Smalhans – Oslo's neighbourhood table since 2012

On Ullevålsveien, in the St. Hanshaugen district north of central Oslo, Smalhans has been the neighbourhood's reference point since 2012, a sharing-plates restaurant built around a single conviction: good food need not cost much. The address itself has history on its side, having housed restaurants since 1921, and the name follows the same logic of thrift — Smalhans means a scarce or frugal way of life, the very idea the kitchen turned into a concept of using suppliers who deliver quality at a fair price and finding value in cuts and vegetables others discard. The restaurant is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, a distinction that followed a Bib Gourmand awarded in 2015 for exactly that approach: generous, flavourful cooking without the markup of occasion dining. By day it runs on a changing dagens husmann, a single traditional dish shared at the table; by night it moves into tasting menus built from the same pantry of Norwegian produce.

01The room and the setting

Smalhans occupies a space on Ullevålsveien that has housed restaurants since 1921, and the room still carries the scuffed, lived-in character of a genuine local rather than a styled dining room. A Dagens Næringsliv review of the restaurant noted the contrast directly: exclusive Aesop hand soap in the lavatories set against doors where the paint has flaked away in places — a detail that sums up the deliberate lack of polish.

Beyond the main room sits Leiligheten, the Apartment, a private room furnished with second-hand pieces, a record player stocked with LPs and a television, built to feel like visiting someone's home rather than booking a function room. It seats 12 to 14 comfortably around one table, or up to 20 split across two, and during the evening the whole party there orders the Krøsus menu together.

02The chef and the kitchen

The kitchen today is run by chef Mads Ekrheim, with Rikard Gunnarson overseeing the dining room, continuing a project that has stayed consistent since 2012: find suppliers who deliver quality at the right price, use the raw material fully, and see worth in what others treat as waste. The restaurant belongs to the Friends Hospitality Group, which operates several Oslo addresses under the same philosophy.

Insider tip

Dagens husmann runs 15.00–18.00 daily; evening tasting menus from 18.00.

The kitchen's approach to sustainability has not gone unnoticed outside the Bib Gourmand citation either — it was recognised for sustainable practice in 2024, a continuation of the resourceful, low-waste cooking that has defined Smalhans since its first year.

03The cooking

Three rhythms run through the day. Between 15:00 and 18:00 comes dagens husmann, a single changing dish inspired by home cooking from around the world and built on seasonal produce, served as sharing plates in whatever quantity a table needs — a family menu, a group of colleagues, or a solo diner. A new week's line-up is released every Sunday evening, and the dish can be taken home as takeaway as easily as eaten in.

From 18:00 the kitchen shifts into its tasting format: a three-course menu, or two set multi-course options — Smalhans, six small dishes served as five courses, and Krøsus, the fuller eight-dish, seven-course version — with the week's choices depending entirely on what the kitchen's suppliers have delivered. At weekends, the morning slot gives way to a leisurely Krøsus brunch.

04What to order

The evening menu read in October 2026 opened with baked leek and mussels, pickled apple and a mussel espuma with crisp potato, moved through a butcher's beef tartare with pickled swede, juniper mayonnaise, crisp onion and horseradish, and closed on a blackcurrant sorbet with caramelised white chocolate cream and krokan. The larger Smalhans menu added bycatch with butter-baked kohlrabi, puffed buckwheat and Jerusalem artichoke sauce, crab with soured cream, pear, crisp rye, celery and dill vinaigrette, and lamb with cabbage and a creamy pepper sauce alongside pearl potatoes with parsley and green pepper.

The same week's dagens husmann ran from rigatoni with pork and a creamy mushroom sauce on Monday through to a Sunday veal roast with parsley potatoes, glazed carrots, stem cauliflower and lingonberries — proof that the daily dish changes with genuine commitment, not just in name.

05Wine and drinks

Every wine on the list is organic or biodynamically grown, and a number go further into true natural wine — spontaneously fermented, unfiltered beyond a light pass, with no oak character beyond old, large barrels that do not mask the wine's own flavour. Wine pairings are built to match the set menus: a four-glass pairing for Krøsus and a three-glass pairing for the Smalhans menu, alongside a long list of beers that has been part of the restaurant's identity since it opened.

06When to go and booking

Smalhans opens Monday to Friday from 15:00 to 23:00 and Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 to 23:00, in October 2026. The daily husmann service runs 15:00–18:00 before the evening menu takes over. Booking is handled through the restaurant's own site, and for parties of seven or more the whole table agrees on a single menu in advance — Krøsus or the shorter Smalhans version — with drinks pre-ordered so they are ready on arrival.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.