Norwegian Cuisine

About Norwegian Cuisine

By the ULTIMATE Oslo Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

What to eat in Oslo, from the kiosk sausage to the three-star tasting menu: our guide to the dishes of Norway, each checked against VisitOSLO and Visit Norway.

Norwegian cuisine

Norway’s cooking comes from a long coast and a short summer: fish dried, salted and cured to last the winter, lamb from the mountain pastures, game from the forests and berries picked in August. Oslo serves all of it, from the simple everyday food Norwegians call husmannskost to the most celebrated tables in the north of Europe. Ask a Norwegian for a favourite dish, VisitOSLO warns with a smile, and the answer may well be pizza or tacos.

From the sea

Stockfish, cod dried in the wind on wooden racks, is the fish that built Norway, as Visit Norway puts it, and much of the country’s cooking still begins with it. Treated with water and lye, it becomes lutefisk, served at Christmas with bacon and potatoes. Gravlaks is salmon cured, not fermented, and milder for it; sursild is pickled herring; and in every fridge sits a tube of kaviar, smoked cod roe, which Visit Norway calls the most beloved variety of all. In Oslo, look for seafood restaurants on the waterfront at Aker Brygge, Tjuvholmen and Bjørvika.

Fish dried by the wind, lamb from the mountains, cheese the colour of caramel and a waffle in every café: the table of Norway.

From the farm and the forest

Fårikål, lamb stewed with cabbage, is the dish of autumn; pinnekjøtt, salted and dried lamb ribs, is the dish of Christmas. Potato dumplings go by many names around the country, raspeball, ball, potetball or komle, and are best, says Visit Norway, with bacon on the side and a glass of milk. Game, moose, reindeer, deer and grouse, is on Oslo menus all year, VisitOSLO notes, and even more so at Christmas.

Brown cheese and sour-cream porridge

Brunost, the brown cheese, is something of a national treasure: made from a mix of cow’s and goat’s milk, with a sweet, almost caramel taste, and a history VisitOSLO traces back to 1863. Slice it thin with a cheese slicer onto bread, or onto waffles. Rømmegrøt, porridge made from sour cream, is garnished with butter, sugar and cinnamon and eaten with cured meat; at Maaemo, which holds Three MICHELIN Stars in the 2026 guide, it is a signature dish, served with grated reindeer heart.

Waffles, buns and cakes

Waffles topped with brown cheese, or with jam and sour cream, are a must in Oslo. Boller are sweet wheat buns, plain or with raisins or chocolate; the cinnamon bun is one variant, and skolebrød, filled with custard and topped with grated coconut, another. Marzipan cake, a plain sponge with whipped cream and jam under a marzipan cover, has long been a Norwegian favourite, and in summer nothing says Norway like Norwegian strawberries with cream.

In the street

The quickest taste of Oslo is pølse i lompe, a sausage topped with ketchup and mustard and wrapped in a soft potato flatbread, sold at every kiosk and petrol station, and an essential part of Constitution Day on 17 May. Norwegians also eat about 75 kilograms of bread each year, VisitOSLO reckons, and open sandwiches, smørbrød, with meatloaf, eggs, smoked salmon or prawns are on the lunch menus of some of Oslo’s grandest restaurants, Theatercaféen and Palmen among them.

To drink

Aquavit is a potato-based spirit flavoured with herbs, among them caraway, anise, dill, fennel and coriander, in Visit Norway’s words; Linie is matured in sherry casks at sea, crossing the equator twice. Wine and spirits are sold in shops only at Vinmonopolet.

Where to taste it

For the new Nordic cooking: Maaemo, with Three MICHELIN Stars, and Kontrast, with Two, in the 2026 guide. For classic Oslo: Theatercaféen and the Grand Café. For the view and a slice of apple cake: Frognerseteren above Holmenkollen. For ingredients to take home: Mathallen Oslo, with more than 30 specialist shops and cafés.

Our advice: try brown cheese on a warm waffle at a café in the hills, and keep one dinner for a Norwegian menu in December, when the Christmas dishes appear.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Norwegian Cuisine before you go.