Frantzén/ Lindeberg is about what many new wave gastronomy restaurants are not. Delicious, great-tasting food. The 2 Michelin stars place is run by two brilliant Swedish chefs Björn Frantzén and Daniel Lindeberg who are obsessed with perfect ingredients ( 95 % of which come from Sweden and neighbouring countries).
Because of some last-minute cancellation, we had an opportunity to sit at the chefs’ table. What an evening it was! Live langoustines showed off on your table before being transformed into a (raw) tartare with celery, lard and apples; freshly baked bread with butter churned in front of you or beautiful, firm scallops from Trondheim cooked over an open fire and shaved over with black truffles from Bourgogne. Yes, Frantzén and Lindeberg do own their own garden where they grow their vegetables and herbs ( “The Satio Tempestas” dish was impressive ), but what really makes them stand out is their focus on how their dishes taste. Why use black truffles from Gotland which taste like nothing if it’s the season of truffles from Bourgogne at the moment? Once we ate the scallops, scallops dashi was poured into the scallops shells. I did feel a little bit like at some exclusive restaurant in Tokyo with a chef cooking in front of you, chatting and guiding you through the gastronomic voyage.
I particularly liked bone marrow with smoked parsley, “smetana” and Oscietra caviar ( the caviar was German by the way) and, another very memorable dish, Swedish marbled beef with truffle shavings. Despite an old age ( the animal was 11 or 12 years I think, the meat was dry-aged for several months), the simply prepared “Chubai” beef was melting in your mouth.
The handwritten evening’s menu was divided into 4 different sections. Once the time of “Chapter 4 and Epilogue” came, Daniel Lindeberg, the pastry chef, showed up. Oxidized pear granita with hazelnut emulsion, sea salt & flat “Braggot Mead”; sea buckthorn sorbet with whipped Oolong mousse, meringues with matcha tea & crystalized sea lettuce, or dried pig’s blood petit four with pig blood’s cream, blackberries and bitter chocolate. Like the savoury part, the desserts were an elegant homage to local and seasonal Scandinavian ingredients without being too much radical about that. Frantzén/ Lindeberg is definitely among the world’s greatest!
The evening’s menu…
Blood pancake, liver with lingonberries and beetroot; spelt brioche with chicken skin and dried butter; beef from “Chubai” (46 months old) on lichens’s head in shellfish emulsion, vendace roe on pork rinds; “vichyssoise” with truffle and ash; carrot macaron with bird’s liver and tarragon…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4 & Epilogue
Petit fours
Dried pig’s blood with pig’s blood cream, blackberries and bitter chocolate; fermented garlic; glazed blueberry biscuit with toasted pine kernels, bark and pickled spruce shoots; “fruit du jour”; fresh walnuts from Bordeaux, salted walnut and chocolate turron; salted caramel macaron flavoured with tar&hay ash; macaron with arctic raspberry ganache…
