The table
Sixteen places in the dining room on the lake side, which has the 1934 glazing along one wall and nothing worth looking at on the other three.
Dinner
Seven o'clock, one sitting, four courses. Written on the card at the desk by noon. Pike perch from Kallavesi when the nets have been out, which is most weeks that are not iced over. Reindeer in autumn from a herder near Sotkamo. Chanterelles from August, and from a place nobody here is going to tell you about.
Tell the desk at breakfast if there is something you cannot eat and the kitchen cooks you the same meal without it. We do not take people who are not staying. Sixteen places and eight rooms is already a full room when everybody comes down.
Breakfast
Seven until ten. Rye bread baked here on a Tuesday and a Friday, cheese, cold fish, porridge with the butter well in it, and coffee that is strong because this is the country that drinks the most of it. If you are walking up Puijo before the light there will be something at the desk from six.
The counter in the hall
From four in the afternoon. Beer from two brewers in Savo, a short wine list, and cloudberry liqueur that somebody's aunt makes and which is better than it has any right to be. It stops at ten, an hour and a half before the lamp room, which is deliberate.
Water
Out of the tap and into a jug. Kuopio tap water comes from the lake you are looking at and is among the best in Europe, which is the sort of claim that is usually nonsense and in this case is in the test results on the wall by the kitchen door.
