Since I moved from Umeå this past June, this weekend I was down to this years capitol of culture to enjoy a weekend with friends. Gotthards Krog is located in an old building near the riverbank that over hundred years ago served as both a hotel and sailorhouse for people working with either boat building or log shipping. Before Gotthards there was a restaurant known as Viktor/Victoria (a quite popular place with great food) that moved their location into the newly renovated grand hotel and changed its name to what it is now. In every sense of the word, Gotthards is a restaurant that is the most upscale place in town. The interior and decoration of the place is without a doubt flawless. Modern with a classical feel and they drive the sailor-line from clothes, table decorations, colors and subtle decorations. Their strive is to be an upscale tavern suitable for any (at least, most) without being pretentious. The thing is, they fail quite miserably. I had not seen some of my friends for months, and we all go out together to enjoy each others company, great food, good drinks and fantastic wines. Truth to be told, it didn't even start off well from the get-go.
We were seated at a nice corner-table and shortly one in our company gently asks for a wine to start with that she had heard about. The waiter answered "Ah, you mean that one" and he goes on a little bit more about it, and my friend says "yes, exactly that one, may I have a glass please". "We're all out of it!" was the momentous reply from the waiter. Slightly confounded she asks about another wine that she was also really interested in and now the waiter talks even more about it, the flavor-profile etc, and she replies "yes, I'll have that one!" followed by the same comment "We're all out of it!". I mean really, come on! If you as a waiter hand out a wine-list, at least have the decency to beforehand kindly point out which wines you don't have in your cellar to avoid situations like this! The waiter was also very in-your-face and didn't feel one bit professional, more than anything he seemed stressed and out of tune as how to work a group pf paying customers. Slight mishaps aside, we ordered some cocktails (I had a classic Bramble) and wine while starting to go over the menu. I settled for the appetizer Reykjavik that consisted of burnt cucumber, dashi, saltwater greens, garlic puree, char spawn, oyster, lobster tail, and scallops served with broth. This dish I must say was the highlight of my three-course meal. Really tasty, well-prepared and flavorsome broth. Two of my friends ordered Shanghai that featured celeriac, apple, pickeled mungbeans, red-onion leaves and air-dried slices of beef. They were both disappointed, primarily over such a thing that the celeriac still had the hairy outer skin still on them. Doesn't make for a sensational tasting, let me tell you. Felt like chewing hair (I tasted it and it was really awful). One of my friends were driving so she ordered an alcoholic-free white wine. Imagine her surprise when (another waiter) started pouring into her glass and out comes something more looking like a rosewine. "Uhm, this is not a white wine....", she says and then this other waiter snarled at her "Well this is the only one we have!". She tasted the wine and it was overly sweet and tasted horrible, so she kindly asked if they had anything else. Apparently they also had must of apple so she ordered that instead. However, when she tried that it tasted more like artificial apple juice from the local grocery store next-door that they had topped off with carbonic acid. Horrendous.
Drinks aside, the main course Dundee was on my behalf a nicely prepared fillet of dear served with coffee-encrusted junipers, hazelnuts, smoked onion, mushrooms, feta cheese, celeriac fries, lingonberries, and coffee jus. It was tasty, pleasant on the palate, but really nothing out of the ordinary. The dessert was a cream pudding, vanilla, cloudberry sorbet, smoked butter and almonds. Nice, sweet, sour, a bit of crunch, but again nothing special. We paid for our food but since we wanted to sit around and talk for another couple of hours we remained at Gotthards for a cocktail night that was a clearly better experience than the food. They surely know their cocktails (they made one of the best Gin Fizz I've had in a long time), and apart from a Mojito mishap that ended up far too sweet, we were all happy with how the night ended that had been accompanied by laughs and genuinely friendly smiles. I just wished the food would have been up to par. But if they keep this line on how to treat and appraise their customers, they will sooner rather than later be without said customers, cause the prices does not even by a mile justify the experience. read more
