The most widespread perception of Oslo is that it is too expensive and that as a metropolis it lags behind the big European capitals. The first statement is true, but the second is far from it. The Norwegian capital is experiencing a renaissance with the bold renovation of former industrial areas, which are becoming epicenters of culture, art and gastronomy.
Tjuvholmen Sjømagasin is located in the new artistic quarter Tjuvholmen, in the immediate vicinity of the museum Astrup Fearnley. The location by the sea is important for the fish restaurant concept, which is divided into several parts: the main restaurant, the fish deli, the convention center and the culinary center. The menu offers fish dishes from completely fresh homemade fish cakes to fantastic fish dishes and oysters, of course with wines that best accompany the selected dishes. The restaurant has an open kitchen, which allows direct contact between guests and chefs, who agree that fresh ingredients are the best start to a good meal. Most fish specialties are prepared on the grill. The fish shop offers the best domestic and international fish delicacies, and the staff with extensive knowledge and experience in the field of preparing fish dishes is helpful in choosing specialties that we can buy and prepare a top-quality meal at home. Real sea wolves can get to the restaurant and shop with their own boat.
www.sjomagasinet.no
Tjuvholmen Allé 14, open Monday to Saturday 11:00 - 24:00, closed on Sundays
Fuglen is the right address for lovers of design and good coffee. Cafe has been located at the same address since 1963, which the owners respected, as visiting the cafe is a step back in time. The original interior highlights the Scandinavian design of the 1950s and 1960s. One of the owners Einar Kleppe Holthe won the Norwegian competition of baristas (coffee drink makers) years ago, others, Peppe Trulsen but he is a designer. At the bird (fuglen is the Norwegian word for bird), it's not just the interior furnishings that are retro, in fact the whole place breathes with the time in which it is furnished. No one is in a hurry, drinks are prepared fresh and no one will urge us to take our coffee away in a plastic cup or to clear the table quickly. The coffee is of exceptional quality, they buy it only from Norwegian Fair trade producers, and we can choose not only among the types of coffee, but also the methods of preparation, which means that they will also be happy to prepare good Turkish coffee for us, which is so difficult to order these days.
www.fuglen.no
Universitetsgaten 2, open every day from 7:30 - 18:00, Saturdays 12:00 - 18:00 and Sundays 12:00 - 17:00. From Thursday to Saturday, in the evenings from 8:00 p.m. to 3:30 a.m., the café becomes a cocktail bar.
In the 18th century it was a precinct Tjuvholmen known as 'island of thieves', as there was a prison on the small island, but today the quarter by the sea coast is experiencing one of the most dynamic urban transformations. It is becoming a business, artistic and culinary center, as well as a brilliant exhibition space for modern European architecture. Immediate neighbor of the Astrup Fearnley Museum is the hotel The Thief, in which as many as 105 works of art are exhibited, some of them are owned by the businessman and art collector Pettra Stordaln, and the rest, based on an agreement between the hotel and the museum, are lent by the museum of modern art to the hotel. Many works of art decorate the hotel's 119 rooms and public spaces, even in the elevator we are accompanied by a video installation by the British artist Julian Opie, which means that most of the rooms offer a view of the sea, in fact, there are no rooms with a view, but a view with rooms. The owners of the hotel, which opened in January of this year, invited renowned curator Sun Nordgren, former director of the Norwegian National Museum, to participate in the exhibition of renowned artists, including Sir Peter Blake, Richard Prince and Damien Hirst.
www.designhotels.com/the_thief
Price of a double room: from NOK 2,090 (EUR 257)
Opening a new one of the Astrup Feranley Museum of Modern Art it is a great gain in the cultural field, not only for Oslo, but in the world view. A private museum dedicated to of contemporary international art first opened its doors to the public in 1993, after eighteen years at Dronningensgtate 4, the museum closed its doors on December 31, 2011 and reopened in a completely new guise on September 29 last year in the Tjuvholmen district. The building was placed on the shore of the fjord by the world-renowned architect Renzo Piano, and the two wings of the museum are divided by water. One wing is dedicated to the permanent collection and the other to temporary exhibitions. Currently, the museum breathes with Brazil, until March 2, 2014, we can see the Imagine Brazil exhibition, which presents contemporary Brazilian art, with an emphasis on the presentation of young Brazilian artists.
www.afmuseet.no
The museum is open: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday from 12:00 to 17:00, Thursday from 12:00 to 19:00, Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 to 17:00, closed on Monday. Entrance fee: adults NOK 100 (12.3 euros)
The new Norwegian center of gourmet pleasures was opened last year Mathallen – a cluster of delicatessens, cafés and restaurants inspired by gourmet markets around Europe. Mathallen is located in another wonderful example of excellent renovation of a former industrial building called Vulkan. Today's main hall of the market is a former steel factory, next to which nothing ever froze because of the hot smelter. More than 25 independent local providers of food products and restaurants offer everything your heart (or stomach) desires: from fresh bread, fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, wines, countless types of coffee, to kitchen utensils and various spices. Since the vast majority of Norwegians speak English perfectly, we can learn various secrets of the correct preparation of Norwegian specialties while shopping for delicacies. Vulkanfish stand offers freshly caught fish, which the locals take home and prepare for family and friends, and those who cannot cook for themselves have it prepared right at the stand. The Melkeramp stand offers the largest selection of Norwegian cheeses from small producers and large dairy factories. Mathallen Oslo, which aims to become the center of Norwegian gastronomic culture, is open from Tuesday to Saturday.
www.mathallenoslo.no
Maridalsveien 17
Edvard Munch, the world-renowned Norwegian painter and pioneer of Scandinavian Expressionism, would have turned 150 this year and Oslo is celebrating his anniversary in style. When he died in 1944, it turned out that he left his works to the city of Oslo, which is why the city is particularly proud to celebrate an important anniversary. This year's central event is the Munch 150 exhibition, which is the result of cooperation of the National Museum in Oslo and the Munch Museum, and it can be viewed in both institutions. It is the most complete overview of Munch's work, offering an overview of his 60 years of creation through 220 paintings and 50 works on paper. A world-famous artist will pay tribute to the great artist with a special interactive video Serbian artist Marina Abramović. When she visited Oslo last year and was walking through the landscape that inspired Munch's most famous work The Scream, she asked a group of people walking to shout out their feelings in the same place. In August of this year, she returned to Oslo and created an interactive video tribute to the scream with a combination of video installation and performance. When she was filming a video in a park on Ekeberg Hill with a population of 300, her creation was interrupted by the police, as the residents' screams disturbed the surrounding population. Hopefully, she will be able to complete her idea and present it to the public, meanwhile, in Oslo, the viewpoint on the Ekeberg hill, where Munch got the inspiration for his art, was reopened to the public on September 26. Although the landscape has changed and taken on a much more urban appearance, the Oslo Fjord and the silhouette of the hill remain the same.
www.munch150.no
