Tegnérgatan 32, 113 59 Stockholm Tel: 08-505 244 26
Hearty meat based dishes are not necessarily what springs to mind when you think of Swedish cuisine, more salted and cured fish with fresh salads but then again it is the home of the infamous meatballs. With the obligatory daily intake of salmon on dark rye covered at breakfast I was ready for a meat feast. Köttbaren is a functioning butchers by day, serving deli style cold cuts all day round with the menu elaborating at night to encompass all sorts of long and slow or flash fried cuts.
Sharing a sloping road with another of Stockholm’s restaurant hot spots, Rolfs Kök, which is famed for design led interiors and preparing “food without flourish” momentarily arrested our attention but smells of meaty caramelisation drew us back to Köttbaren. We stepped in from the fading sun and into a dimly lit L shape room, illuminated solely by the strip lights at the meat counter and overhead spotlights above the tables, revealing flashes of marbled crimson meats and vintage diagrams of various beasts. The décor, as with the menu, was fantastically unapologetic to vegetarians. The rest of the room was an extension of the butcher’s, clean white tiles, weathered heavy duty wooden tables and all the staff in white butcher coats.
The menu was casually scrawled on the back walls chalk board, all universal classic meat dishes ranging from the raw, beef tartare, to lovingly slow cooked like the ox chilli. We went for the bbq ox ribs expecting a plural of but it ended up being a singular ginormous prehistoric looking bone sandwiched between wedges of smoky meat, so all was fine. It was as to be expected smoky, rich meat falling off with ease and contrasting crunch from the coleslaw.
 |
Pardon the very poor picture quality, dark places, my iphone and my avoidance of flash
photography for food are to blame. |
They slow cook a different cut of meat daily and when we went I believe it was the silverside. It was served simply with reduced braising liquid, topped with red onion slices and soda bread for sauce mopping. Like the ribs, it was perfectly executed and tasted as good as you would imagine. Both were served with a double carb side of freshly made lightly salted potato crisps and soda bread, which acts as nothing but an interval to the meat and a vehicle for meat juice soaking.
When it comes to desert, a point I am certain I have previously touched on, I only have eyes for chocolate on the menu. A cleansing sorbet, pah! Cheese? Maybe after the chocolate. At Köttbaren you had the choice of all three, but we went for the chocolate mousse cake, which was deeply sinful and highly recommendable.
Köttbaren successfully portrays itself as a no fuss sort of place, with the focus firmly on the meat and housed in surroundings that seamlessly fit within its raison d'etre. I have no doubt that all of the dozen options on the menu would stray from anything but delicious. So whether it is a little or a lot of food you are looking for washed down with a refreshing beer Kottbaren will suffice all your possible needs.
