I’m mostly a classical music kind of guy. Symphonies, chamber music, opera, you name it, I pretty much like it. And Stockholm has plenty of opportunities if you like classical music. So when I go to hear live music, it’s the usual classical music venues - the Royal Opera, Stockholm's Concert Hall, Berwaldhallen.

Photo by lewis chaplin

But I make one major exception: Swedish popstar Robyn. I have my reasons, most of which I won’t go into here. But let’s just say the woman is the bomb. I adore her, and there’s nothing more fun than going to hear her sing.

Crowd at Mosebacke                                                                                                Photo by rsms kopimi

The first time it was at Mosebacke, probably five years ago, and the place was packed and she was rocking. Mosebacke has its own, uh, beatnik style – poetry readings, offbeat cabaret and weird theatre pieces. But Mosebacke was when she had just bought out her contract and really struck out on her own and hit the big time, indie style.

Concert at Nalen

So it was even more exciting to see her do her thing a few years later at Nalen, one of Stockholm’s great smaller venues with a wide range of music, everything from heavy metal cult band The Haunted to folk-pop-indie favorite Martha Wainwright to the Angels in Harlem Gospel Choir to old-fashioned dance nights. And Nalen has been a hot spot for seeing great acts since the 1930s although the building itself dates from 1888. Robyn, in top form, blasted down the house, and we danced and screamed our way through the evening.

Robyn in action                                                                                               Photo by victoriapeckham

Then this past spring we went to see her at the Astoria in London. Bigger, better, wilder. And soon we’re off to see her open for Madonna in Spain, which will no doubt be even bigger. She just seems to keep moving upward and onward.

But really, it will be hard to beat seeing her at Nalen, when she looked out at the crowd, singing her heart out and we looked back at her, close enough to touch.

Go further: Find more reasons why Francis adores Robyn here and where in Paris Meg goes for the the best free concerts in town. 

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  

Less than a century ago, Sweden was a country of poor farmers and fishermen. Classic Swedish cooking – husmanskost – provides some of the best evidence, with simple dishes based on cheap cuts of meat, pickled and preserved fish in various forms, pickles, lingonberry jam and lots of potatoes. Some of it is stick-to-your-ribs heavy country food, but generally it's not terribly rich and can even be disappointingly unsatisfying. It also explains why Swedes tend to be thin.

Which is all not to say that I don't like husmanskost. Some of my favorite Swedish foods are husmanskost. And my favorite local restaurant, Tranan, serves some of the greatest husmanskost in Stockholm, in my opinion. Oh, there are people who prefer Pelikan on Södermalm – like Tranan, it's been around forever, but it still has its original décor from 1909 and it's a little less upscale. Or Prinsen, which has also been around for a century, but caters more to the leisure classes of Stureplan, where it's located, and expense account lunches.

All of these places serve meatballs with cream gravy, Wallenbergare (ground veal burgers), pyttipanna (beef hash), grilled herring, and sausages. Along with lots of other stuff. But Tranan is just the right combination of classic and trendy, tasty and cozy, Swedish but not to the point of kitch.

So, when my Belgian friend is in town from Cairo, where he lives, he always insists we eat at Tranan. So we duly went there on Wednesday, soaking in the ambience and having a grand time, trying to get me to overindulge.

"Go ahead," he said. "Have the chocolate cake with cherry ice cream. C'mon. You only live once."

I think it was the cellar bar that first drew him in – it's usually full of a raucous crowd, young and a bit beer-soaked. Me, I prefer the restaurant upstairs, with its checked tablecloths, efficient waiters and waitresses and the quieter din of Vasastan's hip 30-somethings at supper, well-oiled by glasses of wine and sated with food, looking out the windows at the people passing by through Odenplan and past the domed Gustav Vasa church.

