Living in Stockholm, and being a big negroni lover, and after reading this list about the best negronis in town, I had to pay the number one entry, Ciccio’s, a visit.

Ciccio’s ’Negroni XL’ is, according to their menu, served ”generous”, and additionaly comes with a few included negroni friendly nibbles in the shape of above salami and olives. The price is 185 sek (when we visited in 2023), so it’s a bit steep, but since it’s also quite large, and you get some snacks which is unusual in Stockholm, it’s quite worthwhile in my mind. At least compared to other similar venues.

Ciccio’s brands themselves as an American-Italian restaurant, but they also have a small bar area where you can hang out if you like me only visited for the negroni. The interior is quite rustic and old school, in a good way. And felt like an appropriate place to have a stiff drink like a negroni in.

The negroni came pre-mixed from a container in the bar (you can see it in the background in above picture), but is of course made in-house by mixing gin, campari and vermouth into the drink we all (okay most of us) love.

The negronis were really good to be honest. Nice classic flavour, and excellently complimented by the salami and olive nibbles. It is also sufficiently large so that you can get a good idea of the flavour before it’s already gone, as I’ve experienced with a few smaller negronis through the years.

All in all, Ciccio’s is absolutely both a good bar and a nice place to enjoy a near perfect negroni in Stockholm.

This is a paid article in collaboration with Julbordsmäklarna.

I recently visited Operaterrassen, a sort of fancier julbord– julbord being Swedish for a Christmas buffet – the literal translation being ‘Christmas table’, that you eat during the Christmas period, which roughly stretches from the 1st of December until Christmas Eve on the 24th.

Booking Operaterrassen using Julbordsmäklarna.se
I found and booked my table at Operaterrassen with Julbordsmäklarna, an easy and convenient online service that allows you to browse through and find your prefered pick among around 300 different julbord around Stockholm – and also nationwide in Sweden from 2020. Also, Julbordsmäklarna does not add any extra charge on top of the regular price.

Operaterrassen
Operaterrassen (or the Opera terrace) is located in the Stockholm Opera, built in 1773. It is pretty much in the very heart of Stockholm, and being up two stairs from street level, feature stunning views over Blasieholmen and the Grand Hotel, Stockholm’s old town and the surrounding water.

Vegetarian options
While Operaterrassens julbord is heavy on meat and seafood, there are a few vegetarian options. This is probably not your first pick for a julbord as a vegetarian and even less so if you’re a vegan. There are a couple of different salads, cheeses, breads, omelettes, cabbage and sauces, and of course the desserts, that lack meat or fish (to my knowledge).

Old school but very friendly service
We had our personal waiter, an older gentleman that possibly was the genuinely nicest waiter I’ve ever run into. Super relaxed and friendly in a very much non-posh way – as you may fear a little in places like Operaterrassen that has been around for a long time.

Seven rounds of Swedish Christmas food
Our waiter suggested that to fully appreciate the dinner experience, he recommended that we took “seven turns”. I’ve never done that, but hey, when in a super old restaurant – stick to tradition!

Round one: herring and condiments

Herrings; fish roe (much tastier than it might sound) with sour cream and finely chopped red onion; prawns in mayonnaise, and a carraway crispbread I rebeliously nabbed from the cheese table (that’s round 5!).

Round two: Mixed seafood

Two kinds of salmon: gravlax and smoked salmon. The gravlax was amazing and came with a very nice hovmästarsås, a mustardy sauce we put on salmon in Sweden. There were also eggs with shrimps and a bunch of pretty little potatoes that were separately brought to the table.

Round three: coldcut meats and condiments

Waldorf salad; smoked reindeer; pork roll; Christmas ham with coarse mustard; pickled veggies; kale & orange salad, and beetroot salad. There was plenty more in the buffet, but this was what I tried.

Round four: warm items

Prince (pork) sausage; meatballs; Jansson’s temptation with potatoes, cream & anchovies; mushroom and kale omelette (so good!); red cabbage, and finally pork ribs with the best ever apple sauce. Super traditional flavours, but really well made and delicious.

Round five: Cheese

I’m sorry dear reader, but I failed both our friendly waiter, myself and possibly you at this point: I did not really have room for cheese. The cheese table looked good though, although quite small.

Round six: Dessert

This was the highlight of the evening. It wasn’t hugely assorted, but everything I tried was really good. The ostkaka, Swedish baked cheesecake was great with cloudberry jam and whipped cream. The ris á la malta, a creamy cold rice dessert was super smooth and surprisingly light. The cake, a quite clever version of Swedish Princess cake with the usual plain cream replaced with licquorice cream, and more traditional raspberries. Nice combo, and I’m not really that keen on licquorice usually.

Round seven: Christmas candy

Since I did not take any good shot of the finishing Christmas candy, I’ll leave you with this menu from Operakällaren downstairs from 1898. I can report, however, that the candy was very nice. I had marmalade candy, ‘mint kisses’, knäck (chewy, nutty toffee), chocolates and even a candy cane. Then I couldn’t fit anymore food in, and had to give up.

