Tere!
Here I will talk about five restaurants and cafes that I went to in Gothenburg. My trip tends to be a budget trip, so those restaurants and cafes are not too expensive to go to. While I was writing this article, I kind of missed gelato in Gothenburg as in Estonia the temperature finally marked over 30 degrees and it was the end of June, 2022.
I wandered around Gothenburg only for two days, hence this article introduces only five restaurants and cafes. However, of course you can find more international or Swedish and/or fancy restaurants and cafes if you look in Gothenburg.
Table of Contents
1. Gothenburg
a. Bönor & Bagels
b. Gelaterian Göteborg
c. Ramen-Ya
d. Manniny
e. The Elephant
f. Café Linné
g. Café Husaren
h. Botaniska Paviljongen
1. Malmö
a. Smörrebröd By Freda
★Summary
Gothenburg
a. Bönor & Bagels
Bönor & Bagels is apparently a bagel cafe. In Estonia, you can hardly get bagels, so quite often when I travel to some other countries, I eat bagels. When I visited Ireland in March 2019, I had a bagel there too. However, I still think the one in Riga was the most amazing ever.
b. Gelaterian Göteborg
When I travelled in Gothenburg, it was quite warm, and the weather was pretty nice, so I felt like having something sweet and cold, so I headed to a gelato shop called Gelaterian Göteborg by walking for 20 minutes (as an exercise).
This is extra information, but while walking there, I was simultaneously looking for an ATM, but there was nothing on the way. Then I found a 7-Eleven in front of the gelato shop, so silk or swim, I looked for an ATM there. I found one there, and withdrew 500 SEK, paying 40 SEK + around 2 EUR. (This means that there were two transaction fees.) I actually brough 80 SEK (approx. 8 EUR), but the bagel shop wasn’t able to accept a card payment, plus for some reason I couldn’t pay by touching a card at a supermarket near the hostel, I withdrew around 50 EUR.
At Gelaterian Göteborg, I couldn’t find what I wanted to try, so I chose alternatives, and yet the alternative options were tasty enough. I chose brynt (something like caramel or toffee), and strawberry with lime. Thank god, I could pay by card touch. It was the middle of the weekdays, but there was a queue in front of the gelato shop. I also found a small hill near the shop, so I would recommend you to go there to have gelato when the weather is nice. (I did this too.)
c. Ramen-Ya
Ramen-Ya is a Japanese noodle (ramen) restaurant, and it literally means “a ramen restaurant” in Japanese. I’m not a huge fan of ramen, but as I searched there online, I found that they had Tantanmen which I cannot eat in Estonia, and is probably quite extraordinary even in other bigger european countries. For this menu, I chose Ramen-Ya. I could get one seat as I was travelling by myself, but if you go there with a group of more than 2 people, it seems to be better to book a table in advance.
I selected Tantanmen as I had originally thought, and yet the spicy soup went to my trachea, so I had a physical agony for a while.
I don’t usually eat all the soup in ramen, but since this restaurant’s soup was not too salty, I could finish it all. If you wish, you can add garlic as they serve a bowl of garlic and a masher too, but I didn’t add any. (By the way, if you are a ramen lover, and always/often eat all the soup in ramen, this action may actually make your body unable to eat ramen itself eventually, so it’s not good. The source is in Japanese.)
d. Manniny
Since I realised I had not had coffee at all while staying in Sweden, and I got physically so tired due to walking too much, I went to a cafe called Manniny to sit and relax.
It’s a really small cafe, but there are around three seats outside. When I went there, all of them were taken, and thought maybe the noise of trams would bother me, so I took one seat inside.
When I went to Sweden this time, it was relatively warm although it was still March, I felt like having something refreshing like veggies. However, all the sandwiches available here were quite big, and I didn’t want that a lot. Hence, I decided to have a piece of a daily cake (which does not sound refreshing) and a cup of coffee called lungo. (Lungo is said to be espresso coffee but with double the amount of water.)
Also, although at that time I didn’t know the name, I found a small sweet that is often found in Gothenburg and Malmö. I wanted to have tried though. (Later I googled, and found the name was dammsugare which is a Swedish sweet. I didn’t know how it looked.)
I didn’t plan to go to this cafe, but it was pretty cosy, and a nice place.
e. The Elephant
For the last supper in Gothenburg, I went to an Indian restaurant called The Elephant. Later I found it seemed to be a local chain restaurant.
Initially I thought “Eastern African cuisine sounds tasty.” → “But it’s far from the hostel by walk, I don’t want to walk anymore.” → “I want to try Lebanon cuisine.” → “It feels awkward to enter there.” → “Oh, there is an Indian restaurant (The Elephant), I’m going there.”
This is how I decided to go there.
Of course you can have Indian cuisine in Tallinn, but since quite often it’s almost impossible or pretty expensive to eat lamb there, I enjoyed it in Gothenburg.
