Thörnströms Kök

Description:

• This is arguably the most discreetly fashionable restaurant in Gothenburg. It's also a bastion of fine cuisine; the chefs shake up tradition while respecting the innate flavors of their ingredients. The restaurant is tucked away in a quiet residential neighborhood, on the street level of a dignified-looking compound of brown-brick apartment buildings, on a hillside that rises above the terminus of the Avenyn. Everything about it is haute, from its social ambitions (you'll get the impression that everyone here is terribly polite about being terribly wealthy) to its prices. Begin perhaps with a bowl of lobster soup delectably flavored with lime butter and succulent chunks of lobster, along with mussels simmered in white wine and served, surprisingly, with fresh papaya. Main courses are even more rewarding, especially those fast-seared filets of turbot married to crab-stuffed agnolotti, glazed carrots, and a lemon-flavored chervil sauce. If only Julia Child were still alive to tell us what she thinks about serving an entrecôte of lamb with a pumpkin purée. The combination works, at least for us. We like how the pastry chef takes real care to create imaginative desserts such as a strawberry bavaroise (Bavarian cream) with rhubarb purée and even a rhubarb-flavored sorbet.

• © Frommer's 2013

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Highly Recommended 2010