Den Gyldene Freden

The Golden Peace

3.5 of 5

Den Gyldene Freden has served guests at the same address since 1722. It is named for the Peace of Nystad, the treaty that let Sweden keep Finland. Guinness has called it the second oldest restaurant in the world to have the same surroundings. A restaurant that has outlasted that many governments does not have to prove anything to you.

It has been a hangout for poets and painters. Carl Michael Bellman, Evert Taube and Cornelis Vreeswijk all sang about it. The painter Anders Zorn bought it in 1919 to stop it closing. Now the Swedish Academy owns the building, the same people who pick the Nobel Prize in Literature, and they have their dinner there every Thursday. I do not know what they argue about. I would pay to listen.

I could not confirm the current menu from the sources I could reach, so I will not list dishes. Check the restaurant's own page before you go. Book a weeknight, steer clear of Thursday unless you want to sit near the literary gatekeepers, and take someone who enjoys history more than plating. You are not here for the newest idea in the city. You are here for the oldest room that still works.

Order this: Ask for the Swedish classics on the current menu, A table in the old cellar rooms
The damage: $$$
Go: A weeknight, to hear the old room instead of the tourists
Find it: Österlånggatan 51, Gamla Stan, Stockholm