Hötorgshallen

As in most other big European cities, the residents of Stockholm buy their groceries at modern supermarkets. However the city still supports a couple examples of old-school market halls, which I’d like to feature on these pages. The first of these is Hötorgshallen, located in a basement below a large movie theatre smack in the middle of downtown Stockholm.

This being Scandinavia, you’ll find quite a bit of seafood, including fresh:

preserved:

and ready to eat:

Other interesting looking local food is found at Saluplats 30, a stall selling the prepared dishes and ingredients of Sweden’s neighbour to the east, Finland:

The food here looked delicious, and quite similar to traditional Swedish food, and I definitely plan on buying a few things for a picnic in the future. In general however, Scandinavian food is not the emphasis at Hötorgshallen, but rather other cuisines, including Greek:

Middle-Eastern, including these amazing salads and mezze:

and most predominantly, Turkish. Other than a couple Turkish delis and the obligatory kebab stall, there were also two places selling ‘Turkish burgers’:

These took the form of buns filled with various Turkish condiments. I found this too interesting to resist, and ordered a vegetarian version:

It was stuffed with deep-fried eggplant, grilled cheese, a dolma, some salad, and then topped with two sauces of your choice. It was actually quite good, but got me wondering if such a thing is actually found in Turkey, or is a result of the Swedish desire to serve everything in burger form…?

For more info on Hötorgshallen (only in Swedish), go here.