If you want to learn how to eat like a local in Stockholm, you need to meet Gunilla Blixt.  Gunilla knows Swedish cuisine.  She’s a long-time recipe editor and guide with Food Tours of Stockholm.  She developed an early interest in traditional Swedish food learning from the best authority of all – – her grandma.

Food tours are a fun and delicious way to learn about a place, its history and culture.  It’s even better when you have a local guide like Gunilla, who is truly an expert on where to find the best Swedish food in Stockholm.

I wasn’t sure what to expect on a food tour in Stockholm.  As Gunilla showed us, it’s not all herring and meatballs.  No, there were also some surprises, like pastries to die for, gelato and drinking songs.

Learning how to eat like a local in Stockholm

Since my goal was to learn the local dining customs, I signed up for a tour called the “Nordic Experience” with Food Tours of Stockholm. 

Most of the walking tour took place in a neighbourhood called Vasatan.  It’s a residential area that has many small local restaurants and food shops.  There were 10 stops on the tour – – more than enough eats and treats to keep me in foodie bliss.

Trendy artisanal food:

Stockholm has recently seen a boom in inventive shops and restaurants, with an emphasis on healthy, seasonal ingredients.

Our first stop was the Urban Deli in the Normalm area.  It’s a mix between a specialty grocery store  and restaurant.  There’s even a hotel in the basement. You never have to leave!

The shop is stocked with unique, artisanal products and prepared food to take home.  Gunilla said this is an increasingly popular trend for time-strapped Swedes who still want to eat healthy.

We sampled steak tartar, with cilantro and Korean mustard sauce, served in a mason jar.  It was delicious, made all the more enjoyable by the patio view on the top floor.

Game meats

There were tastes galore at our next stop, Hötorgshallen, a market hall filled with food stalls and small cafés. 

The original market dates back to the 1880s, an era that was reflected in a serving of game meat.  Given the country’s natural resources, it’s not surprising that game meats are part of the Swedish diet.  Helbergs, an organic meat shop, served a sampling of wild boar sausage, reindeer mousse, and something unusual even for Swedes, smoked brown bear.  It tasted a little gamey and, no, not at all like chicken.

Cheese please

Cheese is a favourite in Sweden, where it’s common to serve a cheese course after a meal.  So, naturally, we had to include cheese as a course on our tour with a stop at Fromageriet, a handcrafted cheese shop in the food market. 

Here, we tasted three kinds of cheeses, including the very popular Västerbottensost.  It’s a  firm cow’s milk cheese with tiny holes and a slightly granular texture.  It was tangy like Parmesan, but more subtle and creamier.  It’s my experience that high fat-content cheeses are usually tasty.

Legend has it that Västerbottensost was invented by accident by a dairymaid who was distracted from her cheese making duties by a dalliance.  The longer process resulted in a surprisingly good cheese.   To this day, the cheese is produced only in one village, called Burträsk.  The dairy tried to expand its operations to another location, but the cheese didn’t taste the same.  Apparently, the cows are happy in Burträsk.

Herring is a delicacy

Centuries of fishing out the North and Baltic Seas means seafood plays an essential role on the Stockholmer’s daily menu.

At the next two stops in the food hall, we tasted two kinds of pickled herring , one with dill sauce and one with mustard, and some salmon.  Gunilla said it is de rigueur to serve at least two kinds of herring.  That was followed by a robust fish soup.

I have to admit that herring is not my favourite.  But Gunilla had a trick up her sleeve to enhance the experience.

Singing for your schnapps

The surprising revelation was that herring is typically served with schnapps. 

Basically, schnapps is vodka with herbs and spices added.  Schnapps is as much a part of the Swedish cultural tradition as is wine in France.

And here’s the most unexpected part.  With schnapps, there must be a schnapps song.  I discovered a few more details from Gunilla’s blog.  A good schnapps song must meet certain criteria, she writes.  It must have a well-known melody so everyone can sing along, lyrics about an event or a trend, and a twist at the end. 

There is even a schnapps song championship competition between Sweden and Finland.  I can only imagine the improvisation.

In any case, here is Gunilla leading a rousing rendition of  a schnapps song.

International flavours

Next, we moved on to the Vasatan neighbourhood, which has mix of traditional food offerings and those with a more global flair.

We visited Sweden’s oldest delicatessen, Österqvist, to sample Italian cold cuts cured and dipped in Amarone wine.

We also enjoyed a number of creative flavours of homemade, organic gelato from a shop called StikkiNikki.  Thumbs up on the lavender and blueberry.  Apparently, the Swedes like their frozen treats all year-round, even in winter.

Traditions:  Swedish meatballs

Well, of course, there had to be Swedish meatballs!  We dined on these at the historic Tennstopet (Dalagatan 50, 113 24 Stockholm), in business for 150 years and dedicated to preserving Swedish culinary traditions. 

Meatballs are typically served with mashed potatoes and lingonberries, to add a fresh and sweet touch to the meal.  Actually, the view in Sweden is that, like ketchup, lingonberries go with just about anything.

Fika is, essentially, a coffee break.  But, as Gunilla told us, there are two really great things about fika.  It can happen any time, and it involves pastries or sweets.

The pastry that you simply must try in Stockholm is the cardamom bun.  It’s like a cinnamon bun, only spiced with cardamom instead.  Cardamom is made from the seed pods of plants in the ginger family.  To me, the taste has notes of allspice and nutmeg.  The cardamom buns not only smelled fantastic fresh from the oven, but were to-die-for delicious.  I confess that I consumed too many to count during my short stay in Stockholm. 

We tasted cardamom buns on the tour, and ended the afternoon with fika at a cute café in the dungeons of a castle where Russian prisoners of war were detained during the Great Northern War. 

It’s these kind of places and traditions that you may only discover on a tour with a local expert like Gunilla from Food Tours of Stockholm.  Certainly, I gained new insights into Swedish food and culture.  Not only that, but I plan to continue the tradition of fika, with fond thoughts, and maybe just a touch of drooling, over those cardamom buns.

Travel Bliss Now was a guest of Food Tours Stockholm, but my opinions are entirely my own.

Pin it:

You may also like: 

Tips for Touring Stockholm’s Subway Art

10 Top Things To Do in Stockholm’s Old Town

Find Your Happy Place:  The Top Ten Happiest Countries in 2018