A country pub near Hexham is bringing a taste of Finland to Northumberland, with manager Anne Ebdy introducing traditional dishes from her homeland at The Boatside Inn in Warden.
The Finnish specialities are being served alongside the award-winning pub’s regular menu. They include creamy rice-filled Karelian pies, cured salmon dishes and other Nordic favourites, with Anne’s daughter Sofia working at the pub as a supervisor.
For Anne, the new menu is more than a change of dining options. It is a way of keeping a connection with home while building a new life in the North East.
From eastern Finland to Warden
Anne originally lived in eastern Finland, close to the Russian border. She had worked as a junior-school teacher and ran a horse-riding holiday business, leading visitors on guided rides through the surrounding forest.
The business was badly affected when the pandemic brought tourism to a halt. Anne also described growing military activity in nearby woodland and changes at her school, where preparations were being considered for bomb shelters and the evacuation of children if tensions escalated into war.
Those concerns eventually led Anne to leave Finland with her family and begin again in the UK. The North East was already familiar because the family had lived in the region briefly 15 years earlier, and Sofia was born here.
The move involved selling most of the family’s horses, although Anne kept two. She travelled to the UK with her two teenage children and two dogs, arranging for the horses to follow and packing their belongings into a horse trailer.
“It was pretty mad now that I think about it”
After arriving, Anne worked as a supply teacher before moving into hospitality. Her experience included Ramside Hall in County Durham, pub and restaurant management roles around Sunderland and a position at The Wheatsheaf in Corbridge.
She said she quickly developed an affection for the area and its landscape.
“I fell in love with Northumberland, the scenery and the nature here,”
What diners can expect
At The Boatside Inn, Anne has been working with the kitchen team to recreate Finnish dishes using traditional methods. The team smoke the salmon themselves, cure gravadlax and pickle vegetables.
The selection is expected to change with the seasons, reflecting Nordic traditions of foraging and preserving. Dishes on offer include pickled mackerel; gravadlax on homemade rye bread with pickled cucumber; and pork and beef meatballs with mash and gräddsås, a rich cream sauce.
Karelian pies are among the best-known Finnish additions. The speciality has a hand-crimped rye crust around a creamy savoury rice filling. At the pub, the pies will be brushed with butter and served with flakes of hot-smoked salmon or gravadlax.
Desserts are also planned, including a blueberry bake based on one of Anne’s grandmother’s recipes.
A new home near Hexham
Anne now manages The Boatside Inn with Sofia working alongside her. She said the pub’s setting and the presence of the family’s horses nearby have helped them feel settled, even though homesickness remains part of their experience.
“The Boatside Inn is definitely the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived in, and our horses are just around the corner, so we feel at home here,”
The Finnish dishes offer a practical way for the family to keep those memories close, combining familiar ingredients and cooking traditions with their life in Northumberland.
“Cooking and baking traditional Nordic dishes brings Finland to us in flavours and, of course, memories.”
The Boatside Inn is at Warden, just outside Hexham, and the Finnish dishes are available alongside the pub’s regular menu.