Michelin-starred restaurant in Helsinki is to close its doors for good

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The Michelin-starred restaurant Carma, located on Helsinki’s Ludviginkatu, is to close down.
     
The restaurant has 24 seats and it was established just three years ago in premises vacated by another Michelin establishment, Chez Dominique.
      In 2008, Carma was awarded a star in the Guide Michelin Main Cities of Europe.
      ”Next week, we will open a new restaurant in the same premises”, says restaurateur Markus Aremo, who is Carma’s chef de cuisine and owner.
     
Owing to the change, Aremo will lose his Michelin star. However, Aremo says that the coveted star also had adverse effects on the establishment.
      ”It attracted a new coterie of stiff and rigorous customers. I believe that some of them appreciated the star more than the food itself”, an aggrieved Aremo feels.
      The Finnish capital currently has five Michelin-starred restaurants.
     
According to the financial newspaper Kauppalehti, Carma’s profit for 2009 was weakened as the employees of the restaurant fell victim to a Nigerian scam, ending up in a financial loss of EUR 40,000 to the enterprise.
      Aremo is silent on the allegation, saying that the incident has nothing to do with the closing down of the restaurant. He notes further that the first part of the year has been financially excellent.
     
”A Michelin star does not automatically turn a restaurant into a goldmine, but we had no financial problems”, Aremo notes.
      A new bistro called La Table, co-owned by Markus Aremo and Jari Peltonen, will replace Carma next week.
      La Table is also the name of a cookbook written by Markus Aremo and illustrated by Jari Peltonen, whose cartoon on an imaginary restaurant -La Table in Provence - has been published in the Thursday "Food and Drink" section of Helsingin Sanomat for some years.
     
”The concept of the new restaurant will be different, and it is likely that it will never gain any Michelin stars”, says Aremo.
      At La Table, the cuisine will be more straightforward and simple, and in such food all flaws are easier to detect, the chef de cuisine notes.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Helsinki gains two new Guide Michelin entries (12.3.2008)
  No change in Michelin stars, but elite Helsinki eateries see decline in business customers (17.3.2009)

See also:
  New Michelin Guide contains five starred Helsinki restaurants (18.3.2010)

Links:
  Eat.fi: Carma

Helsingin Sanomat