Opened in 1887, Hotel Kämp is Helsinki’s most storied grand hotel. Its bar was once the unofficial salon of Finland’s Golden Age artists, who lingered there long into the night at the turn of the 20th century. The easiest way to step into Kämp’s legend today is simply to visit the renewed Kämp Bar, now back in service after a full renovation.
The revamp has shifted the bar to a new spot: the former bar space now houses the hotel reception, while the new bar sits in what used to be the breakfast room. The setting is striking: columns, capitals, decorative plasterwork, mirrors and gleam. Mahogany, marble, brass, velvet. Jugend and Belle Époque influences everywhere.
The room manages to feel both grand and intimate, the ideal place for a glass of champagne.
The only thing missing is Victor “Vicke” André’s 1890 painting En fest på Kämp (‘A Party at Kämp’), which decorated the previous bar. You can now go and see it at reception.
Next to the bar, on the glass-covered terrace, sits Kämp’s restaurant, À la Kämp – literally ‘Kämp style’. The name is a playful pun and a nod to the hotel’s history. Back in the day, Helsinkians called the upstairs Mirror Room Yläkämpi (“Upper Kämp”) and the downstairs café Alakämpi (“Lower Kämp”).
You can order dishes to the bar side too, though they don’t take table reservations there. The bar area is the more atmospheric of the two, but from the restaurant’s big windows you can watch the bustle of the Esplanadi.
The restaurant’s menu takes inspiration from the hotel’s long history. While planning it, head chef Markus Forsén sifted through no fewer than 90 menus from over the decades. A particularly delicious dish is the sugar-cured whitefish (€38), served with cauliflower purée, pickled mustard seeds and red onion. It arrives under a little glass cloche. Lift it and a puff of smoke escapes.
On the drinks side, the star attraction is the new signature cocktail, Lemon & Punsch, served in a hand-blown glass sculpture. The drink was inspired by a Kämp regular who once mused that drinking becomes almost healthy when you add lemon juice – after all, there’s vitamin C in it.
And what about those legendary Kämp bar stories? They came about soon after the hotel opened, when Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Eino Leino, Juhani Aho and Jean Sibelius drank here night after night. The most famous tale recalls how conductor Armas Järnefelt left the revelry to lead a concert in Viipuri. When he returned a few days later, colleague Robert Kajanus squinted at him and asked: “Did you just nip to the telephone?”
Since then, international superstars from Madonna to Lady Gaga have stayed at Hotel Kämp.
At the reopening of the renewed bar, hotel manager Tuomas Liewendahl expressed his hope that Helsinkians would continue the tradition and come to Kämp Bar to toast life’s big moments. It looks like they have: since opening, the bar has been packed, especially on weekends.
New legends are waiting to be written.
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