TOP

Stockholm’s Kitchen Conundrum

While Stockholm continues to rise in the international bar scene, the sale of alcohol is still heavily regulated. Haley Forest looks at how bartenders are working with their limitations.

Hole in the wall bars are some of the best places you’ll find a drink these days, with spots like Attaboy (New York) and The Baxter Inn (Sydney) securely in the top percent on international lists. The ritual of walking down side streets to find barely lit doorways has become synonymous with finding impeccable drinking dens.

In Stockholm, however, the Swedes have their hands tied, with strict controls for the sale of alcohol, making these unassuming establishments unseen territory. Unsatisfied by these limitations, some bartenders are striving to take their small city to the next level, despite the complex system of laws, through creativity and playing the system.

Jumping Through Hoops

An obvious hurdle for any bar is local legislation; a specific license is required, however the qualifications to obtain said license in Sweden are a bit unique. Beyond the usual checks regarding health and safety, the Swedish government also restricts the sale of alcohol to venues that have a “full kitchen” – the definition of which varies – and the ability to serve food at any time. Bjorn Kjellberg, part of pop-up bar and bartender collective, Bottles, who has worked in Stockholm for nearly a decade, remembers working in an Italian trattoria which had to fit out their kitchen with unneeded equipment to satisfy the requirements.
“We had a wide variety of food on the menu,” Bjorn says, “but they still insisted we get a fryer, because in their papers a full and complete kitchen meant having one.” This kind of restriction places a major limitation on the types of bars which can exist. The forced buddy system of booze with means would-be bar owners who would normally thrive in tiny venues must invest in larger spaces – for a kitchen – or get friendly with a restaurant bar program.

Even with the possession of a “full kitchen,” offering food at all hours, presents another problem: the basic costs of keeping a kitchen running long past when anyone actually orders. Business minded bartenders have worked out a creative way of working around this issue, knowing that as long as food is technically available, it doesn’t have to be especially desirable. “The venue must offer food as long as they serve alcohol,” explains Bjorn, “but pretty much every bar works around this by having a “late night menu” after the kitchen closes down. This consists of microwave food sold at extremely high prices so no one will buy it. In my 15 years in the industry, I have only experienced two times when a guest actually ordered off it.”

The Restaurant Speakeasy

The bar trade is nothing but inventive in the quest to succeed and Stockholm has developed its own breed of hidden bars secluded inside established restaurants while still sustaining their own identities. Jimmy Dymott, a central figure in the Stockholm booze scene, opened hidden members bar Bageriet in 2009, inside acclaimed Frantzén’s bakery, which caught attention with its prohibition style drinks. Dymott then went to Marie Laveau, a well-known restaurant and bar in it’s own right, to open Little Quarter, a small space hidden inside which focused exclusively on cocktails with no shortcuts, which has won countless awards and helped raise the profile of craft cocktails across the city.

The Corner Club appears slightly more independent, though just as connected. Voted Best Newcomer at the Swedish 2013 Bartenders Choice Awards , it’s attached to the gastro pub The Flying Elk, but with a complete separate entrance and feel. They offer a tiny food menu served from The Flying Elks kitchen to satisfy the food requirement, but still keep the emphasis on the drinks maintaining a proper bar feel, walking the delicate line between bar and restaurant.

Ludde Grenmo, Bar Manager at Tjoget in Södermalm, feels the success of these bars is because they’re really bars in their own right, regardless of the restaurants attached. “These “restaurant bars” aren’t cocktail bars only by law. If that didn’t exist then we would have a lot of actual cocktail bars.”

For all of the potentially restrictive policies, drinks in Stockholm are tasting great. With the average drinker happily hitting these hidden concepts, it feels as though this is Stockholm’s boozy coming of age which can only grow and mature into greatness from here.

 

Credits

Foto: Stockholm via Shutterstock

Post a Comment