TWO years ago, Mathias Dahlgren (below) closed his popular Michelin-starred restaurant Bon Lloc in Stockholm and took some time off to ponder his next move. Dahlgren is one of Scandinavia's bright culinary lights - affable, approachable and acclaimed for his inventive use of local and regional ingredients. Among other things during his time off, he was one of the featured chefs at The Raffles Hotel's annual Wine, Food & Arts Experience in 2006.
Last year, he teamed up with the Swedish equivalent of The Raffles - the venerable Grand Hotel in Stockholm - and opened his eponymous restaurant there, with a dual kitchen concept featuring two related yet very distinct dining experiences. It looks to be a partnership made in culinary heaven.
Matsalen, or The Dining Room, serves exemplary modern Scandinavian cuisine in an environment to match, while Matbaren, or The Food Bar, serves up quick, casual, comfort food in a relaxed, bar-like setting that reflects its Scandinavian roots. The dining rooms are connected but their design and the experiences they offer differ significantly.
Since opening in May last year, both the cuisine and the restaurant environment have attracted international attention. Last month, Matsalen garnered a Michelin star while also being earmarked as a new restaurant headed for a second one. It has also won a host of best new restaurant awards for cuisine as well as for interior design.
The main restaurant seats 37 diners in an elegant room in a former grand residence that is now part of the hotel. There are wood floors, high ceilings and painted columns, and the colours of the room are muted, mainly grey and olive. Appropriately, perhaps, it is also vaguely reminiscent of the mood at Arzak, the wonderful three-star restaurant at San Sebastian in Spain, a country whose modern cuisine has also had an influence on Dahlgren.
Unusually for a fine dining restaurant, there are no standard place settings to start with on the dining table - just a rectangular marble slab and a beautiful wood-handled meat knife made by Mora, the Swedish equivalent of the Laguiole brand in France.
A tasting menu began with an amuse bouche of a tiny, warm buttered bun the size of a 20-cent coin and signalled the start of a singular dining experience, simple yet delightfully different. Two more items followed before the first starter, including a slab with two slices of different breads, served with a small slice of butter specially made by the restaurant's cheese supplier, a dab of pure bacon fat and a splash of rapeseed oil.
The dishes that followed all featured fresh and familiar regional ingredients, presented in a modern style. There was a line of smoked organic salmon cubes, alternating with raw Swedish oysters, topped with caviar and sitting on a layer of horseradish cream. This was followed by an organic goose liver 'package', creamy morsels of terrine wrapped in a thinly-sliced fresh mango 'skin'.
Next was a wonderful blend of flavours and textures - tender slices of Scandinavian lobster on a bed of baked celery root, served with trout roe, with lobster soup added at the table. Then came a farm egg cooked for 50 minutes at 63 degrees and served on a bed of mushrooms, onion, bacon, truffles and crouton.
The last course was a pork duo - pork cheek on one side and sausage nuggets on the other, served with baked beetroot chunks on a bed of artichoke puree. Dessert included a fondant of wild Bolivian chocolate, served with candied carrot, yoghurt and berry sorbet.
Dahlgren's approach to modern cuisine is clear, clean, concise and very well executed, with a strong classical base and an emphasis on high quality, locally sourced and ecologically correct ingredients. Most importantly, it all tasted great and made for a hugely satisfying meal.
Dahlgren describes his restaurant, with its two distinct sections, as 'one face with two profiles'. He says he has changed perspective since he blazed a culinary trail with Bon Lloc. 'I focus on natural cuisine, with as many ingredients from the region as I can get, using a small network of small producers.' The cheese maker who also makes butter exclusively for the restaurant, for example, only produces seven kg of butter a week.
'Bon Lloc was influenced by Spanish, French and Italian cooking, but now I want people to meet Sweden through my cuisine,' says Dahlgren. 'People and ideas should travel, but fresh ingredients shouldn't travel a lot. We're open to the world but we're proud of our products and heritage.' He adds: 'Our food culture is not discovered yet but the time has come for modern Scandinavian cuisine to be discovered.'
Restaurant Mathias Dahlgren
Grand Hotel Stockholm
Sodra Blasieholmshamnen
6, Stockholm.
Tel: +46 8 6793584.
www.mdghs.com
