Hi. I am Fredrik Eriksson and I rock traditional Swedish cooking. Not joking.

Yes. But who is Fredrik? He who rocks the world of traditional Swedish cooking? He of pure passion, soul and vision of pure Swedish raw ingredient simplicity? Here’s the low-down. He grew up on a farm south of Stockholm and, when he talks, you can feel his love for farm life. But then, one day, farm boy left the homestead in search of the big city lights. He did well. Winning competitions. Working in a series of Michelin starred restaurants. Cooking at Nobel dinners. Publishing acclaimed cookbooks. In fact, there is not much this man has not done in the world of promoting fantastically pure and honest Swedish food with perfection.  And a gourmet hand gifted by the gods.

Beer, butter and bread. Does life get any better?

But despite the extensive training and experience and general brilliance, it seems you can take the boy out of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy. Fredrik proclaims happiness is to be found standing beside a stew pot. And you get this feeling in Långbro Värdshus. It feels like time stands still. Like going into your grandmother’s home. Charming. Elegant. Homely. Refined. And with staff that serve with an easy grace that makes you feel it is a family dinner.

Seafood. Forest food. Love food! And that's a bite of salma salmon on it's journey to my mouth.

Dinner time! Salad of raw pickled shavings of beetroot to start and a plate of Swedish forest and sea inspired ingredients. We drink aquavit (schnapps) and sing the aquavit skål (cheers) song. Cod with prawns in a dill butter sauce, and a poached egg. A Swedish microbrewery beer hand capped and labelled. We eat. We drink. We skål again. This pleases me. I shall be back.

Thank you Fredrik. Keep up the good work.

fredrik@langbrovardshus.se

http://feriksson.se/

http://www.langbrovardshus.se/

https://www.facebook.com/langbrovardshus

The soon to open Spritmuseum (Museum of Spirits — the alcoholic type, not the ethereal, for the record) was a treat. We had a pre-pre-opening visit to the charming waterside wooden 1700s building on the ridiculously scenic Stockholm city island of Djurgården. In fact, we were the first group to visit the museum and have a whisky tasting in the deft hands of expert tasting leader, Nadja Karlsson who is looking forward to the official museum opening in May.

The lovely Nadja Karlsson in full flow.

Nadja lead us through the technical territory of appreciating Swedish stiff drinks. And here’s the ‘did-you-know?’ bit: Swedish Mackmyra whisky is aged in Swedish oak from an island of oak trees planted by some ambitious general in wartimes with a plan for a fleet of warships. Then peace happened. They were not built. Now Mackmyra has a veritable forest of fabulous oak barrels to build its future on. Hurrah!

The fleet that never happened.

Moving along. With the whisky, we had sill (pickled herring) on knäckebröd (rye crispbread) and then chocolate caramels topped with sea salt from Swedish icon chocolate makers, Chokladfabriken. Whisky and chocolate is the way forward, I tell you. Just do it.

Look away. I am eating my beloved sill cracker in one go.

And for the food lover in you, a visit to this museum will be a joy. Swedish chef Alex Magnusson is opening a waterside restaurant in the museum with a focus on local and Swedish produce. There will also be a bar on the deck by the water outside the museum. And just when you thought things couldn’t get better, you will find Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Ed Ruscha etc. on the walls inside when the Absolut Art Collection exhibit entitled ‘Face it!’ opens on May 24^th .

Absolutely Warhol.

Press contact: helen.ericsson@spritmuseum.se

www.spritmuseum.se

www.facebook.com/spritmuseum

Klas Lindberg Swedish Chef of the Year 2012

Why come? Sweden is being recognised as one of the worlds up and coming gastronomic superpowers boasting unique flavours and ingredients. Expect fresh, clean flavours from uniquely Swedish raw ingredients with creative influences from traditional preservation techniques. More reasons? There is a growing legion of internationally acclaimed and competition award-winning chefs (as recognised by Le Guide Rouge Michelin and Bocuse d’Or) lining the kitchen aisles of Swedish restaurants. In fact, Sweden is set to host the esteemed Bocuse d’Or competition in 2014.

One to watch? The School Cook of the Year competition, single handedly raising the standards and status of the school cook profession. Sweden monumentally provides free school lunches to 1.4 million students daily and this competition pits inspired school chefs to feed good food to a nation of budding, healthy gourmands. You can pick up a copy of Swedish school meal recipes in english ‘ Swedish School Meals Safari’ (www.skolmatsafari.se) in accordance with the Swedish Education Act stipulating that school food should be free, and it should be nutritious. The aspiration? “In school restaurants we grow the future consumers, restaurant guests and caretakers of our planet” says project leader Annika Unt.

