helping feed the hungry in stockholm
Stockholm’s Gamla Stan neighborhood has that quaint, old town feel that most European cities have tucked away for safekeeping. While crossing the bridge over to Drottninggatan Street transports you into a completely gentrified and eclectic soup of Club Monaco sprinkled with sex shops and a dash of FINAL-SALE record stores, Gamla Stan offers up a platter of antique shops, handicraft stores and quiet restaurants with plaza-side seating ideal for people watching. Stockholm Stadsmission, located on the corner of Stortorget, the city’s oldest square, is a charitable organization with second-hand shop and cafe, Grillska Huset (“Grill House”). Being a non-Swedish speaker, this cafeteria-style restaurant with foreign menus (read: no English translation) was a bit intimidating at first. It’s pretty self-explanatory though: the salad bar in the center is fresh – serving an array of vegetables, hummus and couscous that can be paired with the soup of the day or a sandwich. Most of the meals come with coffee or tea and the pastry selection, featuring shaved almond tarts and pretzel-shaped dough topped with sweet sugar crystals, is divine.
