A Vegetarian in Stockholm

Hermans Restaurant, Stockholm

I was on a business trip to Stockholm, the city that my current favorite thriller author, Steig Larsson, used to call home before he passed away few years back (http://www.stieglarsson.com/). Sweden has marked its presence in the world with its Viking history, IKEA design, ABBA music and Ericson phones. But the question that we wanted to examine was, "Are there Swedish vegetarian restaurants worth visiting when you are in Stockhom"? The answer is an resounding "yes". Hermans Restaurant in Stockholm provides a world-class vegetarian buffet, outstanding views of the Stockholm Gamma Stan (old town) and the water, excellent service and great ambience and energy with all the young college students gathering for their dose of vegetarian energy.

To get the logistics out of the way, Hermans web site is at http://hermans.gastrogate.com/page/8 and can be reached easily from wherever you are searching at Google Maps (maps.google.com)

Once you enter the restaurant you will have to walk down a winding stairs to the entrance area where your healthy eating muscles will be tested by how you react to the panoply of mouth watering desserts that are displayed. You have to decide if you want to select a dinner option with or without dessert, any sugar dependent human being would decide to pay ~20Kronors for the dessert option on top of the ~Kr190 full menu option. I got lucky as the barbeque was on that day and had to pay a little extra for partaking their bbq options.

Once you pay up, you walk into another room which has 30+ dishes that have been inspired by fine vegetarian cooking all over the world, Indian, Chinese, Middle-Eastern, Tex-Mex, and Scandinavian. My favorites were the salads that were made from summer fresh Swedish vegetables and tofu curries. Each individual dishes were not a 9 or 10 but the entire spread reflected the Olympic spirits of world Vegetarian cooking not ignoring any major cuisine (except African for some reason – Ethiopian, anyone?). The taste was very well balanced and quite inspired taking the basic recipe and adapting to Scandinavian penchant for understatement.

Couple of tips,

1. Get a seating outside in the topmost patio if available, the best view
2. Try their outstanding tea collection, my favorite is their white tea
3. Definitely try their dessert option, not worth missing
4. They have great hot sauce, ask them if it is not available outside
5. Enjoy sunset with a drink of your choice from their window seating and you will get a very different view of Stockholm

All in all, not worth missing Hermans, any time you are in Stockholm. Some people may say you should include Hermans as a destination must-see in addition to all the tourist to-dos. I tend to agree with them.