24 degrees Celsius is not as bad as it sounds.
That’s what I tell my children as we get on the wooden sled attached to the sled and wrap ourselves in reindeer skin. It’s really just minus 11 Fahrenheit! If my children hear me, they won’t give any sign. They were buried in long layers of underpants, wool, fluff, more wool, perhaps some kind of Gore-Tex, foot warmers, and anything made of a headscarf. I can’t even see their faces. The two bodies crouching across from me on the sled might not even be my baby for all I know.
My husband, kids, and I are on our way, by chance, to get some of the best waffles in the whole of Sweden. But first you have to get there.
Waffle Promised Land — Hemfjällstugen — about 5 hours by car from Stockholm, about 3 miles from the nearest road in Sälen, a town on the western slopes of Sweden.
A few days earlier, a woman named Cissi Bjuredahl had warned me via email that Hemfjällstugen, lacking electricity and water, was not a restaurant at all. “We only serve soup, waffles and fika,” she wrote. Miss Bjuredahl also told me that the only way to get there is by sledding or cross-country skiing. “But remember you’re in the mountains, so if the weather is bad, don’t go if you haven’t tried skiing before,” she warns. And then, perhaps reverting to very Swedish honesty: “Welcome!”
Ergo, snowmobile. As Felix, our teenage driver, guided our sleigh towards Hemfjällstugen, we plunged into a blizzard, shapes and shadows fading into nothingness. It’s like viewing a picture in reverse: from depth and perspective to a seamless white void until the landscape is simply erased and you can’t tell the difference between the earth and the sky. God.
It’s a bit of a problem not knowing where the ground is. After about 20 minutes, my son popped out of the towel long enough to tell me he was scared, and could we please come back? But then, suddenly, we arrived at Hemfjällstugen: a modest chalet with a 30-foot pole with the Swedish flag blowing in the cold wind – everything but Mrs. Claus opening the front door and wiping her hands on her apron.
Inside, the Hemfjällstugen is lit entirely by candles and oil lamps. The dining area is a series of wooden tables and benches, a counter and a small menu board: waffles with homemade strawberry jam, waffles with homemade blueberry jam and waffles with homemade strawberry jam. I think there is a soup, too.
The flickering flames in each wood stove quickly drew crowds of skiers and snowmobiles who came, stripped of their clothes, waiting to regain sensation in their limbs. Soon, the cabin in the middle of the snowy forest – full of people taking off their helmets, making their own kanelbullar (Swedish cinnamon and cardamom rolls) and strong coffee – filled with Norse people. happy.
“This has to be the coziest restaurant in the world,” said my daughter, a connoisseur of these things.
Sweden, through and through
In general, Hemfjällstugen is in the town of Sälen. I have Swedish cousins who come here every year to ski, and this year we are going to join them for a few days. The town of Sälen is not well known outside of Sweden. It’s not like flying to Europe to ski in Courchavel or Gstaad. On the other hand, it’s only a few hours from Stockholm, Gothenberg, or in my family’s case, Jönköping – which means the place is entirely Swedish.
The whole area is called “Sälenfjällen” (meaning “Sälen mountain”). There are about half a dozen ski resorts in Sälenfjällen — Stöten, Hundfjället and Lindvallen are the ones we visited. The Swedes call the whole place “Sälen” for short, as Californians call “Tahoe” even though there are dozens of mountains there.
The mountains are not scary; they are what you will get if you sand from the top of the Alps down to the flat endless rolling hills. At the bottom they are covered with forest, but there are no trees at the top, so you can ski in most directions. The slopes are mostly gentle and there are trails for all levels of skiing, cross-country skiing and snowboarding.
Maybe the best reason to go to the top is to eat. There is almost always a restaurant sitting at the top, with a local, seasonal menu prepared by French-trained chefs.
“When you’re skiing all day, you’re going to want lots of good food,” says Daniel Ahlen, chef and owner of several restaurants in the area. Lyktanlocated on top of Hundfjället, and Baked Formes, located at the bottom of the same mountain and serves local hot dogs, vegan burgers and savory fries.
