Meatball restaurant, bar and deli in Södermalm (SoFo), Stockholm

Meatballs for the People

A Game Warden's Menu on Nytorgsgatan

3.5 of 5

Every Swede has an opinion about meatballs, and most of those opinions involve a grandmother. Three restaurant men from the Bockholmen group, Mathias Pilblad, Peder Smith and Tiel Ridderstad, decided to settle the matter professionally. Their own telling starts with a trip to Italy, a meatball machine carried home as excess baggage, and an autumn of testing helped along by Tiel's luck as a hunter. Pilblad once cooked on Sweden's national culinary team. They opened a small shop on Nytorgsgatan, ran it for about a year, and realised it wanted to be a restaurant.

The list reads like a game warden's notebook. Beef, pork, lamb and veal, then deer, roe deer, moose, reindeer, wild boar and bear, plus pike, haddock and salmon for the fish people and a pea-based vegetarian ball from a small producer. Choose one kind for The Swedish Classic, with mashed potatoes, creamy veal gravy, pickled cucumber and lingonberries: six balls for 256 kronor, ten for 296, with a small supplement for the wilder meats. Can't decide? Chef's Choice puts eight on the plate, two each of four types, for 342. The owners care a great deal about where the meat comes from, and say so at length.

Yes, the visitors have found it. The owners once counted more than eighty nationalities through the door in two months. It is still a rustic, noisy neighbourhood room, with a deli counter if you want to carry dinner home. Order reindeer and moose side by side and judge for yourself. Bring a card, because it is cashless.

Order this

The Swedish Classic with reindeer or moose meatballs, Chef's Choice, eight meatballs of four kinds, Toast Skagen to start, A Lingon mezcalita, or the alcohol-free Virgin of SoFo

The damage

$$

Go

Lunch, any day from 11, before the evening crowd

Find it

Nytorgsgatan 30, 116 40 Stockholm

Website

meatball.se