the distinguishing spice — it runs through the dough and fills the bakery with a fragrance that’s instantly and completely Norwegian. Once you’ve eaten a good kanelbolle in Oslo, the inferior versions everywhere else will disappoint you for years.

The best kanelboller in Oslo:

Godt Brød (multiple locations, flagship at Thorvald Meyers gate 57) — the cooperative bakery that Oslo’s food community considers the gold standard. NOK 40–50 ($4.30–5.40).

Baker Hansen (multiple central locations) — reliable chain with high-quality kanelboller, slightly sweeter than Godt Brød. NOK 35–45 ($3.80–4.80).

Åpent Bakeri (Universitetsgata 5 and other locations) — modern Oslo bakery with excellent kanelboller and sourdough. NOK 45–55 ($4.80–5.90).

Fiskesuppe: Norwegian fish soup

Creamy fish soup with root vegetables, dill, and a generous amount of white fish and shellfish — this is one of Norwegian home cooking’s finest achievements and shockingly underrated. The base is typically a fish stock with cream and a little white wine, loaded with cod, salmon, and shrimp, thickened slightly and seasoned with dill and chives.

At midrange Oslo restaurants it runs NOK 145–195 ($16–21) for a bowl and constitutes a light lunch. At Mathallen’s fish counter it’s around NOK 125–150 ($13–16). For a traditional version, any coastal-menu Norwegian restaurant will serve it.

Reker: fresh fjord shrimp

Oslo’s most democratic luxury. From May to August, several boats moored at Rådhusbrygga (the pier in front of City Hall) sell freshly boiled fjord shrimp by the bag. You peel them yourself, usually standing at the waterfront, eating them with white bread and mayonnaise. A bag large enough for two people as a starter costs NOK 150–200 ($16–22).

This is not farmed industrial shrimp — Norwegian fjord reker are smaller, sweeter, and more intensely flavoured than anything you’ll find at home. Even if you’re not a shrimp enthusiast, eating them fresh off a harbour boat in Oslo is worth doing once.

Waffles and forest coffee

Norwegian waffles are heart-shaped, slightly crispy on the outside, soft inside, and served with sour cream (rømme) and strawberry jam. They’re not a restaurant dish — they’re a café and hytte (cabin) dish, eaten in the afternoon. You’ll encounter them at ski lodges, café terraces, and forest cabin huts throughout the city.

The specific Oslo experience: walk or ski into Nordmarka and stop at a forest café (skogskoie) or a staffed trail hut. Order waffles and coffee. The combination of physical exertion, winter air, and warm waffles with sour cream is a fundamental Norwegian experience. A guided version is available through the forest coffee and waffles tour, which takes you into the forest by T-bane and delivers exactly this experience with local commentary.

Rakfisk: the adventurous option

Fermented trout is not for everyone. Buried in salt and left to ferment for three to twelve months, rakfisk has an intensely pungent aroma and a flavour that some people describe as the finest thing they’ve ever eaten and others find completely inedible. It’s eaten on flatbread (lompe or lefse) with raw onion and sour cream.

The smell is assertive before you taste it — this is normal. The flavour, once you get past the smell, is complex and oceanic in a way that good strong cheese is complex and pungent. If you like anchovies, aged blue cheese, or strong fermented fish (Japanese shiokara, for instance), you’ll likely love rakfisk. If those foods alarm you, skip it.

Mathallen has it at the specialty fish counter. Engebret Café serves it seasonally. The Norwegian specialties guide covers rakfisk and other fermented and preserved Norwegian foods in detail.

Lefse and flatbread

Lefse is a traditional Norwegian flatbread made from cooked potatoes, flour, and cream, rolled very thin and cooked on a griddle. It’s soft, slightly starchy, and eaten with butter and cinnamon sugar as a snack or with cured meat as a light meal. The potato version (potetlefse) is the most common; the thinner crispy variant (flatbrød) is closer to a cracker.

Both are sold at Mathallen, most bakeries, and any Norwegian food market. They keep well in a bag and make excellent snack food for a day exploring the city.

Seasonal eating in Oslo

Oslo’s food culture is strongly seasonal — some dishes are simply not available outside their natural window. Key seasonal notes:

Crayfish (kreps): September in Oslo sees crayfish parties (krepselag) — boiled freshwater crayfish eaten outdoors with dill, bread, and aquavit. Some restaurants host special crayfish evenings; watch for them in late August–September.

Multekrem: Cloudberry cream — cloudberries (multebær) cooked with sugar and whipped cream. Cloudberries are found only at high altitude and ripen in late summer. The season is short and the price reflects it. The cloudberry jam at Mathallen is available year-round; the fresh cream dessert is August-September only.

Pinnekjøtt: Salted and dried lamb ribs, soaked and steamed — the traditional Christmas Eve dish (December). Rich, intensely flavoured, and deeply Norwegian. Try it at any restaurant offering a Christmas menu in December.

For the deepest dive into Norwegian food, the brown cheese and Norwegian specialties guide goes further into brunost, rakfisk, preserved meats, and what to buy to take home.

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