Get sticky fingers
A cinnamon bun the size of your head? Now there’s a challenge. It may be advisable to bring a friend with you to share the fare at Café Husaren in Gothenburg’s picturesque Haga district, a beautiful listed building with a 19th century glass roof. The real attraction is that bun of course, and it certainly is a treat – a spiral of dense, yeasty dough, swirled with cinnamon and dusted with sugar. If you can’t handle the size of the hagabulle (even the name sounds weighty) try a kokosboll instead, a desiccated coconut-covered ball of oats, butter and cocoa – positively dainty by comparison.
Hunt for lobster
Lobster fan? Then you’ll have no argument with this statement: the cold North Atlantic waters yield the world’s best lobster. You can chase these beauties down yourself by jumping off from the Bohuslän coast any time between September and November on a lobster safari. Book the lobster safari package at the Stora Hotellet Bryggan in Fjällbacka, Ingrid Bergman’s favoured fishing village, and you’ll take an active role in sourcing your dinner. You’ll venture out to sea with local fishermen to check the creels and round up any catches. The cool waters here allow the lobster to mature slowly, for a sweeter taste, which you’ll experience back on dry land (after helping with the cooking, of course) as you tuck in to a four-course lobster dinner overlooking the pier.
Taste wild garlic
Sometimes it is the smell you notice first. On the mountain of Kinnekulle this is certainly true, as the ramsons bloom and the aroma of wild garlic fills the air. As spring marches on, the carpet covering Kinnekulle’s forested slopes turns from green to white, and offers up the perfect flavouring for local cuisine. Book into the Lundsbrunns Resort in May or June for their Ramsoms Package to taste it for yourself at lunch in the orangery at the foot of the mountain, or at dinner at the ancient Forshems Inn, known for its Slow Food and 16th century architecture. Don’t miss a chance to work up your appetite with stroll through the woods either.
Go for a roe
The picturesque lake of Vänern is home to Northern Europe’s largest freshwater fishing port, Spiken. Here a true Swedish delicacy is produced: bleak roe. This is the roe of the freshwater whitefish coregonus albula, and you can squeeze it from the fish by hand yourself on the Roe Package. This starts with a lunchtime taster, naturally, at Restaurant Sjöboden overlooking the harbour, before you head out by boat to enjoy the lake from on deck.
Returning to shore you will try your hand – literally – at squeezing the roe, before dinner at Pirum, a restaurant and wine bar that specialises in local seafood, including roe, scallops and salmon.
Tuck in to tradition
Hold your nose and open your mind. Yes, fermented fish may have a certain pong, but this is a Swedish tradition and no food adventure here is complete without it. The small island of Klädesholmen is the country’s ‘herring capital’, not to mention one of the west Coast’s most beautiful spots, with its uniform red roofs contrasting with the bright blue of the North Sea that surrounds them. Hard to believe this was once the site of 30 herring processing factories? Visit the Herring Museum to hear the story and then take a table at herring specialist Salt & Sill to feast on their herring board, featuring no less than six kinds of herring, overlooking the waters.
To find out more about West Sweden visit westsweden.com,
facebook.com/GothenburgWestSweden or @WestSwedenTB on Twitter.
Sunvil Discovery (020 8758 4722; sunvil.co.uk) offers a wide range of itineraries in West Sweden, including lobster safaris, shrimp and salmon cruises and crab fishing excursions, plus trips to Gothenburg, the Gothenburg archipelago and the Koster and Weather islands. Discover more about their West Sweden itineraries here.
