Totally Stockholm 1
GASTRO Petri Petter Nilsson has previously been a
t the helm of Spritmuseum’s restaurant, and has run several restaurants in the south of France. And, equally importantly, in the mid-90s he worked as a chef at Thomas Dreijing’s legendary restaurant Petri Pumpa in Lund. It’s of course from there, as well as from his own name and the French word for stone, that he’s taken the name for his new venture Petri. Petri is housed in Volt’s former premises at Kommendörsgatan, which of course is both a source of inspiration, and a standard to live up to. The premises look like their old selves, but the interior has been updated, and is now richer in detail and has more of a personal touch than before. A conscious decision, as Petter’s ambition is for them to match the restaurant’s gastronomic processes. We sit down on pale wooden chairs, are duly welcomed and offered a little warm towel each while we get familiar with the wine list. The drinks menu is full of fun surprises, and we begin with an aperitif in the form of Swedish craft cider Sent om Cider, which we accompany with a bottle of Blaufränkisch from Pittnauer, which will escort us through the dinner together with a bottle of sparkling water. When it comes to the food, it’s comprised of a tasting menu, a journey through ten destinations where the actual menu - or love letter as our waiter refers to it - gives hints rather than a detailed description of what we’re about to experience. First out are some snacks – rice chips, a little tartlet made from chestnut flour and silver onion compote, plus a delightful bowl of Chioggia beet. Everything is very deliciously-presented, and the cider turns out to be an excellent chaperone for the food. 18 From there we soldier on to a grilled green asparagus with lemon that in all its simplicity is perfect, both in quality and in how it’s cooked. This is followed by a mackerel dish, with which our waiter hands us a little glass of Alsace from the wine pairings list, which is surprisingly sweet. Our bottle of Austrian red suits our tastes a little better. The mackerel itself is a fun feature, and one we conclude to be one of the better servings when we later summarize our evening. Something not quite as exciting are the new potatoes with lovage and pumpkin pesto which follow straight after. New potatoes can be delicious, but in this incarnation they’re not really deserving of a spot on a tasting menu that sets you back 1,400 kronor. Compared to the rest of the fare, their role mainly consists of filling you up, and in terms of taste you might as well have had a bag of crisps. A recurring theme is various types of dried food in powder form, which appears as topping in several dishes. The tasting menu dishes keep coming at high speed – it features some heavier dishes like lamb, and no less than three desserts, including both pastry and kalvdans (a pudding made from colostrum milk, the first milk produced by a cow after giving birth). We’re also treated to some sommelier wizardry with a bottle theatrically opened by decapitation. In sum, what Petri presents is a dinner show of the higher calibre, and only perhaps a tad pretentious. But as long as you can survive a little pretension, you’re not going to be disappointed. Petri, Kommendörsgatan 16 petrirestaurant.com