According to the professor of food culture, consumers want an experience from food. Modern nakki kiosks, which includes Pretty Boy Wingery, have become more common in the street scene.
Töölöntor serves a surprising pair of flavors: chicken wings and champagne. The previous sentence must be read again. The combination sounds so special that it must be tested.
Töölöntori is located in Taka-Töölö in Helsinki. The market has traditional food stalls and tents. One of them is the Pretty Boy Wingery food cart. According to their words, Pretty Boy Wingery offers wings and street food fans something much better.
I sit down on a folding chair. In front of my nose are boneless chicken wings with Thai-spiced sweet Bang Coq sauce. There is a piccolo bottle of French Lanson champagne on a slightly wobbly table next to it.
I can be surprised again, because the flavor pair really works. The sweet but slightly fiery sauce of the chicken pieces and the bubbly champagne go well together. Chili, garlic, lime and coriander do not dominate too much, and the sparkling drink does not kick back. There is harmony in the dish.
It must be admitted that in the middle of the market it is not funny to sip quality champagne and fill your stomach at the same time.
Pretty Boy Wingery has served two summer wings and champagne at Töölöntor. However, it is not the only “cart” that has brought a little bit of luxury to street food.
You can get boneless chickens with your choice of sauce from the Töölöntor food cart. The company’s other points offer vegan chicken. Oona Mynttinen
Restaurant culture is inspired by street food
Top chef Kim Mikkola, whose restaurant has been awarded a Michelin star, runs a food truck called KotKotChicken. In addition to fine dining, Mikkola wanted to offer affordable lunch food from a van. He believes that a high-quality Puri can cost only 5 euros.
The Flow Festival held in August is known for its food in addition to its music and art. Every year, the festival area offers restaurant-level dishes created by top chefs, fused into street food.
For example, already deceased Matti Jämsen’s instagrammable waffles and pink parmesan rolls were a hit at the last festivals. The restaurant-level taste experiences were transformed into hand-eaten party food, but kept a spectacular appearance.
This year, the food at Flow will be provided by W30 from Helsinki, which offers French-Scandinavian food, and fine dining restaurant Kajo from Tampere.
The mixing of fine dining and street food is not unprecedented, but a part of Finnish food culture that is becoming more common.
Professor of food culture Johanna Mäkelä according to, street food in Finland has been seen mainly as nakki kiosk food, which is strongly connected to a certain locality. As an example, he tells Lappeenranta’s atom and hydrogen.
However, in the 2010s, a change began to take place, which can now be seen in the Finnish street scene. Street food as a word landed in Finland and changed the street food culture. Mäkelä points out that street food is above all an interesting part of urban culture.
If you don’t see the picture, look at it from here.
Like nakkikiosks, street food is not just the food culture of one country, but street food is linked to cities and is part of urban cultures.
Along with global trends, a new kind of food culture has always landed in Finland as well. In Mäkelä’s opinion, people’s eating habits have changed, and interest in food culture has increased.
– Street food is no longer about coming home from the bar and being hungry.
People long for modern nakki kiosks that offer something special.
Mäkelä reminds us that it is not a new phenomenon, but that street food has a long history. Over the years, there has been a change where street food has moved to restaurants. Restaurants serve, for example, gourmet hamburgers, even though they are, in Mäkelä’s words, “still just hamburgers”.
– It’s a dialogue. There is no everyday food without festive food and the same works the other way around.
Like Pretty Boy Wingery, Kim Mikkola came up with the idea of setting up a food truck during the corona era. Karoliina Vuorenmäki
According to Mäkelä, restaurant culture is inspired by street food, but street food has also been influenced by restaurant food. Luxury is brought to the streets.
COO of Pretty Boy Wingery Sari Kinnunen says that people come to Töölöntor for champagne. The food cart has its own regular customers, but on Fridays you can see groups of friends sitting around, who have come for a glass of champagne before going to the bar.
With the experience of two summers, he can already say that there is a demand for luxury flavor pairs.
Willing to experiment and playful
Although luxury is also desired from street food these days, according to Mäkelä, it still has to be good, easy and fast.
Mäkelä explains how today’s consumers want food to offer experiences. So is the famous nakkikiki mättö. Mäkelä believes that the world political situation affects what is on our plate and what we need for it.
– First there was the corona, then the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. At the same time, the price of food has risen.
Street food has always been experimental and playful. According to Mäkelä, in street food you try things that you wouldn’t necessarily dare to try in cooking. Then something new is born.
– Then these new experiments move indoors, so to speak, i.e. restaurants and home kitchens.
Street food is, above all, easily approachable and decided on the spur of the moment. Although, according to Mäkelä, there are modern nakki kiosks, which could also include Pretty Boy Wingery, food must be served to hungry passers-by quickly.