the swede life: Paul&Norbert

"it's the start of autumn."

"what soup's this please?"

"the start of autumn."

we miraculously made it on time for the degustation seating after the manic dash from the airport. even the maitre' d was surprised, having heard from the concierge in oslo only hours before. they hadn't been expecting us till 9pm but passing up on the degustation menu and settling for boring ol' a la carte was motivation enough to get us there in record time. i cannot describe the wave of relief i felt when we found the restaurant and peered in to see a three top glistening just behind the glass doors. kenneth, the maitre'd is reason enough to eat at P&N. he was a perfect mix of humour, entertainment and sheer fabulousness, without coming across as obsequious. plus, he'd a great sense of timing and was always around but never intrusive. amazing! and because we dined there on 21 september, we were one of the lucky first few to sample the autumn menu.

it's always interesting to hear restaurants describe themselves and then later compare how accurate their self-perception is. P&N did good on that. kenneth was adamant that it's 'not eating but a renewal of self and refreshing of the spirit.' sounds trite when i quote him but in the context it was an apt summary. they only do one seating because they're not into mass production or profit (hard to believe, but true) and the feel the owner was aiming for was that of a living room with an attached kitchen. lovely understated restaurant and very chilled out. i do hope i get to visit again before leaving for singers. hardly as pretentious as the starred restaurants and i thoroughly enjoyed kenneth's laidback, snappy, lightly bitchy style. casual, fun and all together yummy. hey, the penultimate course even got me rethinking my stand on goat cheese!