Restaurant Potetkjeller
Kong Oscarsgate 1A
About
Set within a few steps of Bergen's Fish Market, this is one of the oldest, most exclusive, and best restaurants in Bergen. Its oldest feature is an antique flagstone floor (the date of construction is unknown) at the base of a cellar whose vaulted ceiling dates from the mid-1400s. (After most of the city's clapboard-sided houses burned to the ground in 1702, the stone-built cellar was used as a dump for the ashes and debris that remained behind. After extensive renovations in the late 1990s, the cellar is now used for additional seating for the restaurant upstairs.) Menu items from the open kitchen change but are likely to include pan-fried king crab salad; filet of organic pork with potato gnocchi and morel cream; grilled scallops with shellfish sauce and lobster ravioli; filets of roe venison with grilled Jerusalem artichokes and a cream-enriched demi-glace sauce; and a dessert special of baked nectarines with syrup and semifreddo (a combination of mascarpone cheese, brandy, espresso, icing sugar, gluten, grated chocolate, and cream). There is a different wine for each course, each selected by the chef. The cellar has 300 different vintages.
