Ekeberg Restaurant, Harry and Kaja's meeting place
The Leopard (Jo Nesbø Edition)Ekeberg Restaurant is a renovated Bauhaus villa above Oslo, and in Harry Hole and Kaja Solness’s visit it becomes both a destination and a frame for an old story. Its contrast between a dilapidated past and renewed exclusivity gives their conversation a setting shaped by change, while the failed attempt to dine there redirects them outdoors, where Kaja prompts Harry to continue his anecdote.
Setting and History
As Harry and Kaja drive from the city centre up Ekeberg, Harry recalls the restaurant’s former “Killer Queen,” a woman associated with the villa when it was once Oslo’s most fashionable Bauhaus residence. The building has been renovated and has regained that standing. Harry’s story reaches back to the 1980s, when the place was so run-down that its restaurant was close to closing. It had become a shabby dance venue where patrons drank competitively and helped one another across the dance floor.
The restaurant’s changed fortunes are made concrete when Harry and Kaja arrive without a reservation. The head waiter asks Harry’s name, then can barely suppress his reaction when told they have not booked. The restaurant is full for the next two months. Harry contrasts this new exclusivity with the earlier venue, where water dripped into the dining room and rats could be heard behind the toilet wall, but entry had at least been possible.
Harry and Kaja’s Visit
Harry has invited Kaja to dinner at Ekeberg Restaurant after a friend reminded him of an old story. On the drive up, she presses him to tell it; he offers a little background about the “Killer Queen” but postpones the rest until they reach the restaurant. Their unplanned arrival ends the prospect of dinner there, and they leave after Harry buys cigarettes at the bar.
Instead of going straight back, they stop at a low wall above the forested slope toward the city. As they smoke, Kaja asks Harry to resume the story. She recalls its apparent turn—that the “Killer Queen” took him home—but Harry corrects her: she asked, and he politely declined. The restaurant therefore serves as the point of return to an anecdote whose unfinished details sustain their conversation.
Change and Narrative Role
The scene sets the restaurant’s past and present against each other: a nearly abandoned dance venue becomes a renovated, sought-after destination. Harry’s complaint that he preferred the old place is comic, but it also gives the transformation a personal measure: prestige has returned, while the casual access he remembers has disappeared.
The view from the wall extends the scene beyond the building. In Harry’s perception, Oslo lies below them as if waiting in ambush, an image that lends the pause a watchful, uneasy edge. The restaurant’s failed booking changes the immediate course of the evening, but not the purpose of the outing: outside, Kaja brings Harry back to the past, and the location becomes a threshold between their present conversation and the story he has yet to finish.
