Finnair Business Lounge (non-schengen) Helsinki Food and Nutrition Review (updated 2024)

Updated June 2024

I finally had the opportunity to check out the new Finnair Business Lounge in the non-schengen terminal of Helsinki-Vantaa. Last few times I have flown out of Helsinki airport I have visited the Platinum Wing (as Oneworld Emerald), but it was shut when I flew through in January 2022 (and still is at the time of posting this review) so it was off to the newly refurbished Business Lounge I went. I also revisited the lounge in June 2024 to see whether much had changed.

And in both 2022 and 2024 the food was a fairly solid offering – not as extensive as in the Finnair Platinum Wing (which is to be expected) but not bad.

And of course no Finnair lounge would be complete without Marimekko and Iittala designs so it a was great to see these designs in the lounge too.

What’s nutritious?

• Two roast vegetable dishes were on offer in 2022 – Roast Potatoes and Root Vegetable and Potato Pie. Not only were both delicious, but what I really liked from a nutrition perspective is they weren’t too oily or fatty. Just enough to add some flavour without adding extra calories for no reason. I also loved the root vegetable pie – it offered a chance to eat a range of root vegetables, providing a chance to get different nutrients. While I don’t have a problem with potatoes, it is great to get more yellow and orange vegetables in your diet. These colours bring their own range of antioxidants and phytonutrients which are great for health. In 2024 the small roast potatoes were available along with bowls of white rice which was disappointing.

• The salads I saw in my 2024 visit were a step up from 2022 with more variety. There was a beautifully coloured beetroot quinoa salad available in 2024 along with a vegetable noodle salad which also had a purple colour to it.

• Having salad vegetables served like this are always great for adding a nutrient boost to your plate. You can make yourself a garden salad to have on the side of your meal, you can load up your plate and use these salad ingredients as the majority of your meal, or you can grab some tomato and cucumber to snack on.

• What I loved about this wheat salad dish is most of the flavour came from herbs, rather than being drowned in dressing. It was quite a light and flavoursome salad, with a decent amount of vegetables mixed through (I would have liked it to be half-half but this is a good start).

• Fish coconut curry – red and green with a fair bit of heat! These dishes were hard to place as fish is quite nutritious and can be a great food to have while travelling, however coconut curries can be quite heavy dishes depending on how the sauces are made. Try spooning the fish out with only a little sauce for flavour – don’t go spooning the sauce all over your plate and drowning the fish. I was surprised that both hot meals were fish meals – if people don’t like fish then it is limiting for them. While Finnair usually serves delicious fish meals regularly, I was still a little surprised by this choice.

• I thought hard about where to place the gnocchi dish – it didn’t automatically get placed in the ‘healthy’ category. Gnocchi are made mainly from potatoes, wheat flour and semolina and so are quite low fibre/carbohydrate heavy. If the gnocchi were served in a cream (i.e. a calorie heavy sauce) I would have placed it in the ‘caution’ section. But this gnocchi dish is a tomato, garlic and toasted nut based sauce (Romesco Sauce), and served with some vegetables which provides more nutrients and antioxidants than a cream based sauce. So I have placed it here, but be mindful that it is a carbohydrate heavy dish and so adding a side salad would be a great idea.

• Hello rye bread! What I love about travelling with Finnair is that rye bread is usually on offer! Typically a denser type of bread, rye bread usually has more fibre than breads based on wheat.

• Really loved the platters of sliced fruits which complemented the bowls of whole pieces of fruits. Not only does it add variety to the usual apples, bananas and oranges you see in most lounges, but also provides a great nutrition punch!

Not so great (caution).

• I was disappointed that white rice was offered instead of a dish like the roast vegetable dish. While I don’t expect the exact same dishes to be served, especially a few years later, it was great to see colourful roast vegetables available in 2022 packing a nutrient punch for passengers. White rice and white potatoes are both high carbohydrate foods which are generally considered to be metabolised quite quickly. This is not conducive to travel health when passengers are most likely sitting down for hours in lounges and on planes.

• While creamy cauliflower dishes are delicious, and a great way to help encourage people to eat cauliflower, they can be high in calories and fat depending on how they were made. This dish seemed to have quite a lot of sauce which can make it quite a heavy dish, especially before a long-haul flight. If you would like to enjoy some of the cauliflower then try spooning pieces of cauliflower without scooping too much sauce.

• Mince patties in a creamy sauce, while delicious, has the potential to be high in calories. If you haven’t prepared a mince dish yourself it can be hard to know how lean the mince is. Add on top of that a creamy sauce, which usually has a high content of cream will just add to the fat and energy content of the dish without providing many beneficial nutrients. If you chose to eat a dish like this then just take a small drizzle of sauce – enough to give some delicious flavours while balancing out the calorie content.

• While the Caesar Salad is technically a ‘salad’ unfortunately this version is mostly made from iceberg lettuce, paremsan cheese shavings and a creamy dressing. While I never say no to any vegetables, iceberg lettuce isn’t very nutrient rich – it is low in calories and has a high water density. On its own this would be a good to add as a side to other more nutrient rich foods when flying, however when it has a creamy, calorie rich dressing added to it the benefits become less. If you love creamy dressing, I would choose it on a salad full of brightly coloured vegetables which contain a whole range of nutrients, so the cons of the high calorie dressing are more balanced out by the nutrient richness of the foods. But here I would leave it and choose the mixed leaves without dressing and which contain some darker green leaves (which are more nutrient rich).

• What’s this I hear you ask? Why has she got the same bread photo in both the ‘healthy’ and ‘caution’ section? While the rye breads get the thumbs up from me, as usual white breads are not great options. The menu lists foccacia bread which is quite an oily, low fibre white bread which I do not advocate for, however foccacia is not in this picture. What I wanted to highlight in this picture is the Finnish Rice Pastries. Now don’t get me wrong – I love them and think they taste delicious. They have a rye crust, rice filling and are served with egg butter on top. But they are quite moreish and easy to overeat. So just be careful and remember not to double up on both bread and these pastries if you are eating them. I usually have one when flying Finnair because they are a novelty for me, however if I was flying Finnair all the time I would limit them and have them more as a treat.

• There were crisps, biscuits and cakes available for snacks. These foods didn’t seem to offer any benefits for health from what I could tell and so I would classify them as discretionary foods which should be limited in the diet. This is why they land in the ‘caution’ section.

Last word from travel food and nutrition review for Finnair Business Lounge (non schengen) Helsinki

A simple, yet flavoursome, offering in the Finnair Business Lounge (non schengen) in Helsinki. I think some people may find the variety of dishes on offer lacking or too simple for an international business class lounge, however I wonder if the offerings will expand now travel is picking up after the Omicron wave that was happening in January when I visited.

From a nutrition perspective, the buffet options that were on offer were fairly good. I liked that it was easy to build a balanced, healthy meal, and while there were some snack foods on offer, there weren’t too many. I found it fairly easy to eat well in this lounge which I loved!

For more information on my visits to airport lounges, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok. And I always love hearing from you so if you want personalised advice or consultancy services please reach out.

NOTE: All pictures of Finnair Business Lounge are my own and I review a lounge from just the foods and menu I see during my visit. There may be different options available at other times.