Café Vurma, Stockholm, Sweden

Vurma is a lovely little café in Stockholm – I have only visited the one in Södermalm, but they also have cafés in three other locations across Stockholm. During our four day visit, we had lunch at Vurma twice. Eating the exact same thing. All of us. We did this because this salad will knock anyone’s socks off! Chicken, walnut, apple, honey and chevre, it sounds simple enough, but it’s sensational! It is served with Vurma’s own dressing and bread from their bakery, and we ate sitting down on the street on cushions placed on a plastic grass rug. So much fun and I can’t wait to go back, despite the many wasps who also were quite keen on our salads.

Mathias Dahlgren’s Matsalen, Stockholm Sweden

There are no words to describe this meal. I really, really mean it. Mathias Dahlgren makes me incredibly proud to be a Swedish meatball, and not, say, an Italian meatball. If you happen to be in Stockholm (and if you’re not there at the moment, you should go, and I’m not just being patriotic, it’s such a beautiful city!) and want to eat food you’ll remember for the rest of your life, head straight to Matsalen.

Mathias Dahlgren is one of my favourite chefs. When I was a moody fourteen-year-old I stole my grandparents’ copy of his first cookbook, hid, wrote down and photographed every single recipe, and decided to learn to cook. Did I learn to cook from this cookbook? No, I did not. I have never cooked a single recipe from it, however delicious it looked. I will do, though, I promise! He now has two more cookbooks out, Bon Lloc, released in 2003, and the new and b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l The Natural Cuisine, which I attempted to steal from my father on my last visit home. This, however, failed, the book being much too heavy for my slender (I wish!) arms to carry all the way from Sweden to London.

Back to Matsalen. Awarded 2 Michelin Stars, the restaurant is Sweden’s best (according to White Guide 2010), and went from 50th to 25th place on San Pellegrino’s top 50 list (a big deal for a Swedish restaurant!). His other restaurant, Matbaren, is located in the same building and holds one star. Now, enough talking, let me show you the awesomeness of the food we ate!

We headed for the eight course tasting menu and matching sommelier selection wines.
First up was a lovely little bowl of freshly made, still warm potato crisps over which the waitress shaved heapings of summer truffle. Oh hello truffle how I love you! With this loveliness we had a fantastic champagne.
After this came “Mathias first food memory” – bread with butter. A tiny round piece of bread filled with incredibly, warm, melting but not melted, butter. He writes about this memory in his cookbook – how he remember eating bread, warm butter dripping down his chin, as a child. At this point I was feeling a little intimidated by the amazingness of the restaurant and too shy to whip out the camera, but when the “bread basket” arrived, I had to! Bread served with different kinds of “bread fat”. My favourite was the little white tube with homemade soft cheese, so cute!

Bread with different kinds of “fat” After the breads came the lovely “sill & strömming”, two classic Swedish dishes – pickled herring with potato, sour cream and chopped chives, and smoked herring, complete with a bottle of smoke on the table. After the herring came the first dish “on the menu”:

Scandinavian sashimi: cucumber, ginger, horseradish, soy, salty herbs Hana Hato Junmai Kijoshu (Enoki Shuzo, Japan)

The sashimi was out of this world – many Swedish restaurants uses salmalax which I have never seen in London. The dish was served with “chopstick cutlery” – beautiful loooong, thin silver cutlery and an amazing sake – I am not mad on sake but was instantly converted.

Squid and artichoke: garlic, lemon, parsley, browned butter, seaweed Albarino 2009 (La Cana, Rias Baixas, Spain) The squid and artichoke dish was subtle, light and lovely, the wine a perfect match.  Cauliflower and truffle soup with green asparagus fried in sour dough tempura Meursault Les Narvaux 2002 (Domaine Pierre Morey, Bourgogne, France)

 Oh. My. God. This soup. There are no words that can describe it. What a cliche, but how true it is. I want to marry this soup. I want to have its truffely cauliflower babies. If anyone knows how to cook this soup, I will be your best friend forever. This was truly divine and for me one of the best dishes of the night. It was silky, crispy, warm, cold, fluffy, buttery, oh my, my mouth is watering. Time to move on.

