Eating Out - Sturehov Castle Café

I briefly mentioned the overall lovely castle visit the other week in an earlier post, now is the time to do a bit more than brief mentioning. Sturehov castle - some miles south of the city centre, in the suburbial Botkyrka area - is a somewhat typical summer outing destination, I even think you can pick strawberries there. Thus we haven't been there in wintertime until now. And since a good walk and some areal exploration should be followed by a nice, and well deserved, food experience I also had the misconception of thinking the castle café was opened only during summers.



That misconception has now been corrected. The café, these days called Voltaire & Vänner (Voltaire & Friends), is opened all year around Saturday and Sundays. Judging by the name and the food display, the co-proprietor these days is the same sister Voltaire who co-owns a few other places for food in Stockholm;

Hurry Curry, by Hötorget inner city Stockholm and at Värtan harbour,
Flickorna Helin & Voltaire, Skånska Gruvan, Skansen, Djurgården, previously mentioned here, and
Bistro Voltaire, Dieselverkstaden, south suburb Nacka

The odd lunches - when the proprietors were different people - we've had there during summers have been rather nice and as you can enjoy the meal in the garden you can also bring the dog along. Now I was in fact very pleased to see that some people had their dogs with them indoors this time of the year too. Well behaved dogs snoozing away always make for an extra charming and cosy atmosphere. And as you can see the interior, as the café is situated in one of the castle wings, is just oozing lovliness in itself with a delightful mix of new and old details.

How about the food then? Well, as usual I really, really like their displays of sweet, often fairytailish looking cakes and cookies and the menus (consisting of sandwiches and lighter meals) always sound very tempting. Most of the times, as far as I'm concerned, the carrying through of what sounds mouthwatering is rather well done too. Food, sandwiches, cakes, tea and coffee have in general been both pleasing to the eye as well as palate. Albeit the cakes usually being overly sweet with the icing, so off with that eye candy and enjoy the cake plain as it should be.

This time however, I got one major fly in the ointment which was the chai latte. That must be concidered one of the worst beverages I've ever had. It was just a disgustingly sweet and artificially flavoured abomination. It was about as far away one can get from how a chai or a latte should taste. Loved the cups the beverages were served in though.

But we really enjoyed our sandwiches - minus for the overabundance of olive oil on mine though - I had a lovely rosemary bread with grilled veggies and an unusual green hommous served with crisp lettuce. M had anchovy hash on rye bread which he claimed was very nice. He also liked his raspberry mousse cake

whilst I found this not overly sweet and very nutty chewy wee thing to be the perfect thing to round of my lunch. Although a dash more cocoa in it would have been even better.

The view from the table did get every thumb present up, unconditionally.



In the buildings surrounding Sturehov castle there are also some arts & craftsmen, like a potter - remember the frog bowl - metalworker and antique shop. In the summers you can bring your own picnic to the castle garden and have a swim in the nearby lake. If my memory serves me right there are even boat trips to and from Stockholm city to Sturehov in the summers.

And of course, the place comes with its very own friendly, adorable castle cat. That always, a l w a y s, always brings an enormous amount of extra splendour and appeal to a place.

Sorry about the photos being all over the post, there seem to be some Blogger glitches at the moment.