He had the seafood soup. I had, as I almost always do, the rårakor – thin potato pancakes served with sour cream, chives and bleak roe. Scrumptious. And I was pleased to see that they've taken the meatballs off the menu again, so only those people in the know order them (there were lots of plates of meatballs going around, though, I noticed, so it seems lots of people are in the know!)

And of course, that chocolate cake with cherry ice cream. I just couldn't resist.

TRANAN, Karlsbergsvägen 14, Stockholm 

Pink Floyd recieving the 2008 Polar Music Prize                                             Photo by Emma Svensson         

Every year, as a kind of supplement to the Nobel Prize ceremony, Swedish awards watchers turn their focus from science, research, literature, economics and peace, and instead open their ears to music and the Polar Music Prize.

While it may have distant pop music roots – the prize was begun in 1992 and funded with some of the megabucks earned by Stig-Erik Andersson, the producer of Abba – the Polar Music Prize has become a big deal in Sweden, and we would like to imagine, an honor for those who receive it. It usually gets divided between a classical musician and a musician whose music is more of a popular style, be it jazz, blues or rock and roll. And like the Nobel prizes, it is handed out by the King of Sweden.

Renee Fleming performing at the 2008 Polar Music Prize                               Photo by Emma Svensson        

I’m not altogether sure how much extra recognition some of the recipients deserve – Paul McCartney (er, I mean Sir Paul) was among the first winners in 1992. But I do pay attention to who wins. And this year, my friend E., who as the daughter of an opera singer and an amateur singer herself, made extra sure I didn’t forget: She got us tickets to go see the winner. No, not Pink Floyd, the other winner. Renee Fleming, the American soprano from Texas. She may be small, but her voice is huge. And ravishing.

The Main Hall                                                                                                   Photo by Jan-Olav Wedin              

And Stockholm Concert Hall (Stockholm Konserthus) is a great setting – with its Art Deco décor, lots of warm wood and elegant detail yet still somehow unpretentious, it’s a lovely place to hear a concert - mostly classical music, of course, but a sprinkling of everything from jazz classics to Tibetan folk music to the Nobel Prize awards themselves.

The Grünewald Hall                                                                                          Photo by Jan-Olav Wedin         

And the conductor of the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert, was great, leading the orchestra in his farewell concert in Stockholm – he’s leaving to become director of the New York Philharmonic, one in a line of conductors who have used Stockholm as a launching point for stellar careers.

Renee didn’t disappoint either.

Stockholm Concert Hall; Hötorget 8; Stockholm
 

Photo by Edi Weissmann

The party out in the Stockholm archipelago was a great success: a weird mix of Swedes and people from further afield. As with all great Swedish parties, copious amounts of alcohol were consumed, people did crazy things, a few sundry items were broken, people stayed up long after it had begun to get light (which, to be fair is only about 2:30 a.m. in the height of the summer) and many ended up sleeping in places they hadn’t expected to. Everyone was appropriately pale and queasy the next morning.

Me, I had wisely paced myself, so I was fresh as a prästkrage – that would be daisy in English.  My Swedish husband, however, was a bit worse for the wear.

Photo by Edi Weissmann

We took the ferry home in the afternoon. For my husband, and the various other guests who left with us, it was probably a good thing that it was a big new ferry, fast and comfortable, and not one of the ancient steamboats – or converted steamboats as many of them are these days – that ply the Baltic year round, hauling Stockholmers from the city out to the thousands of islands that make up the Stockholm archipelago.

Photo by Kriskaer

I love the old ferries best, with the faded elegance of their saloons – some have full-service restaurants even – and all that highly varnished wood, the sloshing of the water, the polished brass. You haven’t really seen Stockholm if you’ve never taken one of the old ferries from the quays outside the Grand Hotel.

By the time we made it back to Slussen, everyone seemed to revive a bit as we stepped off the ferry.

“Should we have dinner?” our friend from France said. “It’s half price at Torget on Sunday evenings, and it’s really good.”

Why not? As long as the music isn’t too loud…