When I received an invitation to attend the Nobel prize ceremony in Stockholm, I believed this to be the honor of a lifetime. However, it turns out I was mistaken, as shortly thereafter Gabriel invited me to contribute a review to his breakfast blog.
As part of my trip to Stockholm, I stayed at the Grand Hotel, which is too luxurious for Gabriel. There are two distinct breakfast options at the Grand. The Veranda, which is limited to hotel guests, offers a buffet. The Cadier, which is situated in the hotel bar and is open to the public, has a fixed menu but comes with table service. Both feel incredibly opulent and have spectacular harbor views.
The food at the Veranda was excellent. The selection was more than ample, although limited to European breakfast foods. The vegetable omelettes were a standout. Unlike almost every other hotel breakfast buffet that I have ever been to, this one has smoked salmon. Actually, two different kinds of smoked salmon. They also bring you enough coffee to keep you awake for the next two days and I ended up sharing mine with a nice lady at the next table. The quality of the food was well above what you would expect from a hotel buffet, but I guess this is what 5* implies. My one food-related quibble was with some sort of round bread that had a hole in the middle. It was situated next to cream cheese and smoked salmon, so it obviously was meant to be a bagel. Suffice to say, it was not up to my New York standards. However, the circumstances of my visit more than made up for this. Nowhere else would I have held open the lid on a cheese platter so that a Nobel laureate could serve himself!
The Cadier was a different experience altogether, and an even more opulent one. The menu is fixed, but they bring you plates and plates of food. More than I could eat. To start, a cappuccino, fresh orange juice, two types of croissant, yoghurt with fruit and granola, and a bread roll. This was followed by scrambled eggs and avocado. The next courses were meant to be a ham and cheese plate and a fruit plate, but I planned a morning run by the harbor and had eaten enough. Everything was excellent. The scrambled eggs were outstanding, clearly slow cooked and probably the creamiest eggs I have ever had. However, slow was a general theme of the Cadier – you can’t be in a hurry here. This was slow food, accompanied by somewhat slow service.
Overall rating 9.5/10. If you have time and are not as fussy as I am about bagels, it is a clear 10. Perhaps more than any hotel I have visited (with the possible exception of the Blue Mansion in Penang), the Stockholm Grand is an experience to be savored. It is, well, GRAND! (Andrew Seltzer)