Pan fired sour dough & cow milk cheese with honey, olive oil, sea salt, black pepper Sav (Jämtland, Sweden)

Will you look at these super cute bread rectangles please? They have the most amazing crunchy fried outside and are filled with warm cheese, drizzled with sweet sweet honey and and taste like pine – this might not sound like a good thing but have you tried pine, cheese and bread together? With these little bites we are served Sav, a sparkling wine made from birch sap. This drink is made in the area I was born, and I was mighty proud that it paired so well with Michelin-starred bread rectangles!

Egg 63° & slow cooked pork with mushroom emulsion, green beans, peas, crispy lardo Black Velvet of Bruno Paillard Brut Champagne (France) and Porter Ngne (Grimstad, Norway)

Time for brunch! Silky egg, crispy pork, lovely rich mushrooms, happy green peas = heaven. The egg is slow-poached at 63° (considered the optimal temperature for “the perfect egg”) and mmm mmm ahh ahh does it taste good! Next to this dish sits a suspicious black bubbly drink which I am not looking forward to drinking. Champagne and porter? Say what?!

“No thanks, could you just filter out the porter please? No? OK, I’ll try it. Woooooooow! Mmm mmm mmm one more order please!”

I didn’t say that to the waiter. The exact scene was playing out in my head, though. The “brunch” dish paired with the Black Velvet drink was oh so good.

Carrot & foie gras & licorice with baked oatmeal, fennel dill, syrup, vinegar Macvin du Jura (Chateau D’Arlay, Jura, France)

I know I say this fairly often, but whooooaaaa, this is amazing! Ingredients in this dish which I don’t normally: carrot, licorice, fennel, vinegar. Ingredients in this dish I normally love: foie gras. That’s four against one! No way I’m going to enjoy this… but what a waste of foie gras not to eat it. Served on paper thin crackers, one bite was all it took for me to realise that I DO like carrot, licorice, fennel and vinegar. I actually LOVE it. I want to eat this every day for the rest of my life. The flavours were all really strong and distinct but worked beautifully together to create a very unique dish. I will always remember the taste of this.

Variation of lamb with pointed cabbage, fried spring onions, chantarelles Vosne-Romanée La Colombière 2007 (Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair, Bourgogne, France)

The lamb dish, with three different cuts of lamb, was incredibly rich and if we weren’t already full from the previous courses, this definitely filled us up.

“Iced tea” of havtorn (sea-buckthorn)

 After the lamb dish we were served an “iced tea” – a perfect scoop of havtorn sorbet over which cold tea was poured. This was so refreshing and lovely.

Baked rhubarb & blackberries with verbena ice cream, goat cheese, tarragon Gruner Veltliner Eiswein 2006 (Weingut Rudolf Rabl, Kamptal, Austria)

While I’m sure this dessert was lovely, it didn’t stand out for me. It is the only dish I can’t remember the taste of. Maybe I was completely zonked out after eating so much, or maybe this dessert just wasn’t as good as the rest of the food. Or maybe it’s because I’m not really a dessert person. I clearly remember the second dessert though – when our coffee arrived, with it arrived a person with a massive, scary-looking machine. What on earth? I had never seen anything like it. Out of nowhere glass cups appeared, and the machine came alive, loudly spritzing chocolate mousse into the cups. And what a chocolate mousse it was! Ice cold and so smooth that I take back my previous statement of not being a dessert person. I later found out, through Mathias’ cookbook, that the machine is a pacojet, and that he uses it in almost every recipe. It purees frozen foods in its frozen state and out comes an ice cold, perfect mousse. Quite the gadget to end our fantastic meal with.

All in all, I highly recommend visiting Mathias if you’re in Stockholm. I can promise you it’s very, very good.