Skatten took over the former offices of Skatteetaten, the Norwegian tax authority, on Tøyen Torg, and turned them into the kind of east-Oslo room that works as a café in daylight and a bar and music venue after dark. Visit Oslo describes it as a café, bar and restaurant rolled into one social hub.
Who would love it: people who want the real Tøyen, the multicultural east-side square rather than the polished harbour. Who would hate it: anyone after a quiet cocktail den, because the programme here is built around concerts, club nights and games.
The space keeps the wide windows and worn-in feel of its office past, with billiards, darts and a shelf of board games on one side and a stage that hosts concerts, festivals and themed evenings on the other. The crowd skews local and young, and the square outside fills with the same regulars in summer. The fit-out is deliberately unfussy, which suits a room that doubles as a daytime workspace and an evening venue.
The backstory matters to the regulars. Skatten means the treasure, a pun on the Skatteetaten tax offices that used to occupy the floor, and the team kept the joke when they took the keys. Visit Oslo and the local guides treat it as one of the venues that turned Tøyen Torg from a transit square into a destination, alongside the food halls and cafés that share the same block.
Drinks are neighbourhood-priced rather than centre-of-town: a beer sits well below the Aker Brygge rate, and the kitchen runs a daytime café menu that DN's lunch guide picked out for its mix of Norwegian and Middle Eastern plates. Order a local draught and stay for whatever is on the stage that night. Coffee and a plate of food during the day costs little, which is part of why the room stays busy from morning onward.
What regulars say, across Google Maps reviews and the local press, is consistent: the staff are friendly, the prices are fair, and the programme is the reason to keep coming back. The games tables draw a steady afternoon crowd, and the concerts pull a different one at night, so the room you find depends entirely on when you arrive.
Who it is for: a relaxed afternoon over board games, a cheap east-side night out, or anyone who wants live music without a centre-of-town markup. Who should skip it: a visitor set on a refined cocktail program or a calm, seated dinner.
Best time to go depends on what you want. Afternoons are calm and good for the games tables and a coffee, while weekend nights turn over to live music and DJs. Check the venue's own listings before a special trip, because the evening programme changes week to week.
The square itself is part of the draw. Tøyen Torg sits above the Tøyen metro stop on the line out to the Munch Museum and the Botanical Garden, so the bar works as a first or last stop on an east-side day. Local guides group Skatten with the food halls and independent shops that have made the square one of the city's more talked-about corners, and the room reflects that mixed, unpolished crowd.
Skatten anchors the east-side scene the way few rooms do, and it pairs well with the rest of our Oslo live music picks and the broader Oslo bar guide. For more rooms built around a stage, see our live music collection. It is one of the clearest examples of how the east side now draws drinkers across the whole city.