Swedish ädelost blue cheese on rye with dollops of raspberry and sea buckthorn jam.

The Adam & Albin Food Studio is a place where you come and cook with Adam and Albin and then eat your own work. Why? Because it’s fun. You learn. You eat. You laugh. And you leave with a full belly and brain of food knowledge and if you are paying attention, cooking techniques too.

Adam & Albin in reverse.

Who are Adam & Albin? They are Adam Dahlberg and Albin Wessman. Adam is representing Sweden in Bocuse d’Or 2012-13 and has worked with Mathias Dahlgren together with Albin, a finalist in Sweden’s chef of the year competition 2012. What are they like? Two peas in a pod. They look alike. Talk alike. Cook alike.  And spend more time together than they do with their respective girlfriends (singular). Or maybe plural. I didn’t specifically check. Anyway.  They are a daring duo in their twenties, cooking for Stockholm and beyond in their very own funky studio kitchen in a salubrious district (Vasastan).

Two peas in a pod.

They don’t fight much and they finish each other’s sentences. They are the UK Ant and Dec’s of Scandinavia, perhaps. But that’s not why we are here. We are here, because they love cooking, and we love eating.  And the focus?  Firmly remains on the beauty of the seasonal ingredients. Cue a starter of ‘Fresh Swedish seafood with horseradish, lime, cucumber and spring onion’. The purity of scallop ceviche beside the innocence of delicate baby shrimp amidst a sea of ‘Tiger’s Milk’ brought a tear to the eye. Not mine (as I am suffering from dry eyes due to jet lag), but I was witness.

Emotional eating at its best.

And if you visit here in Spring, you simply must have the lamb dish. Spring lamb with morels, green asparagus, béchamel, truffle and ramps — to be precise. The lamb was barely weaned onto grass before it made it onto our plates and the boys explained it was more akin to veal in terms of tenderness in comparison to older grass-fed lamb. Listen and learn, we did. Honour and obey the duo, we do. Remember them? We will.

Juicy gossip on the rising stars? Yes. After a lengthy, tedious, and interrogative interview with the duo, I finally got what I was looking for. The ballsy truth: Adam and Albin on Adam & Albin? “Our food. Our music. Our way.”

I like it.

"We care about Swedish food". And it shows.

We have arrived at 8T8. Woody Allen style jazz is playing. Neat rows of jams, lemonades, cheeses and artisan goods square shoulders on the shelves like soldiers in testament to good taste. Baskets of seasonal fruits and vegetables border the perimeters like paragons of bohemian virtue. And at the risk of sounding ungroovy, there is — what I can only describe as — a groovy vibe. Not only that, it’s homely too. A lot of stone, wood, cardboard packaging, straw and a scattering of old fashioned pots and pans. I want to hug the place.

Cheese perfectly ripe for the picking.

Nurse, copywriter and now food store owner extrordinare Caroline Tallving speaks: “We offer good food. A lot of organic food. Locally produced food”.

8T8 also has a lunchtime noodle bar. Noodle soup and salads. A mixture of Asian and Swedish. Expect seasonal vegetables, and no MSG. Eat lunch, shop and chat. A hip combo that is befitting of the local bohemian chic residents.

Jammy territory.

Must try and buy? Swedish marmalade or ‘jam’ as the rest of the world calls it. Why? The nation has a jam frenzy. So if you are, per chance, coming to Sweden to stock up on jam, be aware that here, all jams are referred to as marmalade. Not just orange jam. Every jam is in fact a marmalade in Sweden. Don’t ask. The blog space is too short to explain. But the whole linguistic misunderstanding makes me wonder why Sweden has traffic jams and not traffic marmalades. Oh, how the mind boggles. Right. Time to move on to dinner. Champagne awaits at Adam & Albin.

Try it! Taste it!

Enter Magnus Johansson. Baker extraordinaire who has passion in his hands and he aint afraid to show it.

He delivered unto us not only four types of cookies and coffee, but a treatise on the price of bread in Sweden and why it’s worth paying more for handmade loved-up bread than mass-produced bread sold in heartless plastic bags. “The quality of what we have chosen to work with is very, very important”. His tone strengthens. The man clearly means business. “Bread. HANDmade. Try it! Taste it! And cook it together with someone who understands what it is all about”.  I feel empowered. And I believe him. Where can I sign up?

A rye crisp bread pillar of strength.