Mr. Ahlen focuses his menu on Swedish comfort food. “I think people would be really angry if we removed goulash from our menu,” he said. “In Dalarna, we have our own way of doing things. Our traditions of hunting, fishing and outdoor living here are the things we want to take care of and show off to the rest of Sweden.” On his list: “elk, birds, fish, berries in the woods.”
About those berries. Every menu, every drink list, every candy store (and there are plenty of them) has something out of the raspberry. I asked Mr. Ahlen why raspberries are famous here, and he explained that they are the pride of the forest, a rare berry in the Arctic. “If you are serving a waffle to a grown-up Swede, you have to serve it with strawberry jam,” said Mr. Ahlen, who also owns Våffelstugen Hundfjället, a nearby cabin specializing in waffles.
An après-ski party
A few days after our own waffle adventure, we spent a day skiing at Lindvallen, a few miles away. In the afternoon, as the sun went down, we decided to end the day at a restaurant called Sälen Original, a sloping bungalow nestled on the side of a mountain.
From the outside, I realize, it looks like the gingerbread house my Swedish mother used to make, always topped with a generous layer of white cream to perfection. But as thick white masses of snow fell and fell on us, it was clear that my mother’s gingerbread house, with its artistic cream accents and dripping icicles, wasn’t nearly frozen enough to reach. from this part of Sweden.
The relationship between darkness and light starts to trick you in this part of Sweden, where the sun sets around 3pm in December. Long, menacing shadows begin to follow you around lunchtime. , which reminds you that your ski day is on the clock (although many slopes have lights). The sky swam between dusty pink, pale yellow and icy blue.
Sälen Original takes après skiing to a whole new and ultra-Swedish level. When we walked in around 2:45, it was silent and almost empty. A man on a simple wooden stage is tuning his guitar. Then, at exactly 3 p.m., with stage precision, the doors opened and the Swedes burst in with their snowshoes, the tables filled with people, and the guitarists began.
People order schnapps with whipped cream, glasses of Jägermeister, giant kegs of beer as well as burgers, cookies, mountains of chips and, of course, waffles. When the guy with the guitar starts singing American rock and Swedish folk songs, the whole place comes to life. It’s a part of Swedish culture that I’ve always loved: the rule that if you’re eating and drinking with other people, there must be singing.
People ate, clapped and sang along, and ordered more glögg (spiced wine); The kids climbed the stairs, swinging their feet off the balcony, while the waiters carried skateboards – pre-drilled holes for schnapps – in all directions.
When we left, it was pitch black outside and completely silent. Perhaps Sälen, I was beginning to think, had more magic than other places. Kind red farmhouses, plumes of chimney smoke billowing from every village, wise forests, endless with their precious berries, their creatures, their secrets. Warm cabins and homemade waffles hide deep within these forests. The whole place is patrolled by elk, reindeer, very likely gnome. There’s a sweetness to Sälen, like you’ve been transported into a benevolent, snowy Swedish fairy tale.
Our last night we went to dinner at Gammelgården, a restaurant just outside of town. Gammelgården is perhaps the most traditional Swedish restaurant in the area, but at over 400 years old, “traditional” takes on a whole new meaning. Reindeer, elk, strawberry: The menu makes you feel like a Viking. With a blazing fire, a low wooden ceiling and numerous candles and bearded tomten – squat dwarves with big noses and long hats – on every surface, Gammelgården sparked a debate in the family. family about whether it can usurp Hemfjällstugen as the world’s coziest restaurant. Between courses, my son ran outside to lure four-foot icicles off the roof, and my daughter, on the other side of the mountain of mashed potatoes, began to fall asleep.
We stepped out into the cold snowy night. It was a long day and a hearty, warm dinner. It was so dark outside, it felt like the sky had fallen to the ground. We climbed into the car, headed home, maybe a bonfire, and went to bed. It was 7pm
Danielle Pergament is a frequent Times Travel contributor.
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