Zupperia

We loved this place! Nice service, good food, not expensive (for Norway ) nice atmosphere

Zupperia is a plain ordinary run-of-the-mill European cafe.

Which means it's wonderful.

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A word here on European cafes.

Knock the stereotype out of your mind that a European cafe is an exotic cosmopolitan place.

Cafes do not look like the ancien Europe of the 1890's or 1920's or 1940's with Ernest Hemingway at one table, Jean Paul Sartre at a different table and Toulouse Lautrec painting people's pictures in a corner.

People looking for the cliched European cafes of American's postcard imaginations are sitting ducks for the tourist trap operators.

The swindlers buy some downtown real estate, decorate it in centuries old style, and charge you triple the going rate for mediocre food so you can have "the authentic European experience."

A European cafe is simply a plain old everyday restaurant with a full bar.

Take out the liquor and it is another version of a diner on New Jersey's Route 17 or a coffee shop on the Upper East Side.

Jersey diners and Manhattan coffee shops are great places.

Whether we are talking diner or coffee shop or Euro cafe,

The best places have a substantial menu.

There is some local food with regional dishes.

There is a lot of globalized international food.

It is all everyday stuff.

The kitchen is good.

What you are going to get is going to be comforting and tasty.

It doesn't matter if the decor is 1920's or mid-century functional or 2010's normal.

What matters is you are going to get a decently priced plate of normal food that will taste good and keep body and soul together for the next couple of hours.

* * *

Zupperia does just fine as a Euro cafe.

They have fish soup or reindeer or raspeballer if you want to go Nordic.

They have tortilla wraps or Thai curry if you want to go exotic.

You want burgers or lasagna?

They got that too.

The wife and I went with tofu and vegetables in teriyaki sauce.

There was a lot of it.

The teriyaki sauce was homemade and seductive.

The vegetables were first rate.

(They had a lot of fine sweet red pepper from Holland.

Dutch red peppers make everything good.)

After all the crazy eat-everything-Nordic-you-can-get-your-hands-on

That we had engaged in in the previous days,

Having some basic tofu and vegetables restored bodily health and mental sanity.

And that is exactly what is supposed to happen at a Euro cafe -

Even if it is a steak frite or a strogonoff sitting on your plate.

This small upscale midrange Norwegian chain does a nice job in creating a fancy ambiance with reasonable prices. I imagine this would be a good place for a first date...show her you care, but don't lose too much $$$$$ in case the date goes bad. (Who doesn't like dogs? Dump her!)

Staff was polite, but seemed exhausted from a working a busy day during Constitution Day(their 4th of July). I think it was two 6 ounce fillets.

210kr/$28 Salmon plate...hard to tell in my photo, but salmon portion is about 2 times what you would get in America. Delicious!

159kr/$21.20 seafood salad...see photo. Norwegians have a different interpretation of "Seafood Salad" than in America...just look at the vast amount of seafood on that "salad". The ratio is awesome! America can learn a lot from Norway!

Prices might seem high by American standards, but in Norway tax and tip are already included in restaurant prices, so its really the same as America. But drink prices were quite high, so we just drank water. I've read that Norwegian restaurants are used to this..I think...

(Note: At time of this review, the US dollar was up 50% against the Norway kroner...$1 = 7.5kr vs $1 = 5kr just a couple years ago)

It was our first meal in Bergen. Though most people chose to go to the seafood market right away, we decided to try something different - fusion Asian food :)

For such a small town, I was surprised by how authentic the Asian food was. We loved our teriyaki l, chicken skewers and tiger prawn noodles. Yum yum

We went here because the yelp reviews were decent and the menu sounded good. The service was very prompt and courteous. We started with a mojito and an expresso martini, both good and the waiter asked if we liked them which is rare in Europe lol. So we give service and location 4 stars. We then ordered the nachos and a chicken wrap. The nachos were good and tasty but the chips were straight from a bag, so I give it 2 &1/2 stars, the wrap was also standard affair but good, so over food gets 2&1/2 stars. Overall I would give this place 3&1/2 stars based on good food, location and service. The prices are definitely high but that's true across the board in this region

Decent food for relatively low prices (if you're sticking to soup, that is). My friend and I came in for a bowl each, the perfect size and so fitting after we'd braved the rain for dinner. However service was slow and the staff was rather rude. The two of us felt unwelcome amongst mostly locals and staff that were clearly unimpressed that we only spoke English. The upside is that you can find a good meal for cheap, but it isn't exactly a tourist friendly joint.

Perhaps we caught them at a busy time or a bad day, but I still would say this made our first night in Bergen feel colder than it already was.

Zupperia is one of my favorite restaurants in Bergen, which is kind of ironic since I'm not particulary fond of soups. I've been at three of them in Bergen (the one in Vaskerelven, the one by Festplassen and the one down at Bryggen) a couple of times. The food is so amazing. The prices are relatively low, and the portions are huge! So you get a lot of food for your money! I've only experienced nice and helpfull staff as well, and have been taken care of the minute I'd step into the restaurant.

The setting in the restaurants are very cozy. You feel like you are in a nicer restaurant, even though the food isn't that expensive. I would also reccomand you to try the Tortilla wrap with chicken, the beef burger (amazing!!), the salmon or the asian soup with noodles and chicken (even though I'm not a soup lover, this soup was breathtakingly good). They also have a varied menu, you can choose everything from soups to nachos, to fish and steak - definately worth a try!

Try the chicken teriyaki. Very tasty, plentiful and reasonably priced (by Norwegian standards)

Solid value food for the area.

We stopped by without reservations as part of a group of 6 instead of waiting for a space at Pingvinen across the street. I split several dishes with my companions, including the creamy reindeer soup and the rack of venison. The soup was hearty and pretty tasty, while the while the venison was fairly tasty but not as flavorful or tender as I would have liked in meat. However, it's a fairly sizable portion, and for this part of the world, the value for the serving size was fairly good.

Overall, the service was pretty friendly, and the ambiance is not bad. It's a decent place for large groups, especially given the value of the meal.

2nd time this visit, eat too much the 1st time had a Hungarian soup and burger and fries, both very delicious