Wesselstuen

Bergen, Norway

Wesselstuen has occupied its corner on Øvre Ole Bulls plass in central Bergen since 1971, making it one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in the city. The room is housed in an 18th-century building and has the feel of a place that has not tried too hard to change: low ceilings, dark wood, a long bar, and tables close together. The menu stays close to Bergen and western Norwegian tradition. Homemade potato dumplings (raspeballer) with smoked pork knuckle, Vossa sausage, and turnip mash appear as the signature dish on the regular card, alongside fish soup and other Bergen staples. The Vossa sausage comes sliced and fried, sourced from producers in the Voss valley. Wesselstuen draws a regular crowd of locals alongside visitors, and the atmosphere is deliberately informal. Writers, journalists, and dockworkers have all been at home here across the decades.

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Sausages served here

Vossapølse

Voss, Norway

Vossapølse is a cold-smoked Norwegian sausage from the Voss district in Vestland county, western Norway. It is made from coarsely ground lamb or mutton, sometimes mixed with a portion of beef, seasoned with salt, pepper, and occasionally ginger, then stuffed into natural casings and cold-smoked over birch or juniper wood for several days. The finished sausage is dark brown on the outside, firm and dense in the hand, and carries a pronounced smoke that reads clean rather than heavy. The lamb gives it a gamey depth that separates it from any pork sausage of similar type. Norway awarded it Protected Geographical Indication status, tying the name to production in the Voss region using traditional methods. Locals eat it sliced cold on bread, or pan-fried and served hot alongside boiled potatoes and creamed cabbage in the weeks around Christmas.

smokedlambmutton