Köket Falkenberg

Falkenberg has emerged as a food destination in its own right, and among its restaurants the greatest aplomb is found in Köket at Falkenberg Strandbad. It offers a self-assured eating experience in an unusually cosy setting. Hemingway would have felt right at home here, among old books, leather armchairs, bottles of wine, kerosene lamps, and stuffed animals’ heads on the walls. In the kitchen, head chef Knútur Kristjánsson cooks one of this year’s good-value tasting menus.

We settle down in the lounge and sip delicious house cocktails to accompany entertaining canapés. It begins with a mini pancake with Italian sturgeons’ eggs, served on flea-market china, and ends with a entertaining deep-fried cockerel croquette on a bed of straw in a miniature volcano (yes, Knútur is from Iceland). And in between, a useful combination: a small tartare of milk cow beef with whitefish roe and salted lemon. A fine warm-up before we’re invited to take our table and choose a drinks package: non-alcoholic or wine at two different levels.

The premium package costs a reasonable SEK 650. If you decide to choose your own from the wine cellar, there’s a wide selection of classic world wines, with the focus on Burgundy. The non-alcoholic package is ambitious, if inclined a bit too sharply towards the sweet. The selected wines are that much better and trendier than those on the ordinary wine list.

A dry tokay furmint-hárslevelű, for instance, which works well with a juniper-smoked Norway lobster and an emulsion of bladder wrack, browned butter and pickled fennel. Goes well with the Icelandic flatbread with home-churned butter, too. A chenin blanc from Anjou enhances the already rich Arctic char with trout roe and a cream of sunflower seeds, angelica and browned butter. The pairing, though, is delivered courtesy of a berry-tart beaujolais from Jean-Paul Brun.

When the fruit and acid of the gamay wine meet an autumnal chanterelle dish with crunchy roasted wheat berry, mini cubes of lardo and shredded parsley in a silky chicken stock, we can only roll our eyes heavenward. The slow-roasted brisket paired with a quirky Italian, Trebbiolo La Stoppa, isn’t on the same flavour level, though – even if the brisket has been roasted for 72 hours at 60 degrees and is served with a celeriac purée. More of a positive surprise was delivered by a sweet Macvin du Jura to go with the flavourful fir bark cheese from Påverås in Västergötland. The wine also went well with the refreshing finale: marble cake with goat’s yoghurt ice cream and a purée of redcurrants.

It’s easy to feel at home with the pleasant staff here at Köket. Extremely competent overall, both socially and gastronomically.