I really liked my visit to Operaterrassen and would happily go back. If you’d like to read more about julbord in Stockholm – have a look at Julbordsmäklarna’s list below of Stockholm’s top 20 julbord.

Merry Christmas!

More:

Julbordsmäklarnas top 20 Stockholm julbord (In English)

Follow me on Instagram for more foodie adventures

After thinking of visiting for a year or so tonight it was finally time to visit Restaurang Hantverket in Stockholm. Below is what we had.

Nibbles: first a tuttul flatbread with ”slarvsylta” of pork knuckle and homemade butter. Also Hantverket’s possibly most instagrammed dish; deep-fried Hasselback potatoes with dill, bleak roe, sour cream and spring onion, and also “Struva” with whipped duck liver pâté, parmesan cheese and port wine.

Thinly sliced beef with Jerusalem artichoke, gruyère cheese and hazelnuts.

Fork-mashed potatoes with smoked roe, browned butter, crispy chicken skin and dill.

Blackened salmon with pumpkin, ginger, salmon roe and orange.

Pudding of spruce, roasted buckwheat, pine sorbet and birch powder. Three kinds of tree in a dessert sounds equal parts scary and intriguing to me. Fortunately this one was really wood… I mean good, sorry. ?

The verdict
A really delicious and quite affordable dinner at Restaurang Hantverket. Added bonus was unusually friendly staff, nice setting and great smelling soap in the washroom. 4,5 hasselback potatoes out of five.

Price
3 nibbles, 3 medium sized dishes, 1 dessert and three drinks divided on two persons clocked out at 1000 kronor.

Website (with menu in English)

Just a short update since I had a really nice fika (coffee and pastry) experience at Mr Cake, a newly opened bakery/pastry shop/café in Stockholm.

Mr Cake is a collaboration by famous bakers Mattias Ljungberg and Roy Fares, and serves Swedish fika with an American twist. Naturally I had to pay them a visit. Since they did not serve cronuts (they only do on weekend according to the staff) I took their recommendation and tried a red velvet croissant, and my fika company took a cinnamon roll with frosting a la Cinnabon.

The red velvet croissant was extraordinary delicious. I had a sample of the frosted cinnamon roll and it was great too. When the lines have died down a bit, I shall return for cronuts and cake.

Cronuts

Update: Now I’ve had the cronuts (on a Friday), and they were delicious.

According to rumours they do not have the cronuts (at least last weekend) ready when they open, so maybe arrive a bit later if you’re after them.

Website

I visited Pontus in the Air, Stockholm Arlanda airport’s sort of fancy restaurant, on the way to Bologna recently.

It’s a welcome addition to Terminal 5 (post security) where there are not that many good options for a good meal.

Pontus in the Air is named after owner Pontus Frithiof who runs a couple of restaurants in and around Stockholm city, for instance the local branch of Burger & Lobster. The ambition is to serve good quality food to travelers, be it breakfast or dinner. They, in contrast to the other airport eateries have their own kitchen, and they also have a quite large wine cellar.

Lots of fancy wine
Since they don’t have a menu of their wine online, a took a shot of the current (July 2017) by the glass wine list which you can find below.

Tasty food
We had the burger, and the shrimp sandwich, as well as a decently priced half bottle of Henriot champagne. Both were actually great. The burger was juicy and cooked to a perfect medium while the shrimp sandwich had a good pile of fresh, sweet shrimps with a tasty smokey mayo. Fries are always important, and Pontus’ did not dissapoint, especially not when dipped in the to the burger accompanying truffle mayo. There was also supposed to be fresh truffle on the burger, but I couldn’t taste any. My guess, probably due to summer truffles which are usually quite tasteless in my mind.

A nice place for a relaxed pre-flight meal or drink
Pontus is a very nice place to pay a visit to if you don’t mind to fork out a little. It’s not that much more expensive than other food and drink options in the airport either, and compared to what I’ve tasted – far better. Until 2017-12-31 I learned (and used succesfully) that you get 10 percent off the bill with the ‘code’ “travel news”. I mentioned it to the waiter before ordering and he went to check with a colleague and then took 10 percent off our total bill, simple as that.

Visited Bobergs Matsal in NK (Nordiska Kompaniet) department store the other day for some fine-dining lunch. Bobergs Matsal was originally opened in 1915, but has been closed until a few years ago, when it was re-opened by chef Björn Frantzén of famous Frantzén restaurant in Stockholm.

Bobergs Matsal is a quite classic fine-dining experience, but generally only open for lunch, offering lunch eaters a in-Stockholm sort of rare opportunity to enjoy lunch with table service, white tablecloths and well executed, fancy plating sort of food.

