Restaurant Brasa has a dry age cabinet.

When the restaurant’s grill coal consumption is 900 kilos per month, it should be clear that there is a lot of grilling there. And when we say a lot, we mean the same as all the time.

– One way or another, everything goes through the grill. If the food is not cooked on the grill, at least they get smoke, fire and heat, says the butler and sommelier of the restaurant Brasa, which opened last spring on the edge of Helsinki’s Senate Square. Efe Yetiskul.

According to him, Brasa is one of the few restaurants in Finland where fire and smoke are equally present in all the dishes.

A similar dining experience can be found at least at Kakolanmäki in Turku. Restaurant Kakonlanruusu has the same philosophy, there, too, the open fire gives the meat, vegetables and fish its own nuance.

In the morning, Brasa’s grill is heated and during the day birch is burned in it. In the evening, the grill uses high-tech Japanese charcoal, which has been pressed at minus 50 degrees.

Yetiskul states that the coal is really dense and it burns at high heat, but still for a long time. When you want to stop grilling, throw the coals into the water. They turn off, but do not absorb any water. The same coals are suitable for grilling the next day as well.

Technical coals also soot and ash less than regular coals.

Brasa belongs to the Olo Collection, one of whose owners is a star chef Pekka Terävä. Terävä emphasizes that Brasa is not a steakhouse, although the list of different meats is impressive. Good and high-quality meats are an important part of the restaurant’s menu, which follows the seasons. In summer, the main focus is on vegetables, in winter on shellfish, fish, meat and, depending on the season, on game.

In restaurants, it is already common to see meat dry age cabinets, where the meat hangs at a suitable temperature for several weeks. But there are also fish in the Brasa dry age cabinet.

Fish dry age cabinets are rarely seen outside of star restaurants. In Finland, there is such a thing in Palace, which has two Michelin stars, for example.

Why on earth does fish, whose importance of freshness cannot be overemphasized, stay in the ripening cabinet for weeks?

– If caught correctly, bled, nerves cut, and put on ice, the suspension gives the fish age and the fish works the same as meat. Its umami starts to develop, the meat hardens and crumbles like meat, says Terävä.

According to him, the proteins of fish and meat calm the addiction.

– This is why, for example, a pike that has rested for seven days melts in your mouth after preparation. Usually pike is eaten freshly caught, when the meat is tough and rubbery, Terävä continues.

In Brasa, the fins of the Japanese hamachi are in the cooking cabinet (the rest of the fish is cooked raw in the appetizers), turbot and pikeperch from Oulujärvi.

Hamachi fins are cooked for a week. Walleye for a while, turbot for seven days.

– Flounder is a really different fish. It’s a big deal that it’s on our list. I like it a lot. The taste is juicy, gently fatty, says Yetiskul.

The hamachi fin, served as a snack, weighs about 100-150 grams.

You can eat plaice in 100 g or 300 g portions or even a whole fish, depending on the size of your hunger.

– One hundred grams of turbot costs 14 euros, but a larger group of people can share a whole fish, says Yetiskul.

At Brasa, the dishes can be shared or eaten alone, but the bone-in meats on the separate menu weigh just under a kilo. Yetiskul says that many times the group at the table orders dishes to share and a bottle of good wine.

– For example, we have very high-quality Japanese Wague meat. 100 g of Wagueta costs 57 or 63 euros. Sometimes the customer may wonder why 100 grams of meat costs so much.

Yetiskul reminds us not to be surprised by the price difference between a high-quality Bordeaux wine for one hundred euros and a red wine for less than ten. It’s the same with meats, high-quality and rare meat costs more.

Brasa’s appetizer menu includes a cold cut that is known to be unavailable in other restaurants in Finland: the Italian Culatello ham. It is aged for 30 months. Even the English crown has its own warehouse in the Italian basement.

– That ham was not easy to get, but the kitchen manager Taneli in Korsiala have good relations.