Which is to say, it shines out like a shaft of gold when all about is dark; the culinary scene is so very, very dark in Helsinki. If you can live with the geological pace of service, this restaurant provides the best food we have experienced in Helsinki.

Our initial impressions from their website were coloured by the outrageous mark-ups on their wine-list; most prices seemed like outright robbery. There were literally a handful of less insanely priced wines, and we chose two that should allow us to have a good time no matter what came out of the kitchen. Our impressions were improved by the design of the dining room, which was suitably minimalist with large tables that were well-spaced. It was a shame they felt the need to have background music playing.

Since we were dining on a Saturday there was only a surprise menu of various course-lengths to choose from. We took the bullet and went for the nine-course tasting menu.

It started off extremely well with three little 'gifts from the kitchen'. Firstly came a cep ravioli with cep foam in a cep broth. This was very mushroomy with great purity of flavours, quite delicious. Following on came blinis with turbot roe, smetana ice cream and red onion spaghetti. The blini had a great crunchy texture, the ice cream interesting and tasty, the spaghetti quite lovely and the roe very pleasing. It took forty minutes for these two amuses-bouches to be served. The final offering was duck confit with beetroot ice cream and beetroot broth. The duck was very rich and crunchy with an excellent flavour that was perfectly matched by the powerful beetroot, its slightly vinegary tang giving this a good bite.

The last amuse bouche followed very quickly after the second, so at this point we were a tad concerned about the random pacing of the meal, the slow arrival of the first real course demonstrated the speed was glacial. However, the dish was quite excellent. It was a shelled oyster with the oyster water whipped into a foam (a l'Arnsbourg) with exotic fruits. The fruit sweetness perfectly balanced the flavour of the oyster and the whole dish was a delight.

Foie gras followed, which is always a bit of a worry in places so far from foie gras-land. We were not disappointed by this. The piece of pan-fried foie was utterly delicious and the pate was just great with some good shavings of black truffle to add decadence. It came with a melon sorbet that had a delightfully pure flavour and a little 'Swiss roll' made from a sheet of melon stuffed with foie gras puree. Lovely stuff.

Next came a scallop with cauliflower and scallop risotto, shaved black truffles, tarragon sauce and a deep-fried tiny baby squid. This seemed to have been hanging about for a while before it had been served, but it was lovely. Not only was the scallop perfectly cooked, but the risotto was very flavoursome and matched the scallop wonderfully. Perhaps the calamari was a bit salty, but it did not detract from an otherwise excellent dish.

Our final fish course was a piece of sole with ginger sauce. David detests ginger so was pleased the fish had not been smothered with it as the fish was cooked wonderfully and had a great meatiness. This came with three little ravioli of lobster that had a reasonable lobster character but were not amazingly thrilling.

Then came a course to cleanse the palate. Carrot puree with tarragon sorbet, a granite of carrot and a lemon and ginger sorbet. Again, this looked like it had been waiting around a few minutes too long, as the sorbets had melted slightly. Yet, the flavours were most pleasing. The tarragon sorbet was particularly intense. David avoided the ginger option but it was extremely refreshing and powerfully flavoured.

We then had a truly marvellous piece of milk-fed veal that was served with sweetbread, shaved black truffles and a potato puree. The veal was meltingly tender and excellently cooked, as was the piece of sweetbread. The pace of the meal may have been sluggish in the extreme, but this was another dish that stopped us from making a scene as it was so good.

Three microscopic pieces of cheese followed. They were in reasonable condition but it was a shame that a restaurant of this obvious quality could not manage to have a cheese trolley.

Before dessert we chose three different glasses of dessert wine to share. They had an excellent selection on offer all available by the glass. The Deiss 1989 Altenberg Gerwurztraminer SGN was mind-buggeringly good.

The pre-dessert was the only really disappointing dish we had. It was titled 'Crepe Suzette a la Chez Dominique'. This consisted of a hard wafer of a crepe, on top of orange blossom ice cream and orange sauce misted with some Grand Marnier and orange water. It was quite bland, the wafer was too hard and it had obviously been hanging around (again) as the ice cream was liquid. It was a small dish so we were not forced to endure its boring nature for long.

Dessert itself was a concoction of berries with berry ice cream and sorbet, fresh berries and a berry sauce. Nice fresh flavours that perked one up at the end of the meal.

We did not stop for coffee as we had been there for over four hours and it was getting rather late. But the meal had been a great success. We were bowled over by the quality of the cooking, which was only slightly marred by the slowness in getting dishes to the table. You have to chose carefully from the wine list if you do not want to drink filth at outrageous prices. This was the best meal we'd had since we'd last been at l'Arnsbourg, demonstrating that this was indeed worthy of its two stars and marking Chez Dominique as a beacon in the culinary desert that is Helsinki.

Contact details and menus on their website.