From Shipping Offices to Georgian Supper Tables: A 1905 Helsinki Building Finds a New Role

Walk down Eteläinen Makasiinikatu towards the harbour and it is easy to miss Navigator House. The building, known in Finnish as Navigatorin talo, sits on the corner of Unioninkatu, a few steps from Kasarmitori and the Esplanadi park. Its plain roughcast façade does not ask for attention. That restraint is part of its history.

Navigator House was completed in 1905 in the Art Nouveau style, called Jugend in Finland. Unlike many Jugend buildings in the city, its façades carry almost no decoration. Two extra attic floors were added in the early 1920s, designed to continue the original style so that old and new read as one building.

A century of ships, offices and homes

From 1915 until the 1950s, the building served as the headquarters of Finska Ångfartygs Aktiebolaget, better known as Effoa. The company played a significant part in Finnish shipping and is today part of Tallink Silja. According to records held by the Helsinki City Museum, the house has also been used over the decades for offices, restaurants and private homes.

Today the building has taken on a very different role. It is home to Winest, a Georgian restaurant founded by Lika Mamukashvili, who moved to Finland in 2023.

What Georgian food is like

Georgian cooking is still new to many people in Finland, but its basic ingredients feel familiar: bread, cheese, walnuts, fresh herbs and slow-cooked meat. What sets it apart is how these are combined.

The best-known dish is khachapuri, bread baked around a filling of melted cheese. The Adjarian version is shaped like a boat. Khinkali are hand-folded dumplings filled with meat and a hot broth, eaten by hand. Shkmeruli is grilled chicken served in a garlic and sour cream sauce, and pkhali are colourful spreads made from vegetables and ground walnuts. Several of these classics appear among the Georgian dishes on Winest's menu.

Many dishes are made for sharing, which fits the way Georgians eat: slowly, at a long table, with many plates in the middle. That long table has a name. In Georgian, nadimi means a feast, and a feast is less about the food than about the hours spent together.

A wine tradition that goes back 8,000 years

Food is only half the story. Georgia is often described as one of the birthplaces of wine, and the evidence for that is scientific rather than legendary. In 2017, researchers published findings in the journal PNAS showing traces of grape wine in pottery from two Neolithic villages south of Tbilisi, dating to around 6000 BC.

The traditional Georgian method is also unusual. Wine is fermented, aged and stored in a qvevri, a large egg-shaped clay vessel buried in the ground. In 2013, UNESCO added the ancient Georgian qvevri winemaking method to its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The knowledge is still passed down within families and village communities.

At Winest, the focus is on wines from small Georgian family cellars, known in Georgia as marani. The restaurant describes its aim as making Georgian winemakers better known in the Nordic countries.

Everyday dining, not only special occasions

The restaurant's approach is that going out should not be saved for celebrations. The main dining hall is meant for an ordinary dinner after work as much as for a long evening with friends.

For larger groups, a separate private room called the White Room seats 10 to 25 guests. It is furnished in Rococo style, and groups order a shared menu named Nadimi, priced at €59 per person. Those who want to try it can book a table online.

Old walls, new guests

Helsinki's city centre has many buildings whose first purpose has long since disappeared. Navigator House is one of them. The ships it once managed now sail under a different name, and the rooms where shipping contracts were signed now fill with the sound of a Georgian dinner table.

For people who live in Helsinki and for visitors alike, it is a small reminder that the city's history is not only kept in museums. Sometimes it is simply where you sit down for dinner.