Magnus feels so strongly about his passion that he runs bakery education courses. Proof of the pudding? You don’t have to take my word for it. Magnus has worked for the stalwarts of the Swedish restaurant scene. Operakällaren. Berns. The Grand Hotel. And the icing on the cake? He has been in charge of desserts for the esteemed Nobel dinner for 11 years and founded the rave review annual  chocolate festival held in Stockholm at Nordiska museum.

I swear I love it when there are 20 journalists in my bakery interrogating me.

His thoughts on being a famous top-class baker are enough to turn even the most  gluten-intolerant soul to the dark side of white flour.  “It’s good fun,” says Magnus. He concludes triumphantly: “There couldn’t be any better work than what I do”. Now that’s what I call love.

Over, and indeed, out.

There are a few main things you need to know about eating at Ekstedt.

There is no electricity involved. Just chopped wood and a whole lot of birch wood fire. Oh, and juniper wood smoke. “Its not that expensive to eat here” says Manager Andreaz Noren. “About 68 (GB) pounds for four courses”.  The visiting international team of journalists raise their eyebrows. In delight, I imagine. He continues. Unabated.

"It's mine. ALL mine".

“We are not going to make heaps of money out of this”. Now the eyebrows are furrowed. He goes on regardless. “It’s just a lot of fun to run a really good restaurant”. I like it. That’s what I call a burning passion for food and fire.

But one journalist is more concerned about the chefs’ drinking habits. The answer? Two to three litres per shift. (Of water). Because the kitchen gets as hot as hell. Which is about 68 degrees Celsius apparently. Good to know one can get by with 3 litres and regular rotation. Not of the rotisserie type, but shift rotation.

Also good to know? Ekstedt is too hot to handle in summer time and is closed from midsummer until August 10^th. Be warned.  And prepared to book up to 3 months in advance. This is one popular hotspot.

Dry-aging locker

The Meat Tree

Yum, Yum & Yum.

To add to the somewhat Daliesque and slightly in-your-face brutish but fantastical feel, take a gawk at the Meat Tree to your left. Yes. A sculpture by Michel Bussien. I am not sure what he had in mind. It looks like large globules of ­cholesterol dripping off the end of the branches to me. But I suppose it is appropriate considering the key to their burgers becoming notorious is good old-fashioned fat of the land: lard. What you get are burgers so tasty, meaty, juicy, succulent, and downright do-able, that they merit risking a lard-ass.

Far left of the restaurant is my favourite part of AG: the deli bar. You stand at tall marble tables or at the deli counter and order tapas and seriously good wines by the glass. They excel in choosing top quality charcuterie, and serving authentic tapas dishes such as fried pimientos and salted almonds. The morcilla blood sausage charcuterie is a must.

Quick, they're coming - for God's sake, look happy!

Welcome! There is nothing I like more than 12 food writers in my kitchen!

"Particularly this one!"

AG owners, Johan Jureskog and Klas Ljungquist, used to work together at Rölf’s Kök – also in Stockholm and renowned for traditional Swedish food – but then banded together when this funky meat district style loft popped-up on the market. Klas is front-of-house and Johan is the meat man in the kitchen. Indeed, the kitchen is where it’s all at. As one curious bunch of international food journalists we storm the kitchen and swarm around the long counter watching steaks being fired up, joints being hacked, herb butter and grilled sourdough bread going out on wooden slabs, and a happy bunch of people sitting in the middle of it all. (AG does private kitchen dining for those in the know).

AG super-marbled steak

A whole lot of bones

Herb butter-in-waiting

The now not-so-secret private dining table in the kitchen

Lamb in dill cream sauce.

"This makes me REALLY happy".

Dinner time. We haven’t eaten in at least 2 hours since cocktails and a honey tasting at the Hilton. We could be losing weight. But worry not.  No sooner are we seated at a long banqueting table, when huge legs of tender lamb arrive in vats of a creamy dill gravy, a traditional Swedish classic called dill kött. It is flavoured with juniper, Swedish high-acidity vinegar called ättika, and with autumnal root vegetables for support. It is quite a feast to the eyes. I am a bit scared. Where do we start? Everybody looks concernedly at their dining neighbour until, in the true spirit of casual dining and unobtrusive staff policy, the waitress nodded that we dig in and help ourselves. After a few creamy and almost sweet and sour mouthfuls later, Björn Tesch the photographer makes a rather profound statement. “This makes me really happy. I don’t demand much more from life than this”. Obviously, Björn is sitting opposite me, but I suppose he could have been talking about the dill kött.

Should we interview the chef to make it look like we're working?

Ha! As if. I prefer Gonzo journalism anyway. Interviewing is for amateurs.

OK. You go first. No! You go! Oh! The excitement!

