Sjømagasinet – Oslo's seafood store on the water's edge

On the reclaimed tip of Tjuvholmen, Sjømagasinet sits across a narrow channel from the Astrup Fearnley Museum, the contemporary art museum with its sail-like glass roof designed by Renzo Piano. The name translates simply as 'the sea store', and behind it sit a fish shop, a crab and lobster tank, three dining rooms and a terrace that fills the moment the Oslofjord light turns gold. Owned by restaurateur Bjørn Tore Furset's Fursetgruppen, which also runs Oslo's Maaemo, Sjømagasinet opened in 2010 and built its name specialising in fresh Norwegian seafood, including langoustines, lobsters and scallops, rather than culinary theatre. It is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, recognition for a kitchen now led by chef Karel Svec, who treats sourcing – down to a QR code tracing a single Hitra crab – as carefully as he treats a tasting menu.

01The room and the setting

Sjømagasinet reads less like a single dining room than a small harbour institution: a vast, three-roomed restaurant beneath an apartment block, with a crab and lobster tank, a superb waterside terrace and a chic lounge-bar for when the weather turns. A seafood shop and deli sit alongside the restaurant proper, selling the same mussels, oysters and shellfish that end up on the plates inside. According to the house's own figures, the restaurant seats 250 (350 standing), with a mezzanine and several private chambres séparées, including one seating up to eighty guests by the water.

A separate room, Restaurant Garden, is given over almost entirely to the restaurant's own planting: a chambre séparée wrapped in flowers and green growth, built as an extension of the kitchen's small-scale farming project rather than as decoration.

02The chef and the kitchen

Kjøkkensjef Karel Svec runs the kitchen with a stated focus on local ingredients and traceability – guests are invited to scan a QR code on the Hitra crab to see exactly which boat and fisherman it came from. That same instinct for provenance sits behind 'Restaurant Farming', a project developed with owner Bjørn Tore Furset and gardener Mathias Hauge, in which herbs, edible flowers, spices and leaf vegetables are grown inside the restaurant itself and harvested just before service, with kitchen food waste returned to the soil that grows them.

Insider tip

Closed Sundays; shortened hours in high summer; book the Chef's Table for groups up to 20.

03What to order

Starters lean toward the raw and the cured: tuna tartare with fresh truffle and a truffle-shallot dressing, a ceviche of sterling white halibut with apple, orange and chilli, or Josper-grilled scallop with artichoke purée and a yuzu-kefir lime sauce. The signature Fossen Crab arrives as brown-crab ravioli with ricotta, bisque beurre blanc and fennel, while Coast & Forest pairs Norwegian cod from Ålesund and Øksfjord with chanterelles, homemade pasta and brown crab. A seasonal tasting menu built around winter truffle has included Fredrikstad's Signature – Norwegian yellowtail with brown butter ponzu, black truffle and hazelnuts – and a Robata course of free-diver scallop from Frøya with pumpkin and yuzu kosho beurre blanc. For the shellfish bar, there is Normandy oysters by the piece, Josper-grilled langoustines sold by the kilo, and the 'I Deserved It' Fish & Shellfish Plateau, a two-round feast of sashimi, oysters, mussels, scallop and lobster for a minimum of two. Non-seafood eaters are covered by a dry-aged, 250-gram entrecôte from Josheim with green chimichurri; dessert runs to a classic tiramisu or a chocolate tart with vanilla ice cream.

04Wine and drinks

Vinbaren, the attached wine bar, is built for dropping in before dinner, after work or as a nightcap, with a list the restaurant describes as holding bottles in every class and a programme of tastings run with wine educator Svein Lindin, often staged in the new Chef's Table room.

05When to go and booking

In October 2026 the restaurant was open Monday to Friday 11.30–00.00 and Saturday 13.00–00.00, with last arrivals at 22.00 and the doors closed on Sundays; for summer 2026, from 1 July to 5 August, hours shortened to Monday–Saturday 16.00–22.00.

06The neighbourhood

Tjuvholmen, once a working stretch of Oslo's harbour, is now the city's compact gallery and design quarter, and Sjømagasinet trades on that position: it sits a short stroll from Aker Brygge and close enough to the Astrup Fearnley Museum that the two are linked by a pedestrian bridge across the water.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.