In the land of lagom – a Swedish concept in which everything should be just so, not too much and not too little – luxury is not something that necessarily comes naturally to Swedes. Oh, they expect comfort and simplicity, and that things are well made, and they are more than willing to pay a lot for it.

But the closest I’ve gotten to luxury in Stockholm, and I mean over-the-top and everything-in-excess luxury, was Mathias Dahlgren's restaurant at Grand Hôtel, Stockholm’s elegant five-star grande dame of a hotel.

It took some finagling to get reservations – a friend of a friend who is one of the headwaiters managed to get them for us – and a couple months of waiting, but six of us arrived in the tiny bar area at 7:30 p.m., where we were pampered with glasses of champagne as we waited for our table.

And though we didn’t leave until past 12:30, six courses of haute cuisine with a Swedish touch (combinations of crayfish, scallops, steak tartare, all with reductions and sauces and unusual spices like licorice), a cheese course and three dessert courses later (not including the amuse bouche or bread courses that started the meal), the time went by way too fast.

With four waiters serving each course all at once, whisking away covers in perfect synchronization, everything carefully and unpretentiously explained, it was undoubtedly the best service I’ve ever had.

“Waiting on tables should be one of the sports at the Olympics,” said M. the Australian. “They have synchronized swimming, right? Why not synchronized waiting?”

We laughed and dug into our saddle of venison with shaved truffle, cabbage, apple and pork belly, the fifth course. Or was it the sixth?

GRAND HÔTEL; Södra Blasieholmshamnen 8; Stockholm