Naboen Pub & Restaurant

As other Unilocalers have noted, skip the pricier restaurant upstairs and head downstairs for the casual pub. There, you’ll find a surprisingly large menu of Nordic beers, all of which can be paired with decent Nordic gastropub fare, which is heavy on meat and seafood. While the food isn’t gourmet by any stretch of the imagination and is quite pricey by American standards, everything is quite reasonable by Norwegian ones.
Also, the servers here were quite friendly and patient given that I didn’t speak a word of Norwegian. Not a bad choice if you want a proper sit-​down meal in Bergen of reasonable quality that won’t break the bank. Another good find, thanks to Unilocal

Cheese platter, value drinks, roasted potatoes. Good combos and relaxed atmosphere. And that’s on a Monday

Highly recommended! We had the house salad, moose, salmon & Swedish apple cake. The server’s recommendations for wine were excellent. The house salad was a great mix of greens, veggies, nuts & fruit. Portions were a good size. Nice drink selection. Go!

Very impressed! The cod dish was lovely. a real mix of flavors I thoroughly enjoyed. Friendly staff. Stine was a delight!

Just up the street from the Scandic Byparken where we stayed in Bergen we found the Naboen Pub that lives up to every review we read. Try it, you’ll love it!

We ate at the bar downstairs at the recommendation of so many other Unilocal users but unfortunately we’re disappointed. There was very little option on the menu and not really any way of making a healthy choice. We ended up with the steak sandwiches which were pretty good but not really noteworthy.

What a great find! Thank you other Unilocalers for sending me here.
As stated by a number of other people, don’t eat upstairs in the «fancy» restaurant, head downstairs to the more casual pub! It’s seat yourself, order at the bar.
My husband ordered the plank steak, and it was phenomenally prepared. Medium rare, perfectly seasoned and served with bacon wrapped green beans and dauphine potatoes. (Mashed potatoes that are piped and then broiled for a crispy top.) Everything was great.
I had the steak sandwich. Served open face with a sorta French dressing, and pickled onions. Again, perfectly seasoned and very delicious. It was a nice portion for me, who typically over orders. The sandwich came with fries and a salad. Salad was nice, nothing fancy, fries were okay. They weren’t good they weren’t bad, just okay. Otherwise we were both quite happy with our meals.
Bartenders are friendly, and happy to recommend drinks.
For Americans traveling with out chip and pin credit cards this is how the credit card process works:
1– they show you how much the meal was on the little machine
2– you type in how much you’re going to pay (this is where you add a tip) and hit the green (okay) button
3– swipe your card
4– sigh with disbelief at the amount of paper you’re wasting because the US insists on using a signature for transactions.
Prices are more than you want to spend but you’re in Norway so this shouldn’t be a surprise. We paid about 400KR ($ 56) for our meals, a coke and a beer.

TOP SECRET!
Its way off the tourist areas of Bergen… the only tourists in here are the ones that do extensive research before coming to Bergen… like me!
Walk in. Smile at the staff working in the fancy schmancy top floor area. But walk straight for the dark doorway and down the steps to the pub in the basement. Grab a menu. Grab a table, When ready, order from one of the friendly bartenders.
Keep in mind, tax and tip are already included, so its all reasonable considering its Norway:
63kr/​$ 8.40 Aass beers… good variety and cheapest beer in a bar in Bergen. Aass!!!
138kr/​$ 18.40 fish n chips… delicious! A bit different, but good!
188kr$ 25 plank steak… delicious! Probably the best deal in Norway if you’re craving steak.
Bartenderinas were very nice, as well as the expat Irishman bartender. The ambiance isn’t much… clean, simple and dark. Food comes from the same kitchen as the fancier restaurant upstairs with full service, but those entrees start at 200+kr. I’ll definitely be back if I’m ever in Bergen again.
(Note: At time of this review, the US dollar was up 50% against the Norway kroner…$ 1 = 7.5kr vs $ 1 = 5kr just a couple years ago)

Ate downstairs as we heard it was cheaper. It was definitely less fancy which is what we were looking for. I ate the saith (fish) which was very good and had an incredible Pale Ale (Voss Pale Ale).

