Found myself again in Södermalm, southern Stockholm, where just around the corner from Jerusalem Kebab you'll find a 99 year-old restaurant and Stockholm staple, Kvarnen. Friend and blogger Göran Lager invited me out here recently, and we had a great time, eating some excellent svensk husmanskost (traditional Swedish food) and chatting with the restaurant's chef and owner.
Göran suggested the havswallenbergare, a seafood take on a traditional Swedish meat dish (pictured above). Normally made from a patty of beef, this version was comprised of salmon and pike, and was served with mashed potatoes and peas and a hollandaise sauce. Although it was very simple it was very, very good.
Göran and I were almost equally impressed with the restaurant's excellent bread basket:
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a reliable indicator of a good restaurant. The basket contained a variety of delicious and slightly unusual Swedish hårdbröd, which thankfully, was served with butter (most Swedes prefer margarine).
After dinner we chatted with the Kvarnen's chef, Mauritz Lind and the restaurant's owner, Thomas Steinwendr:
These are two guys who love talking about food (Mauritz worked at Edsbacka Krog as well as at a restaurant in Phuket for nearly a decade), and after we complimented their bread, Thomas brought us a few more that they're planning on including in the basket:
Restaurang Aktiebolaget Kvarnen
Tjärhovsgatan 4 (Medborgareplatsen subway)
08 643 03 80