Italian espresso bar and deli in Vasastan, Stockholm

Sosta Espresso Bar

A Pause on Sveavägen

3.5 of 5

Sosta is Italian for a stop, a short pause, and that is the whole deal on Sveavägen. Since 1998 this small bar in Vasastan has been where people step off one of Stockholm's busiest streets for an espresso and then step back on. The house says plainly that the café has always been the foundation. Everything else was built later, around the coffee machine.

Everything else is now a fair amount. Sosta calls itself a deli these days, and the same room serves gelato, pizza, cured meats and a proper wine list. On Fridays the doors stay open until eight and the place turns into an afterwork stop, with aperitivo and wine on a drop-in basis. If you want to sit down and eat, they ask you to book by email, which feels charmingly old fashioned in a city that books everything through an app.

Order the espresso first, because that is why the place exists, and drink it the Italian way, without ceremony. Come back later in the week for a glass of something and a slice of pizza. I trust a bar that has outlived nearly three decades of Stockholm coffee fashions by doing the basic thing properly. Fashions come and go. A good espresso at half past seven in the morning never does.

Order this

Espresso, Gelato, Pizza with a glass of wine, A plate of affettati

The damage

$

Go

Early, from 7.30 on weekdays, for an espresso; Friday until 20.00 for aperitivo

Find it

Sveavägen 84, 113 59 Stockholm

Website

sosta.se