Fine Dining & Dirty Boots started with two things we had accumulated quite a lot of: money well spent on memorable dinners and kilometres walked on Finnish trails.
The paths we’d taken, the experiences we’d had and all those little things we kept talking about afterwards needed a home.
So we built them a forever home right here.
Fine Dining & Dirty Boots is our collection of the places we think are worth remembering: ambitious restaurants, distinctive hotels, quiet forest and lake views, peculiar museums and other places that don’t necessarily make it into a travel guide.
Who’s Behind the Muddy Boots?
We’re Krista and Hannu, two Finns from the Helsinki region who have been travelling together for more than 20 years. Krista is the main writer behind the blog, but everything you read or see here has been experienced, photographed, discussed and occasionally disagreed on by both of us.
Our story started with two young and picky partners-in-crime. Somewhere along the way, that turned into tasting menus, unusual wines and enough curiosity to order the strangest thing on the menu just to find out what it tastes like.
In everyday life, one of us works in marketing and the other as an engineer. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we tend to notice both how an experience feels and how well things actually work.
Having travelled these roads for most of our lives, we’ve learned to notice the things that still make us stop and look twice.
We’re also tea-drinking, nature-loving introverts who fit the Finnish stereotype rather well. You probably won’t find us sitting around a campfire with a bunch of strangers, but you might find us discussing an unusual wine or heading to a metal gig.
From Tasting Menus to Muddy Trails
A memorable restaurant experience usually follows us home in the form of a conversation about how something was made and whether we could do it ourselves. Sometimes we even dare to recreate a dish at home… with varying results. A surprising number of ideas picked up in restaurants have nevertheless found their way into our everyday cooking.
But restaurants are only one part of the story.
Home for the Night
We love being outdoors, but we’re not trying to conquer the wilderness. Our ideal day might involve several hours on a trail followed by a shower, a good dinner and a proper bed.
Sleeping in a tent isn’t our cup of tea. For that reason most of the trails featured here are day trips. At the end of them, if we are not heading home, we are staying somewhere we genuinely look forward staying.
A hotel is more than just a place to sleep for us: the atmosphere, breakfast, location, service and all those small details that can turn an overnight stay into a trip itself.
Hope you enjoy following our journey and retrace some of our steps on your own travels.
Everything here is written from our own perspective. If a visit has been hosted, gifted or created in collaboration with a business, we’ll always tell you.
