Fish bistro in a market hall in Norrmalm (Hötorget), Stockholm

Kajsas Fisk

Fish Soup Down the Escalator

3.5 of 5

Ride the escalator down into Hötorgshallen, bear slightly right, and you are there. Kajsas Fisk has been a family restaurant in this basement since 1984. No reservations, no fuss, no speech about the provenance of the cod. You walk in, you find a seat, you order. It has run on drop-in for decades and sees no reason to change.

Nearly everybody comes for the soup. It is a shellfish soup the house still makes from its original recipe, thick with shrimp and mussels and finished with aioli, and it costs 150 kronor, which in central Stockholm feels close to charity. If soup sounds too easy, the fried Baltic herring comes with mashed potatoes and your choice of remoulade or mustard sauce for 135. Plaice fillets are fried with capers and served with beetroot and pressed potatoes. Lightly salted salmon arrives with dill-stewed potatoes. A plate of herring on crispbread with a strong beer is about the cheapest serious lunch in the building.

The room is plain to the point of stubbornness, and that is the appeal. For four decades the kitchen has polished a short list of dishes instead of chasing new ones, and kept them at prices most people can manage. It shuts at six on most days and at four on Saturday, so treat it as a lunch address, not a dinner plan. Take the soup, then ride back up and walk the stalls.

Order this

Kajsas fisksoppa with shrimp, mussels and aioli, Fried Baltic herring with mash and remoulade or mustard sauce, Fried plaice fillets with capers, beetroot and pressed potatoes, Strömming on crispbread with a strong beer

The damage

$

Go

Weekday lunch from 11, before the queue builds; open Monday to Thursday 11 to 18, Friday to 19, Saturday to 16, closed Sunday

Find it

Hötorgshallen, Hötorget 3, Stockholm (lower floor; hall address Sergelgatan 29, 111 57)

Website

kajsasfisk.se