Apparently, "Manala" means "Underworld" in Finnish, and the restaurant greets you with a merry devil painted on the door. But neither is the restaurant underground nor is the food in any way hellish.
On the contrary, it's a big, airy place with a comfortable dining room that is a pleasant mix of the rustic and the stylish. There is also a bar, probably for when you are waiting for a table or just want drinks. Both are, according with sensible Finnish law, non-smoking.
Food and drink were good, and some dishes on the menu sounded decidedly local.
I had sautéed reindeer, cut up in tiny bits with (somewhat too watery) mashed potatoes and the seemingly omnipresent but very tasty lingonberries as a sauce. They also served excellent salmon chowder and an interesting pudding with buckwheat sauce for dessert.
Though alcoholic drinks were, typically for Finland, extremely pricey, the food prices were decent enough.
The only iffy thing about the place is the fact that you are first faced with a cloak room to which it is obligatory to give up your coat or jacket - for a fee. That's the first time I've seen a restaurant make money of its customers' clothing. They also sold a bunch of 'fandom'-items with the name of the place on it there - also not something you'd exactly associate with stylishness. Odd that they should resort to such measures to make an extra bit of money, when the place seemed fairly popular with customers.
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