Magu

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A plant-based restaurant with a point of view

Magu sits on Korkeavuorenkatu 27 in Helsinki, open Wednesday to Saturday evenings, and it arrives with a clear conviction: that plant-based cooking deserves the same care, creativity, and technical rigour as any other fine dining. The White Guide 2026 awarded it Fine level recognition, noting the presence of chef and forager Ossi Paloneva — a figure familiar to Finnish food culture through television appearances and food festivals dedicated to wild, local produce.

The kitchen behind the menu

Head Chef Felipe brings a different but complementary thread to the story. His path through Helsinki kitchens — including Farang, Pastor, and Pure Bistro — gave him a foundation in global flavours before Magu sharpened his focus entirely on plant-based cooking. As he puts it, the experience taught him "to make every ingredient shine, even without meat or dairy." The result is a style built on colour, layering, and texture: dishes designed to be experienced visually before the first bite.

What's on the plate

The current dinner menu, Flora, is priced at 79€ and reads like a considered sequence of contrasts. It opens with a watercress and pea gazpacho and flower onigiri, moves through hibiscus brioche with sorrel, soba noodles with summer truffles and sesame seeds, and a cauliflower with black garlic and rendang curry — a dish that draws on Southeast Asian spicing without losing its Finnish grounding. It closes with pine tree sorbet and a strawberry, rosemary, and almond cake. The menu changes with the seasons, paired with a selection of natural wines that evolves alongside it.

The spirit of the place

Magu's own words resist the usual language of fine dining: "to using what grows, to trying new things, to widening the palette." That ethos — practical, curious, unshowy — runs through everything from the sourcing to the plating. For anyone serious about vegan cooking in Helsinki, this is a table worth booking.