I’ve been to Bobergs Matsal a couple of times, and it has been consistently great every time so far. My latest visit was no exception and I really enjoyed the steak tartare ‘Parisienne’ which in addition to delicious steak tartare included deep-fried capers, a creamy baked egg yolk, horseradish mayonnaise, pickled yellow beetroot, herbs and mustard. The tender steak worked really well with the pickled crunchy beets and the fatty mayonnaise. The ultra-crispy fries, topped with a fancy sprinkle of fried parsley and parmesan cheese, worked like a charm as a side. The accompanying salad was a bit redundant, but nevertheless tasty.

For dessert, I went, after much agony (was also keen to try the glace au four), for the Cardamom-baked Ingrid Marie apples. The apples were served ‘crumble pie-style’ with vanilla ice cream, a caramel sauce, an oat and dinkel crumble, and some crispy apple chips. It was a very delicious dessert, but also very rich. If you’re still hungry after your main, go for it. Otherwise, the delicious chocolate ice cream with caramelized banana and rum creme could be a good bet. I ordered a quite enormous latte to have with the dessert, and it too was very good.

Bobergs Matsal is a solid bet for a fine dining lunch in Stockholm, and during my four visits, I’ve left happy.

Price $$$

Prices are expensive, but not crazy expensive, depending a bit on what you order, of course. Mains are roughly 200-400 SEK, desserts 65-90 SEK.

Website (in Swedish)

The prinsessemla, or prinsess-semla, was recently invented. Now it has reached Stockholm and Konditori Vallmofröt in Hagsätra. The creation is a fusion between two classic Swedish pastries; the semla and the prinsesstårta (princess cake). Since both are heavy in their whipped cream content, the combination is a quite good one, with both’s main features remaining noticeable. I liked it very much, but it is indeed rich and you might want to share it if you want to stay awake post-fika.

Where to find the prinsessemla

Konditori Vallmofröt in Hagsätra. Click here to open their website (in Swedish).

Just got back to the Sunday couch after a sugar-rushy fika at retroish café Älskade Traditioner on Södermalm in Stockholm.

Älskade traditioner translates to “beloved traditions” in Swedish, and serves for instance savoury as well as sweet waffles, cakes, semlor, Swedish classics such as meatballs, Bullens pilsnerkorv (sausages) and herring. The place is located on trendy Södermalm and was packed with a Sunday fika crowd. The service was friendly but sort of chaotic with my waffle arriving a few minutes after being ordered, while my fika companion’s waffle arrived together with my latte 15-20 minutes later, after we asked the staff where it had gone. The waffles were delicious and prices decent fortunately.

Savoury club sandwich waffle with chicken, bacon and extra avocado.

Nutella waffle with whipped cream, strawberry ice cream and fresh strawberries. Reminded me of the ‘pancake cakes’ I had as a child.

Banana split waffle. Also very good.

Price and website

While not exactly inexpensive at 95 kronor for a nutella waffle, prices are still pretty good considering the area as well as quality. A tasty latte was 40 kronor.

They do not have a website, but their Facebook page has some info about location etc.

One of the best lillördag aka Tiny Saturday (which is in fact Wednesday) activities in Stockholm in my mind is to combine restaurant Pocket by Pontus’ champagne Wednesday with lobster dinner at adjoining (you can actually walk between them indoors) Burger and Lobster Stockholm.

On Wednesdays Pocket by Pontus lower their price for a full sized bottle of Henriot champagne from 650 kronor to 450 kronor (priced 400 kronor at Systembolaget, the Swedish liquor monopoly). That means you fork out an extra 50 sek or kronor for an ice-bucket, table service and champagne glasses. That is in my mind quite great, and it is also very convenient for an office ‘after work’.

Yesterday we started off with dinner at Burger and Lobster. I had the always-delicious lobster roll. The fried ‘signature brioche bread’ is really tasty and stuffed to the brim with succulent delicious lobster meat and Japanese kewpie mayo. Included sides are tasty fries and a side salad to add some freshness to the otherwise incredibly rich meal. My last visit they also included a delicious lemony butter sauce, but that seems to have been removed.

For dessert, as mentioned above, we walked the 30 or so steps to Pocket by Pontus and shared a few bottles of Henriot.

Price $$$

The lobster roll is sort of on the pricier side costing 295 sek. On the other hand it is lobster, it’s really delicious and you probably won’t need any starter or dessert. The champagne at Pocket is priced at 450 sek a bottle during the Wednesday champagne-onsdag.

Burger and Lobster Stockholm’s website (With menu)

Recently, several Naples or Napoli style pizza restaurants have opened in Stockholm, which for me is great, since I love the chewy dough of these fast baked wonders.

The other day I tried Meno Male for a decadent office pizza lunch (via delivery). I had their pizza with spicy salami, fior di latte (sort of cow’s milk mozzarella), a sweet and delicious tomato sauce as well as basil. The pizza was actually really good, and not that far behind what I had at Da Michele, “world’s best pizza restaurant” that I visited in Naples about a year and a half ago. Not bad for a Stockholm pizza!

Website with menu