And Mr. Bruce Palling of The Wall Street Journal gets the short straw. "Yes!" says Chef Johan, "I love talking to food journalists in the middle of the busy dinner shift!".

Dessert is another comforting delight – big homely dishes of blueberry crumble. It sounds so simple, but it is heavenly – mounds of fresh, in-season, sweet Swedish blueberries under crunchy crumble with lashings of lasciviously whipped cream. I am so full I feel like reposing in the Meat Tree with a glass of red and fuse the lard arts with my forming lard ass. But no rest. We are off for cocktails now with the renowned PR-pro and man-about-town Oscar Eldin of Bartenders Choice Awards to experience the bar-tending talent at Marie Laveau, Brasserie Le Rouge and The Gold Bar at Nobis. Over, and indeed, out.

Phew. They're gone. Stick on the Gloria Gaynor, Klas. Now!

"Yes. Really. Swedes eat pickled herring for breakfast. And like it".

Stella from Germany takes notes. Saul from Spain soaks it all in. And then it is time for a quick fika. Fika is a Swedish national institution where one enjoys cookies or cakes (or even a little sandwich) with coffee (or tea for renegades). Sweden has a fika tradition of old where seven different types of biscuits are served.  Any less and you might as well be an outcast. (But nowadays buns and pastry are perfectly acceptable).

A light snack on the way to lunch.

We are served a little box with seven sorts of cookies inside; the best cookies I have ever tasted in Sweden. I am not kidding. These artfully handcrafted little gems were sheer joy; crumbly, buttery, and freshly baked by Stefan Eriksson in his food studio or ‘Matstudio‘ where you can book cooking and baking sessions as well as private dining. “Not just a baker”, clarifies Ami Hovstadius of Matlandet, “but a talented chef”. Noted, Ami.

Ami Hovstadius at work: "Send in the helicopter. Grace has run out of cookies and it's been a whole hour since breakfast. We need good blogging today!"

We sail through the archipelago. Island here, boat there, sea and sun everywhere. We skip off the boat, have a second fika, and some venture to the sauna (and even Saul from Spain managed to fall into the archipelago waters in his enthusiasm).

Oh! You mean you take your boots off in Swedish sauna?

There is nothing quite like the 2nd fika of the morning.

Rush hour on Grinda.

Björn with a mushroom the size of a house.

One quick walk across the island later, and we are at our lunch destination, Grinda Wärdhus. Oh, and Björn the photographer found a mushroom the size of a house. Seriously. Look at the house in the picture. It is the same size as the Karl Johan (porcini) mushroom.

Hi ho. Hi ho. It's off to lunch we go.

Grinda Wärdhus on a glorious autumn afternoon.

Swedish beer. Helping millions of Swedes digest lunch daily.

Herring, toast skagen and foie gras.

Head chef Victor Rundquist provides an impressive starter with the best Toast Skagen I have had in Sweden yet. This is a good day. The best cookies and now the best Toast Skagen. And I have worked my way through quite a few. If work is the right word. Talk about taking one for the team. I am dedicated.

Taking one for the team

We have beer — Wisby Pils, from a microbrewery on the island of Gotland. Very hopsy. A nice bitter touch. And we have aquavit; schnapps flavoured with dill and caraway. You  know, just to set the lunchtime tone. Then there is a bit of singing led by Ann-Charlotte Jönsson of Stockholm Visitors Board. She has a deep knowledge of Swedish drinking songs. And Stella from Germany seems to be enjoying it very much.

Look away Bruce. I did not just put the lunchtime bottle of aquavit in my handbag.

Main course is slow cooked pork that has been brined or ‘gravad’ in salt and sugar and water solution and let to meditate for 24 hours before being blasted at 200 C, let cool, sliced and re-heated. Never has fat tasted so good. In fact, head chef Victor Rundquist commented that it has a lot of fat. “But it is good fat” he insists. Indeed it is Victor. Have you seen my plate?

"It is good fat".

There is clearly evidence of finger-licking going on here. Hmmm.

Just close your eyes and think of Sweden.

How your table place will look at Matbaren

Who eats here? Business types. Second dates. A rockabilly couple on our left. A casual but well-heeled lady with professionally blow-dried hair to our right. And one bunch of rowdy food journalists, courtesy of the CAS programme, occupying the backbone table of the restaurant.

The evening begins. We have champagne. Then we have a Riesling, redolent of dried apricots. And maybe gooseberry. And lots of other wine terms that I don’t have time to check the glossary about. But it was highly aromatic, perfumed with a round sweetness, and rather moreish. That would have done for dinner, with a slab of sourdough and a block of my other favourite food group (and Mathias’s apparently) — butter. Yes. Butter.

