1/
Follow the Bastard buzz
2/
Eat in someone’s
home
A few years ago, after
travelling the world and
regularly being invited into
strangers’ homes for dinner,
mother-of-two Mia Klitte
came up with the idea of
doing the same in Sweden.
“
In Sweden, that very rarely
happens,” she says.
Now visitors who want
to meet locals are asked to
fill in a form – listing your
interests and what you hope
to gain from the experience
–
then matched with a local
family, couple or individual,
and invited over for dinner.
Mia says there are now
around 40 ‘ambassadors’ in
Malmö. “We have students
in their early 20s, mothers
in their 40s, people with
grown-up kids, single mums,
single dads and gay couples.”
It costs SEK750 (€90) per
adult – but Mia encourages
hosts to buy quality local
produce, especially as a
third of Sweden’s agricultural
production takes place in
nearby Skåne.
If dinner sounds too much,
Mia’s company can arrange
for visitors to meet locals
at a café for a Swedish
fika
(
roughly translated, a chat
over coffee and a cake) –
favourite topics, she says,
are Sweden’s social security
system and the arcane
process of buying booze.
mication.se
Getting a buzz for a Malmö restaurant isn’t
easy when you’re 35 minutes by train from
worldwide food mecca Copenhagen – but
Bastard has got people in Copenhagan talking,
and it’s not just for the rude name.
“
We care,” says head chef Andreas
Dahlberg with a smile, as the smell of freshly
cooked pâté wafts out from an oven in the
restaurant’s open kitchen. “We care about the
wine. We care about where the food comes
from, how we cook it, and how we present
it. Everybody who’s working at Bastard [he
pronounces it ‘bar-starred’] is deeply involved
with the food.”
When Dahlberg and co-owner Nina
Christensson opened the restaurant a little
over three years ago, their unusual formula
raised eyebrows: tattooed waiting staff,
chequerboard floors, candlelit tables and
noisy rock tunes. “We wanted to open a
restaurant that everyone could go to, with
great food and great staff, but in a casual
dining space,” he says.
The menu is tweaked daily but is mostly
meat-heavy, with dishes like chicken livers and
raw ox giving Bastard something approaching
cult status among flesh-hungry locals. “In the
beginning people liked to put a label on what
we were doing,” Dahlberg says. “They said it
was a nose-to-tail place, just because we had
a few intestines on the menu.”
When you try the house special – a wooden
slab of finely sliced charcuterie served with
salty gherkins – it’s clear the real focus is on
quality, rather than quirkiness. If even a single
ingredient runs out, whole dishes are removed
from the menu. “We don’t continue with a
dish if we’re not able to get the stuff we’re
looking for,” says Dahlberg.
And that name? “It’s just easy to
remember.”
bastardrestaurant.se
Where else chef Andreas recommends...
Saltimporten Canteen
“
They do really, really good lunches,” says
Andreas of this hip harbourside restaurant
with views of the Turning Torso and a single
daily lunch dish – think beef chuck with celery
and rosemary on Mondays.
saltimporten.com
Belle Epoque
This late-night cocktail and DJ joint is
becoming just as known for its locally
sourced food (pig cheeks served with shitake
mushrooms) after Bastard’s old sous chef
moved there.
belle-epoque.se
Bastard chef Andreas
Dahlberg: takes
ingredients seriously
n
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