Oaxen Krog & Slip


Posted July 15, 2014 in Food & Drink

oaxen

Between 2005 and 2011 the Oaxen restaurant, with the same name as the small island in Stockholm’s southern archipelago where it was situated, was named the best restaurant in Sweden on four occasions. After 17 years in their remote location they re-opened last year at Djurgården, still situated by the waterside but more accessible to the average Stockholmer. Not only due to the more central location but also by dividing the restaurant into two separate dining rooms with a joint kitchen. Oaxen Krog serve the more exclusive fare, while Oaxen Slip commands a more bistro-like character.

The move facilitated the Michelin star they were rewarded with in March of this year to the joy of restaurateur couple Magnus Ek and Agneta Green. “We have the ambition to be one of the best restaurants in Sweden so the star is an important testimony to that,” they say.

We occupy two of the 35 seats on offer at Oaxen Krog in the former shipyard with the glorious amount of space and generous height to the ceiling. The view across the water towards Beckholmen is magnificent even if it seems most of the diners would rather face the action in the kitchen. The laying of the table is sparse but elegant. A six-course and a ten-course menu based on seasonal produce are served every day and we opt for the ten-course experience. In a pleasant tempo we are first treated to seven appetizers, the first carried up to our table by Magnus himself. A Jerusalem artichoke with ox-marrow and thin apple biscuit that is delightful, just like the quail egg with vendance roe. As are the roasted celery and the crab, as well as their ham and the clam in broth. It’s quite a spectacular start. A good bread is placed on our table with newly-churned butter. I’m not the only one to become enthused by this lager bread of theirs, a sweetened rye bread.

The first proper dish arrives and it is HYVLAD sea urchin butter with aged carrot, a raw shrimp and scallop roe. It’s a fun experience trying sea urchin since it’s been somewhat of a fad within gastronomy of late. The dish is followed by a perfectly cooked Swedish lobster with dill in an oyster sauce, turnip cabbage, spruce and leavened shallot. It’s one of the highlights of the evening, but there would be more of the same.

A savoury kale with aged swede turnip with Djurgården apples and parsley cream is a signature dish and is superseded by a lightly fried langoustine with chanterelle and a grilled salad that was as appealing as it may sound.

This tasteful and impressive gastronomic treat continued with a thinly sliced raw topside of reindeer with char roe, garlic mustard puree, fermented black Tuscan kale and Cladonia stellaris that was interesting and gave a very foresty feel. A lightly salted Arctic cod with a beetroot cream, horn of plenty and a black Skilleby garlic followed on from where we left off. Most of these herbs and plants they are using are growing wildly and picked and gathered right here on the island of Djurgården.

The meat dish was next; roast beef from IWagyu with a pumpkin cream, parsnip and oakmoss from Mörkö Island. And then the exotic dish with baby onions and Brussel sprouts in LEAVENED/FERMENTED blueberry juice, Gotland juniper berry curd, oxblood gravy and Djurgården chervil was exotic. Especially the powerful oxblood gravy.

Desserts arrived beginning with a purée of common polypody and chervil with a white chocolate and fennel juice mousse topped with burned white chocolate. Then came the worthy end to a truly memorable evening with ice-cream of woodruff with cloudberry, LEAVENED/FERMENTED cream and chocolate crumbs.

To sum up, a visit at Oaxen Krog gives a magnificent general impression where Magnus Ek, through modern techniques refine natural produce into innovative dishes of the highest gastronomical level. The cooking is very nature-orientated with a lot of their own and local produce which is in line with their values – the best produce are selected due to origin, NÄRHET, lasting ability and a humane animal keeping. Core values we certainly agree on.

 

Words by Paul Dahlgren

 

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