Stockholm: Day 1
We arrived in Stockholm and everything is sunny and warm. We stayed at the Scandic Malmem hotel in Södermalm, the hotel itself was great, it’s clean, modern and in the perfect location.
On a trip to Stockholm you could spend most of your time exploring Södermalm. There are countless cafes, boutiques, and some good eating as well. On our first day we visited String Cafe, a busy retro cafe that was packed for their weekend breakfast buffet. If you’re hungry on the weekend and want to find some good breakfast this is a really good pick.
The Ramones hang in the window near an I heart SOFO t-shirt.
There was also a little crepe station with a generous mix of berries and creme fraiche.
On any other day of the week you can stop in and order a cafe latte and help yourself to one of these delicious looking baked goods.
Nytorgsgatan 38
116 40 Stockholm 116 40 Stockholm
After breakfast we walked over to a couple of shops in the neighborhood. This one is called Grandpa. From what we remember it used to be more vintage but now it has a lot of great new brands, similar to RAC in Yorkville.
A couple doors down is a cool record / vintage shop called “An Ideal For Living” There was a bowl full of vintage leather “FIAT” key chains that were pretty cool. They also had a collection of Stig Lindberg pottery, and Moomin books.
We spent most of our day walking around Södermalm and happened upon Thomas Bernstrand’s studio. We totally creeped his window and he spotted us peering in, I bravely gave him a wave and he opened the door for us. We gave him a card and told him about the store and he graciously offered to take us on a tour of his studio.
We were thrilled.
When you enter the space you get a feeling of what has been occupying him and his studio. Public spaces, in fact he had the honor to design park spaces including a large installation in Rosenlundsparken. (More on that later) The concrete seat is called the “Gnone” and is also used to partition roads from parks.
Something that I really wanted to see while in Stockholm was this piece, “Ivy” a stackable bookcase made from pine. I would love to put one in our own home.
A wall mounted park bench called “Kajen mini”, it is used as a spot for a quick rest and is mounted higher than most seating so you can easily get back up when you’re done. Thomas mentioned that these would be great all over the city, for tourists and elderly people who need to stop for quick rests.
A pair of “Strand” chairs inspired by the classic beach chair.
We fell in love with these log and magazine holders, I’d love to get some in for the shop.
We were curious to see the outdoor spaces Thomas had designed so we got out our map and he marked where Rosenlundsparken park was, we had some time before dinner so we headed there.
Here we are! This installation is called “Stranden” which means the beach. The park has a huge lamp outside that lights up at night and during the dark winter Stranden reminds the deep frozen Swedes of summer, and lazy days at the beach.
For dinner we headed to Östermalm to eat at PA & CO. Which is super cosy and popular, you definitely need a reservation to eat here, we saw people turned away at the door all night.
The first thing we saw and ordered was the “S.O.S” platter. One of our favorite things in the world. It comprises of different pickled herring paired with different toppings, our favorite of course being cheese and dill.
One of the issues we had with this place was the menu. It was HUGE with dishes from Indian to Thai to traditional Swedish… We opted for the Swedish classics. Juli had meatballs which were delicious.
I had the Beef Rydberg, which I wasn’t too crazy for. Maybe it was just an off night, looking back at the photo it looks really delicious but there was something off about the meat.
Riddargatan 8
114 35 Stockholm
