Oslo’s Mathallen: We Eat Ourselves Silly, then Return for More

One of the best things about our trendy hipster neighborhood is that it’s located right near a burgeoning cultural scene at Vulkan, with a small concert hall and dance studio. Of far greater significance to our well-being, it’s also the home to Oslo’s food hall. This former industrial space was the start of the redevelopment in this area, and it’s now nearly ten years old. The food hall has stalls for ingredients and for prepared meals, and some combine both. Even though we’ve been in Oslo only two weeks, we already feel like experts in this market because we’ve been so many times. It’s a lovely supplement to grocery stores. Here’s what keeps us coming back!

Ingredients

There’s an amazing fish store. There’s an amazing meat and poultry store, where we just bought some great duck breasts (see a future post!). There are two cheese stores, one of which also has sausages. There’s an Italian deli. There are a couple of places that sell Asian food but also have frozen ingredients. There’s a Pakistani curry place that has a variety of spices. The only thing there is not at this fantastic food hall is vegetables, perhaps because they are not high-end enough. And we haven’t even got to the chocolate, patisserie, and cupcake stalls.

Prepared Food

Our current favourite restaurant is a Colombian place selling arepas, just opened by a brother and sister (see above for the chicken arepa). There is a ceviche restaurant we’re dying to try, and a sushi place and a tapas bar and a place that serves game, and the fish place has a restaurant too. There’s even a pub, which is usually among the most crowded of locales. Several of the stalls have their own seating, inside our out, and there are also central tables where you can create a meal from different places.

So: in case you were worried we wouldn’t find enough to do in Oslo: thanks to this food hall (and a few other things), we are all set!