Try sautéed reindeer, the classic dish: thin-sliced meat cooked down and served with mashed potato and lingonberries. If you want the meat to be genuinely from here, look for the protected name Lapland reindeer meat, which can only come from reindeer born and raised in the Finnish herding area and processed there. Restaurants serving Lappish food offer it, and a home-cooked dinner tour is another way. If meeting the animals has put you off, that is a reasonable reaction, and nobody will mind.
Reindeer turns up on menus all over Rovaniemi, sometimes presented as something
to dare yourself to try. In Lapland it is simply a local meat, farmed in the same
herds visitors meet on farm visits, and it comes with a protected name worth
knowing.
The classic dish
The one to order is sautéed reindeer, poronkäristys: thin slices of meat cooked
down until tender, served with mashed potato and lingonberries. It turns up on
restaurant menus and in home-cooked dinners; one Rovaniemi dinner tour listed
with Visit Finland serves it as a main course, with prices from
€125.2
Tripadvisor ratings, 18 Rovaniemi operators
Highest first
Snowtrail Safaris 5.0
Nordic Odyssey 5.0
Nordic Adventures 4.9
Arctic GM 4.9
Book Lapland 4.9
Bearhill Husky 4.9
Arctic Attitude 4.9
StayLapland 4.8
Wild About Lapland 4.7
Wild Nordic 4.7
Lapland Winter Park 4.6
Safartica 4.5
Nordic Unique Travels 4.5
Apukka Resort 4.4
Lapland Welcome 4.3
Arctic Circle Snowmobile Park 4.3
Arctic Circle Husky Park 4.2
Raitola 3.4
<44.04.55.0
Ratings read from Tripadvisor. The shaded compartment left of the divider holds any score below 4.0. We record the score only; review counts and review text are not part of our comparison.
How to tell it is from here
Three reindeer products from Lapland carry the European Union’s protected
designation of origin: reindeer meat, dried reindeer meat and cold-smoked
reindeer meat. To use the names, the meat has to come from reindeer born and
raised in the Finnish reindeer herding area, and it has to be processed and
packed there.1
That is the one guarantee a visitor can check. A menu that names Lapland
reindeer is making a claim with rules behind it.
Meeting them, then eating them
Visitors who feed reindeer in the afternoon may be offered them for dinner the
same evening, and some find that uncomfortable. It helps to know that
herding in Lapland is a livelihood, not a petting zoo, and that the farm visit
and the dinner come from the same work. It is equally fine to decide it is not
for you.
Is it strange to eat reindeer after visiting a farm?
Some visitors feel so, and that is fine. In Lapland reindeer are herded animals, and the meat sold under the Lapland name comes from those same herds. A farm visit and a reindeer dinner are two sides of the same livelihood rather than a contradiction. If it does not sit right with you, choose something else on the menu; nobody in a Finnish restaurant will think twice about it.
Can we take reindeer meat home?
That depends on where home is, not on Finland. Many countries restrict bringing meat products in, and the rules differ between the European Union and elsewhere, so check your own country's customs rules before buying. Dried and cold-smoked reindeer are also protected products from Lapland, and they travel better than fresh meat if your country allows them at all.
Is reindeer on a menu always from Lapland?
Not necessarily, and the menu will not always say. Only the protected name is a guarantee: Lapland reindeer meat has to come from animals born and raised in the Finnish herding area and be processed there. A dish that simply says reindeer makes no claim about where the animal lived, so if origin matters to you, ask the restaurant which meat it uses, and look for the protected name on packs in the shops.
Lapland Handbook is written by its editorial staff in Rovaniemi. Every price, age limit and group size in a comparison is read from the operator's own page and marked "Not stated" when the operator does not publish it. Each guide names who should not book, and names the operator that suits each kind of group, whichever it is.
Rovaniemi's winter tours do sell out – December and the week around New Year first, and the small-group ones before the rest. Booking here goes straight to the operator at their own published price, and the code LH10 takes 10% off it.
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