Thank God it’s Friday

We all love Fridays. Friday is the perfect day between work and play: the week’s work behind you, the weekend’s play still ahead. Making your Friday evening count makes your entire weekend seem much longer – even if it’s just a dinner for two in your own kitchen.

Lately, Stockholm’s restaurants and delis have caught on to this, too. Many of them are now offering a special Friday bag, packed with goodies to kick-start your weekend. Lux Dag för Dag has a Friday bag you pick up from their walk through counter around lunchtime. For 495 kronor, you get a full three-course menu for two. Everything is almost done, so all you need to do is warm or fry some ingredients. And the food sure beats the regular supermarket meals or take-away pizzas. Menus change from week to week, but potato and leek soup with shrimp and dill, cod with mussels, spinach, horseradish and potatoes, and crème caramel with rhubarb and sugar are among past favourites.

Pontus Frithiof’s Pocket Deli charges 390 kronor for their Friday bag, also a three-course meal for two. The ingredients are in line with Pocket’s classic French/Swedish bistro style; a bag in late February, for instance, contained Toast Skagen, boeuf Bourguignon and crème caramel. The deli store Cajsa Varg has a similar concept for 250 kronor, but you buy the starter and dessert separately for around 50 kronor each – ceviche or panna cotta, for instance. The de luxe option seems to be Melanders, the chain of fishmongers, whose Friday bag costs 590 kronor and contains, naturally, fresh fish and seafood.

And if your Friday is busy, you can take a head start and get your bag the day before from Långbro Värdshus in Älvsjö, where the chefs have devised the Thursday bag. Same concept as above – past menus have included for instance lemony duck breast with pumpkin purée and chocolate terrine with sea buckthorn and roasted macadamia nuts – but you get yours after 4 pm on Thursday and pay only 295 kronor.