"I support good food".

We had langoustine for starters. It was a veritable massacre. Backs, tails, claws; flying in the air. Well, not quite, but we did joke about a Pretty Woman moment and a leg of langoustine flying across the room in place of a snail. OK. OK. So it was just me. Then I got the hiccups with the excitement of it all. Another noted moment was the knäckebröd; Swedish crispbread so crisp and thin it could have passed for an ill-tempered super model.

A veritable massacre of langoustine

The surprise intermediate course? Sashimi of Salma salmon, reindeer fillet, avocado, tapioca balls soaked in soy, and slim slivers of crunchy onion with shavings of horseradish and ginger. Served on a rectangle of green marble.  A veritable joy of velvety sensations and offset by little bubbles of salty umami-ish joy that can settle any manner of craving. Would you sell your mother for this? Don’t be so pious. After you have tasted it, you may find yourself logging into eBay.

Sashimi of Salma salmon and reindeer

Vegetarians! Behold. Simply called: ‘Pumpkin with broccoli’.  The pumpkin was only interfered with ever so slightly; roasted, puréed, and seduced with a little cream, salt, pepper and nothing more. Full stop. Broccoli: boiled.  On top? Alp-Shrinz cheese from Switzerland, aged, like parmesan and shaved to within an inch of its redolently smelly life. Crushed hazelnuts, and truffle shavings. Piemonte truffle, at that. Watercress, and browned butter. Really, this dish is a thing of beauty. Matbaren is now officially a destination for vegetarians. I want to lick my plate. But apparently that’s rude in Sweden. So I settle for my fingers. Don’t worry. I hid behind my hair. Nobody noticed.

Cookbooks discovered in Mathias Dahlgren's kitchen

In response to our reactions to the main dish of beef and onion I shout down the table (my manners are impeccable, I know); “Anyone know what the green purée is?” Watercress? Green beans? Spinach? Arguments start. Saul from Spain sums up our curiosity about figuring out a green puréed ingredient as akin to ‘culinary forensics’. Thank you Saul. I would have stolen the term and claimed it as my own but for the fact I know you will be reading this. But the meat is so incredibly soft and saftig (juicy, in Swedish) that it and keeps us occupied until … Ha! We solved it. The lovely sommelier and Maître D’, Daniella Illebrand, explained to us that the purée under forensic investigation was, in fact, lightly grilled spring onion mixed with olive oil and liquefied. Also served with battered onion rings — don’t worry, they had counselling before we ate them — and lightly grilled spring onions atop. Beef and onion is the name of the dish. And that is exactly what it was.

“In order to be a successful restaurant, you have to be real; we are natural, and that’s Mathias’s philosophy. We are the natural kitchen”. And that is also the translation of his cookbook title: Det Naturliga Köket. The cooking philosophy applies both to Matbaren where we are eating and its fancier sister restaurant next door, Matsalen, which is the main dining room. What’s Matsalen like? “Same produce, same philosophy, just raised a few notches” according to Daniella.

We move on to discussing the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in Hotel Skeppsholmen. And Canadian food writer living in Copenhagen, Tania Groth, says this, apparently, is a bad thing. After four days of eating and drinking, we conclude in agreement, that the last thing you want to see is yourself, in a mirror.

Dessert was raspberries from Gotland with a superbly tart raspberry sorbet and a lemon tinged, airy and meltingly creamy sabayon. No word in conclusion there. The adjectives said it all.

The atmosphere is relaxed. Mathias conscientiously moseys around the restaurant. Checking that all is right in his inclusive restaurant world. He is happy to chat with customers, staff and visiting food writers in an easy manner.

Oh yum. Just had the peanut butter chocolate brittle. I am awfully happy. My colleague Jenny Jonevret of the Culinary Academy of Sweden at the end of the table shouts-up “Enjoying yourself Grace?” Oops. That means I am eating with my eyes closed again and making ‘mmmmm’ noises. And I went for seconds. And if I am honest, which I am occasionally, thirds.  No amount of thundering beginner ballet classes will burn this off. Looks like it’s elasticated pants for the rest of the weekend.

Delightfully freshly-baked madeleine (with the red wine in question)

And who knew that madeleines were so magnificent with dry red wine? Will I did. But I have to pretend it is a revelation to make it sound like I don’t eat cake with dry red wine normally. The editor of The White Guide (Sweden’s version of Guide Michelin) would be horrified. (Sorry, Per).

http://www.mathiasdahlgren.com/