Ihana

Review

The Helsinkiization of Vienna

Everyone loves Scandinavia. Everyone has always stood by Ingmar Stenmark. And loved Abba. And Lego. And later Ikea, Ingmar Bergmann and Swedish porn. Hanna Yrjölä is certain that the Scandinavian lifestyle has extremely positive connotations, which is why it was time for her to open a Finnish restaurant in Vienna. Although, she admits, Finns aren't actually Scandinavians, but hey, firstly you can discuss it and secondly you don't have to take it so seriously. The young woman has been in Austria for twelve years and has worked in a few great restaurants in that time, at Lingenhel, Steirereck-Meierei and the Motto am Fluss restaurant. And for the past year, she had been looking for something nice and small to start her own business. The former Espresso Palme in the Karmeliterviertel was it, she opened on the first of March, which was the worst possible time, and so she opened again on June 15.
Corona has not only interrupted the opening phase of her ihana - which means "wonderful" in Finnish - but it is still complicating the supply of Finnish specialties, and all her friends and relatives in Finland are currently in their country houses by the thousand lakes, being bitten by the mosquitoes and therefore unable to supply her. But there's still a lot of Finnish food in the ihana. First and foremost, of course, Korvapuusti, the Finnish cinnamon bun that Hanna bakes herself and which is great, very, very cinnamony, but not so sweet (€ 2.50). In Finland, this is usually accompanied by a liter of filter coffee, but Hanna says she doesn't drink it because her Faema espresso machine was too good and too expensive for her to make drip coffee now. There are also a few Smörrebröds, which are called something completely different in Finland, namely Voileipiä, but the Finn is sure that would cause confusion here, i.e. Swedish. The Skagen version with crab salad and plenty of dill is great (€ 6.50), with cream cheese, plenty of smoked salmon, cucumber, radishes and rocket it also works very well (€ 7.50).
Also very important here is a specialty called Karjalanpiirakka, the Karelian pirogue, for which Hanna Yrjölä rolls out rye dough with a special pasta roller called Piirakkapulikka, fills it with rice pudding and tops it with "egg butter". Unfortunately, I didn't make it. Every Finn in Vienna comes and tries it to see if it's like grandma's, she says. Kalakukko, the rye bread filled with fish and bacon, is unfortunately not available because she doesn't like it. Too bad. But there are lots of nice wines. A good, Finnish place in Vienna. Summary: ihana may look like some kind of Scandinavian-inspired café. But they make Karjalanpiirakka here! F ihana, 2nd, Kleine Pfarrgasse 3/1, tel. 0699/17 16 86 52, Tue-Sat 9-21, Sun 10-15,

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