Iconic Flavours: Sea Horse

The Legacy Collection: Iconic Flavours is our tribute to the places that give Helsinki its unique flavor. Co-designed with former Helsinki restaurateur and OG streetwear aficionado Sacha Remling, the drops celebrate three iconic restaurants: Sea Horse, Elite, and Lehtovaara, all known for having left a permanent mark in the city culture of Helsinki. Sea Horse, this one’s for you.

Located in Ullanlinna, Sea Horse is a classic with a capital C. Founded in 1933, Sea Horse has served classic dishes, like fried herring, sirloin steak with fried onions, vorschmack, and many more to a clientele gathered from all circles of life. That’s the power of cuisine: nothing brings people together like a good meal.

A good classic always benefits from a bit of mystery. When it comes to Sea Horse, for every known, there’s at least one unknown. For instance, there’s the case of the restaurant’s original founder. To this day, no one knows who the actual founder was – but what is known instead is that the place was a favored haunt for sailors back in the day. And what about the large sea horse painting on the wall? The legends range from a break-in by anarchistic art students to a penniless artist paying for his meal in the form of a mural. (In fact, the wall was painted by two art students from Espoo in the span of three nights in March 1970).

To leave Sea Horse out of our Iconic Flavours Collection would have been nothing short of a crime. In many ways, Sea Horse is like a piece of old Helsinki was preserved in a small capsule, where things have remained the same for the last 90-odd years – in a good way. If you know Aki Kaurismäki and his movies, you know what we mean. Classics are meant to last.

Like with the entire Iconic Flavours collection, part of the Sea Horse items’ profits are donated to charity. Together with Apuna Ry, we donate part of the profits as gift cards to the collection’s restaurants – these gift cards will then be given to underprivileged families by Apuna Ry.