The secrets from the Chef & Sommelier

Boqueria is a place where the fishmongers in the old time took care and prepared the small anchovies that they in Spain call Boquerones, but Boqueria is also a new restaurant concept made by the talented people behind Vassa Eggen, Tennstopet and Albert & Jacks. This is a fantastic place for all of you who love well made Spanish tapas and classic Spanish food with a twist extremely well executed by the guys in the open kitchen. There are also a large bar with small tapas and where you can stop by for just a beer, glass of wine or relax with a coffee, opens early in the morning until late at night. The wine list is well composed but I could need some more types of sherry by the glass. Thanks for a fantastic night and well done guys.

Champagne , the magical wines from France have many followers and there are miles of information about this to find. The good thing about champagne is that everybody can find they own style and taste that you can appreciate no matter what everybody else says, try many different and you will find champagne that will be perfect for you. I attended a big champagne tasting a wile ago and discovered a new favourite producer in Forget – Brimont from the small village of Craon de Ludes just north of Epernay . Michel Forget is the 6:th generation in this winegrowing family where his ancestor Louis started the company at the beginning of the century and Eugene established the brand in 1920 with a very small production of just a few hundred bottles. The company own 15 hectares of grand cru in Verzenay and Mailly and Premier cru from the Chigny-les-Roses and Ludes with Pinot Noir as the predominated variety grape. Michel blends his wines from three different vintages to create his signat

Looking out across Constantia Glen’s vineyards in the magnificent Constantia Valley , one immediately senses a difference. Cultivated with dedication and a singular vision, Constantia Glen’s 31site-specific blocks are unique in the Constantia Valley .   Each block is meticulously hedged, carefully thinned of superfluous shoots and limited to allow only one perfect bunch of grapes per shoot. There is a high regard for precision in the way the vines are established, cared for and harvested that saturates each unique vintage with constant class and a distinctive reference to the preceding year’s climatic influence. Skilful winemaking has its origins in the vineyard. At Constantia Glen, time-honoured techniques are respected and used wherever they perform best. Constantia Glen uses the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ( NDVI) process, which captures both visible and infrared light emitted from vineyards to create a colour index describing variances between cultivated sections.

First of all, Serbs are very very proud of their food and they should be, having a rich cuisine and a large diversity of alcohol beverages that accompany these amazing dishes. The whole cuisine is derived from a mixture of influences coming from Mediterranean, especially Greek influences, Hungary, Turkish and Austrian cuisines. Serbia has a lot to offer to hedonists so eating out, to catch local flavors, is an unforgettable experience and a highlight for many visitors and expats. Serbians love their food and although meat takes the majority of the Serbian table there is still room for a passion about fish and seafood. There are plenty of restaurants on every corner, offering delicious food of national and international cuisine, but the best meal you’ll have is on the domestic estates and in kafanas. A kafana is some kind of bistro, tavern an authentic Belgrade restaurant. The first ever kafana in Belgrade (and Europe) was opened by the Turks at the end of the 16th century. Today, the

Me and Christina are doing more than 70 wine tastings every year for wine drinkers who love wine but do not know so much about it, I love doing that and let people explore wine in a good and sensible way without fuzz.. This is a great little film about wine where John Cleese guide you thru the most basic stuff in a very good way http://youtu.be/BF6twaKn8xM     for all of you out there who drink your wine for the taste without caring about the label. Enjoy and give all the posh and snobby sommeliers a hell next time you go out for dinner J

Me and Christina are fortune to be invited as the first guests to try the new MM fine dining room at the old Inn at Rusthållargården in Arild http://www.rusthallargarden.se south of Sweden. The Malmbergska Matsalen is a tribute to the family who runs the Inn as fourth generation and executive chef Claes Ljustander have converted a part of the dining room to a 20 seat restaurant with great ambitions and a set menu with wonderful wines all greatly packed in with atmosphere out of the ordinary. The food is a little bit shaky as one can imagine in the start but will improve in a few weeks, my guess is that Rusthållargården will set very high standards for the area and I can recommend you all to try it out, you will be surprised how good it is. I like the idea of transforming some of the classics to the finer level and to use all local ingredients as much as possible, great way of doing things. This is the menu & wines that we tried in Swedish. Äggakaka Naccarii caviar, kärnm

Ribera del Duero have very old traditions of winemaking all back to the old Romans and Phoenician times who showed the Iberian people at that time how to make wine and viticulture. The Moorish conquerors know how to irrigate and that made even the driest part of the country a winegrowing area that still today flourish from this. Most of today’s vineyards use to have connections to the church and believed are that the monks from France left some secrets behind on they pilgrimage tours. Bodegas Aalto was born in 1999 by Mariano Garcia who was the winemaker at Vega Sicilia for more than 30 years and his good friend Javier Zaccagnini who was the head for the Consejo in Ribera. The 32 first hectares is now 43 of the best sites in the area like La Horra and La Aquilera that are plantings between 40 to 100 years of age, absolutely fantastic when you thing about it. The grape in Ribera have always been a certain clone of Tempranillo here called Tinto Fino and are widely planted in that p

When you think about great food you have to mention all the wonderful flavours in delicatessen that are made by people who is true to the original history and who really cares about how they produce the cheeses and cured/dried food stuff from all the regions of Europe. The tradition of producing food from your own and local produce is a great way of preserving the artisan craftsmanship so all of you out there can taste the true favours of the land and the people who every day is trying they best to make us all happy. I am happy to work in a company who has many of these fine producers and you can find them all in many of the best restaurants and delicatessen shops around the country. At the Gastro Nord fair the 24-27 of April you can visit us at our stand and taste some of the best products from around Europe on the Swedish market and meet up with the producers and great chefs who will prepare some great treats for you.