Kaarina Gould is one of the leading figures shaping the future of Finnish design and cultural institutions. As CEO of the Foundation for the Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design, she is leading the creation of Helsinki's new Museum of Architecture and Design on the South Harbour waterfront, an ambitious project that will bring together the Design Museum and the Museum of Finnish Architecture into a new institution set to open around 2030. Her career has long sat at the intersection of design, culture, and public engagement, including serving as Executive Director of the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York and Program Director for Helsinki's World Design Capital year in 2012, helping position Finnish design on an international stage.
Could you tell our community a little about yourself and what you do?
I’m a designer by training, but my career has unfolded at the intersection of design, art, and culture. Before design school, I attended culinary school, and I still find that the projects I feel most drawn to are the ones where food and design meet.
What are you working on at the moment – and what is exciting you right now?
Right now, I’m building a new Museum of Design and Architecture in Helsinki. We’ve just selected JKMM Architects to design the museum’s new home, which is set to open around 2030–2031.
The site of our new museum is in Helsinki’s historic South Harbour, a strip by the water that should be open to people, but for decades has been occupied by harbor functions and parking.
What excites me most is the urban transformation – how the waterfront is opening with new life – not just a new cultural institution but restaurants, coffee shops, wine bars. It’s a rare opportunity to be part of shaping not just a building, but a new kind of public space.
Naturally I’m obsessed about the museum’s f&b offering, which should be a perfect, welcoming pairing of Finnish food and design.
How do you approach design in a restaurant?
It’s tricky. Best restaurant experiences are often layers of years of mix and match, and intense use and many new restaurants try and create the effortless feeling as if the place had always been there.
I’m interested in spaces where the flow works intuitively, where the atmosphere supports the food, and where the staff can move and work with ease. When that balance is right, you can feel it immediately – it creates a kind of quiet generosity in the experience.
Name a dish you’d call good design.
If I apply my principles of good design to food, it’s any dish made with care and skill, using thoughtful, ethical, and sustainable ingredients, the end result being so satisfying you want to return to it again and again and share it with family and friends.
Good design also needs experimentation and innovation – something that happens in kitchens, both professional and domestic every day – I have such high regard for both kitchens that explore and create something new every day and kitchens that focus on re-creating the familiar quality and value day after day.
What are three hometown restaurants you return to again and again – and why?
- Cafe Savoy – a newcomer that already feels timeless. Lunch or dinner, the food, service and atmosphere always work.
- Café Engel – a Helsinki staple since my teens. All-day breakfast, views to the cathedral, the chocolate banana cream cake, and always a good selection of magazines.
- Atelje Finne – founded more than 20 years ago by my friend, chef Antto Melasniemi, and set in a former sculptor's studio, Atelje Finne has kept its relevance over the years. The menu changes weekly, but the Licorice Crème Brûlée stays.
Where would you take a friend visiting your hometown?
Savoy. For the Aalto interiors meticulously brought back to life by Ilse Crawford’s studio, the view, and the sense of occasion – but also for genuinely excellent food, wine, and service. It captures something essential about Helsinki and its design legacy.
Have there been any new restaurants in Helsinki that you’ve found inspiring?
Shii and Bona Fide. Both feel fresh and confident in their own way, with a clear point of view. And Klaava, a new casual and friendly wine bar just around the corner from home.
If you had to choose three favorite food destinations, what would they be – and which places do you recommend to try in each – and why?
- New York, and especially Cobble Hill, Brooklyn where I lived for years. I always go back to Colonie for Turkish eggs, and Hibino for homemade Agedashi tofu.
- San Francisco – our second home for past five years. Zuni Café for the shoestring fries, the wood-firing oven, the art on the walls accumulated of over the years. The dish I love most is a deceptively simple dish of parmesan, celery, anchovies, and olive oil that feels like pure genius. I also return to Sasa in Japantown for their elegant sushi and Nari at Hotel Kabuki for incredibly tasty and beautiful Thai food. For casual lunch my go to is the clam ramen at Hinodeya Ramen Bar – right across from SF76 my favorite spot for Japanese ceramics and kitchenware.
- Paris. I always go back for oysters at Bofinger, and Clamato and Septime for a more contemporary take and Ten Belles bakery for their sourdough bread.
What’s the most memorable restaurant experience you’ve had – and what made it so special?
I was about 18 and had just started culinary school in Helsinki when I came across Chez Panisse Cooking by Paul Bertolli and Alice Waters at a local bookstore. It became my bible – I cooked from it again and again, and the original hard copy is still one of the most beautiful books I own.
So, decades later, when I finally made my way to Chez Panisse, it felt like a pilgrimage. The expectations were high, but somehow, they were exceeded. Everything was exactly as I had imagined—the perfect balance between cosy and elevated, each ingredient chosen with care and prepared with love.
I even met Alice Waters that evening. I had brought my book with me, thinking I might ask her to sign it, but in the end, I lost my nerve.
I keep the menu from that November dinner tucked inside the book:
- Smoked Mendocino black cod with chicories
- Celery root soup with roasted hedgehog mushrooms
- Wolfe Ranch quail with pancetta and sage
- Passionfruit ice cream
I’ve been back many times and cherish each visit as a gift from Alice.