This is one of the very rare times Unilocal has failed me. I had the stew which was quite bland with dry, tasteless pieces of meat in it. The ambiance is definitely cozy but with non descript décor, you could be at any pub anywhere in the world. Just a let down overall although I gave one extra star since the stew with a small beer was only 194Kr which at the time of this writing is only $ 25, a certifiable steal.

There’s two floors at this restaurant: the upstairs which is swanky and more expensive and the downstairs which has a younger atmosphere but still the same great food.
Food here is amazing. It’s somewhat expensive as all Norwegian restaurants seem to be, but it tastes great. Service is friendly once you get over the fact that you have to order at the bar if you’re downstairs.
Beer selection is large here but also borderline highway robbery. If you’re a whiskey drinker, you’ll find some nice scotch offerings for cheaper than the beer.

So the secret to this place is that you should eat at the pub instead of the top level. They serve the same food by the same chef but when you dine at the pub it’s a lot cheaper! they also offer free tap water (which never happens in Europe). I had the Husmanns-​dillkjøt av lam which is the traditional dill stewed lamb. Very flavorful, tender meat and savory sauce! Portions are okay for what you pay for. They also have free wifi.

The pub downstairs was great! The food was delicious and they had a a lot of varieties of beer. Don’t be deceived by the upstairs restaurant if you are looking for something casual, the pub downstairs is chill and the service was wonderful. Prices are a little lower compared to the majority of restaurants. We will definitely be back!

You may need a reservation, and dress smart, if you’d like to eat upstairs. Since we are on vacation we walked through the front door, continue straight ahead and down the small staircase that looks like it is for service only. Downstairs the pub was half full, all Norwegians, and there was a selection of perhaps 9 or 10 unfamiliar beers on draught, many others in bottle, and I noticed a decent selection of single malts behind the bartender.
We ordered the lamb dill stew for about 168 kroner and the Swedish meatballs with berries, potatoes and veggies for 110 kroner (I believe). Both were very satisfying after a day of hiking, and the beer was good too. This may have been the cheapest «real» meal we had during our stay in Norway. We also ordered a potato wedge app with three dips that would have been fine if we were just having that with the beers, but too much with the dinners.
All in all this was an unpretentious, great place to sit and chat. We stayed for several hours ordering a few more beers, and were happy with our dinner.

Nice pub in the basement. Full of Norwegians, not tourists. Had some great local beers and a typical Norwegian meal. I would call this «meat and potatoes» type food, nothing fancy. Very expensive by American standards, but probably reasonable for Norway.

This bar is not obvious from the street. You have to walk through a formal-​ish looking dining room to the stairs on the far wall and head down. The bar is small and was packed when we were there. We sat at the bar for a minute until we saw people getting up from their table and snagged it.
For Bergen dining, we found this to be pretty affordable and each enjoyed a burger. The waiter/​bartender was really nice and when he learned we were from Boston asked us how our city was faring since the Marathon. That was nice. :)
Alcohol is expensive everywhere in Bergen, but husband found a decent affordable pick to enjoy with the dinner.

This place was a pleasant surprise! After meandering through our hotel’s neighborhood in Bergen on a mini-​pub crawl, we checked this place out for dinner. We all left feeling like we had made a good choice.
The establishment is divided into two floors. The street-​level floor is the restaurant which has about 10 – 12 tables. We were told upon arriving that it would be about a 30 minute wait. We proceeded downstairs, where a basement bar awaited us. It was dark and moody. At the tail end of our first round, one of the waiters came downstairs and informed us that our table was ready.
In advance of our meal, some good crusty bread with some soft and salty butter arrived.
For dinner, I ordered a bouillabaise (photo included). The broth was quite flavorful, and was full of salmon, shrimp, and other seafood. There were also some pieces of celery which lent a great flavor to the dish. We got some additional bread which was put to good use in soaking up the delicious broth. My friend who ordered the salmon felt it was an excellent dish. All of us left happy, full, and merry.

Im Erdgeschoss: Essen á la Carte, gehobenes preisliches Niveau
Im Keller: Pub bester Kajüte mit eigener Mikrobrauerei. Für Norwegen erstaunlich gutes Bier und akzeptable Preise.
Außerdem gibt es eine kleine Speisekarte norwegischer und kosmopolitischer Snacks für das kleinere Portmonnee.