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Yelp
[Non-photo Review] For full review, please see: http://wp.me/pwXBH-WG MATBAREN - A BALANCED EQUATION Entering the grand I am fortunate enough to travel to Stockholm fairly often. I love the place no matter what the season. It always seems peaceful and content with itself. The air is crisp and you are surrounded by clear water in many of the main areas of the city. The people are straight forward and friendly in their own way. My only frustration with these trips is that I am normally too consumed with work to be able to spend time exploring the more exciting culinary experiences that Stockholm has to offer, and it boasts many from the simple to the more refined. However, on my last trip in mid-October I was determined to at the very least pay homage to Sweden's brightest star in the culinary world, that being Mathias Dahlgren. For those of you not familiar with the name, here's a potted history. He was the proprietor of Bon Lloc from 1996-2005, which held a macaron in the Michelin guide. In 2007, he braved it on its own and opened up two restaurants in the Grand Hôtel Stockholm. One is a private dining salon called Matsalen which only has 38 covers and currently holds two of those Michelin macarons. The other, Matbaren, is nominally called a 'bar' (although it only accepts dining guests), but is no slouch, holding its own star from the man dressed in puffy white inner-tubes. Chef Dahlgren's flagship restaurant was recently voted #25 in the most recent, and now well-established, San Pellegrino's The World's 50 Best Restaurants, and is only the second Swedish restaurant to hold two Michelin stars. He also holds the distinction of having been the recipient of Kockarnas Kock ('Chef of all Chefs', or Swedish Chef of the Year) four separate times, and is the only Swedish chef to have won the Bocuse d'Or. Given my time constraints, and the probable difficulty in scoring a reservation at the private dining room at short notice, I opted to go to Matbaren, which was facilitated with ease only a few days before through their online booking system. I was meant to go with a colleague, but on the night of our reservation, we ended up hanging out with some of his friends at a casual restaurant called B.A.R. (coincidentally just behind Mathias Dahlgren), which was pleasant enough but the food was pretty 'meh'. Nevertheless, undeterred, I booked a table for the following night and decided that I would go solo if need be. I made my way across Skeppsbron, and over the bridge on a quite a chilly Nordic night, with the illuminated facade of the Grand Hôtel beckoning. Upon entering the very attractive room, I immediately liked the atmosphere and vibe of the place. The bar (where you can have the full menu) was still completely full and there were a few tables of two left, so I took one next to the window, which afforded a nice view of the room. The décor was very Scandinavian, with bright red accents throughout and some wonderfully playful high-backed white spindled chairs in the corner. The room exuded that difficult to achieve balance between the casual and the formal, and had a good energy without verging toward the frenetic. The rather small kitchen is visible through a glass wall, and the chefs were operating in a quiet, controlled and precise manner throughout my meal. My waiter came over to explain how the menu worked. The menu at Matbaren changes each day and is printed on brown paper oh-so current, no? within your wooden tray. The food is arranged into four sections ('From our Country', 'From Other Countries', 'From the Plant World' and 'From the Pastry' i.e. desserts), and there are 3-4 dishes in each group. All dishes are presented in the format of 'small plates' and the restaurant recommends 2-4 dishes per person. They also have a very good selection of local beers and an interesting selection of wines by the glass. Also within your tray is a brown bag with the current day's date stamped on it, which contains some crisp Swedish crackers, and on the right they place a small helping of butter with a little wooden spatula. A memorable quartet I would like to say at the outset that the service which was solely provided by my one waiter was phenomenal. He answered all of my questions without fail (even some fairly obscure ones) and was friendly at the same time as being professional and efficient in what was quite a busy dining room for most of the evening. After we decided on what my first course and accompanying wine would be, I opened up that brown paper bag and tasted some of the crisp bread, which was good, but even better when smeared with a touch of the creamy butter. I was also offered some other bread, of which I selected a white sourdough, which was excellent. They don't do their baking in-house but rather source their breads from one of the best bakeries in Stockholm, whose name of course now escapes me. Plate 1: Pumpkin & Broccoli, Truffle, Watercress, Hazelnut, Parmesan:I decided to start off with