Estonia has lots of global businesses, and more immigrants have come, but in terms of international foods, it is unsatisfactory yet, and you can barely get anything amazing unless you go to some other big international cities in other countries in my opinon.
f. Café Linné
Café Linné is a cafe in Gothenburg, and they open at 8.30 am. I went to Café Linné to have some breakfast (I went there in 2023).
They have breakfast menus, but they also accept other general orders. Iin my opinion, a Swedish shrimp sandwich is a must-eat when going to the seaside in Sweden. I have eaten it once in Malmö in 2022, and it was as small as a palm so I expected the similar one in Café Linné, and yet they gave me a huge shrimp sandwich! 😂
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According to my friend in Sweden, that’s the normal size. 😂
They have the English menu somewhere so ask them if you need it. In my case, I could read the Swedish menu, but I couldn’t understand what the staff member was talking about to me in Swedish. So when she asked me if I needed the English menu, in English, I naturally responded in English. I’m not confident enough to speak Swedish yet.
As for the shrimp sandwich, there are lots of shrimps on the plate, so I recommend having it. The price might be normal in Sweden though it cost 170 SEK (14 EUR).
g. Café Husaren
Cinnamon buns are pretty famous in northern Europe including Sweden. If you go to Gothenburg, I recommend Café Husaren and trying their cinnamon buns!
This is because their cinnamon buns are giant!!!!!
The size is three or four times bigger than a regular-sized cinnamon bun.
I recommend having one cinnamon bun in Café Husaren with more than one person as you cannot eat it all by yourself unless you have a very sweet tooth. However, should you go there by yourself and not be able to eat all the cinnamon bun alone, no worries, you can get a bag for that if you ask a waiter there.
I tried to eat their cinnamon bun, dividing it into two times, but it was still too sweet to finish it all…. It tasted good though.
In Café Husaren, there are also some Swedish sweets such as dammsugare or princess cake, but they don’t look traditional. It’s fun to see them so that could be your purpose too.
Café Husaren is located in the Haga district which is just like a regular old town in Europe. (Well, at least for me who has lived in Tallinn…)
And here’s one tip when travelling in Sweden.
When ordering a normal black coffee at a cafe in Sweden, you may see the word “påtår”. It means another cup of coffee, and in the countryside, sometimes påtår is free. I guess they have this because of their coffee break culture called “fika”.
h. Botaniska Paviljongen
If you get physically tired of walking in the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, let’s take a break. There’s a cafe called Botaniska Paviljongen.
Their menu is nothing special and they don’t have a lot of options, but in Botaniska Paviljongen in summer, you can have some iced coffee. What is better, if the weather is nice, you can relax, surrounded by plants and flowers.
They accepted only card payments.
2. Malmö
a. Smörrebröd By Freda
Smörrebröd By Freda is a sandwich cafe/restaurant in Malmö. Their sandwiches are not like ones you can get at a supermarket or somewhere but open sandwiches. You can choose either take away or eat at Smörrebröd By Freda. If you choose to eat in, there are some seats (with charging sockets!) around Smörrebröd By Freda, so you can eat there.
Smörrebröd By Freda has several options of sandwiches, and everything costs the same except a shrimp sandwich which was 10 SEK more expensive than others. (But I believe shrimps are relatively expensive everywhere in general.) It seems in Malmö shrimp sandwiches are quite well-known, and when I googled Malmö foods online, I saw shrimp sandwiches multiple times in search results. Therefore, I could not help but to choose the shrimp sandwich. At Smörrebröd By Freda one sandwich cost 30 SEK, and the shrimp sandwich cost 40 SEK, but if I bought a set of three, it cost 89. However, I chose the shrimp sandwich, it (a set of three sandwiches) was 99 SEK (as of March 2022). When I looked up Smörrebröd By Freda’s website now, one sandwich is now 48 SEK, one shrimp sandwich costs 65 SEK. The prices have been drastically increasing everywhere….
In addition to the shrimp sandwich, I selected a sandwich with Prosciutto ham as I like it, and a sandwich with chicken curry which I usually don’t choose. The one with chicken curry didn’t taste like curry that much. Although it cost around 10EUR for only three sandwiches, it was Malmö in Sweden where basically everything is expensive, and actually the sandwiches were pretty tasty, it’s all good.
I went to only Smörrebröd By Freda for eating as I went to Malmö for a day trip, so I have no idea about other restaurants or cafes, but I would recommend you to try Smörrebröd By Freda’s sandwiches when you go to Malmö.
★Summary
As described in the other article about the places to visit in Gothenburg, where I wandered in Gothenburg is merely a part of Gothenburg. Therefore, there are many more shops, restaurants and cafes.
When you go to Gothenburg, you may go to one of the places above, and/or you may look for something you like better.
But be careful with places with low rates and negative reviews!
Aitäh! 🙂
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