While most Finns buy ready-made tar products, today’s skilled chefs craft them from scratch. This is what brought me to Lasaretti, a restaurant tucked into the riverfront oasis of Oulu’s Hupisaaret Park. Today, head chef Laurance Robinson is serving smoked whitefish pasta with tar pearls, pickled fennel and red onion. “I can’t build a tar pit, so I buy flavouring from Kujala’s farm to make my syrup for sweet and savoury dishes,” he says. “Balancing its strong, pungent taste took time.” Resembling caviar, the tar pearls burst in my mouth against the whitefish, sharp fennel, and sweet archipelago bread. It is pure umami with subtle smokiness.
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