Misshumasshu

‘What’s your gut feeling? People who come here a lot say cilantro sour, and then they’re in for a hell of a ride.’

The guy in the small bar sets the tone. And I’ll be damned if even the dreariest Tuesday evening doesn’t turn into a bit of a party here. Misshumasshu has succeeded not just in exorcising our weekday blues – it’s done it with the entire Birger Jarlspassagen, which in recent decades has been a veritable wasteland.

Dahlberg and Wessman serve the best ramen in suited Stockholm, and it’s a good idea to let a guacamasshu precede it. That’s a whole, pitted avocado that you mash up yourself with coriander, ponzu and roasted rice, and then dip brittle rice crisps into. The menu also has a number of small dishes, bowls and brochettes. A garlic-heavy and (too) salty button mushroom with puffed rice and a poached egg is yours for just under SEK 100, while you have to double that for a bluefin tuna’s thinly sliced belly, beautifully marbled and wrapped around a heap of rice pudding croutons and judicious drops of a better-quality soy sauce.

The blockbuster that is yuzu is found in the drinks as well as the food menu, and it’s particularly marvellously evident in the chunky granita that serves as the bed for a generous amount of thin slices of mango, brushed with grassy olive oil, a couple of crystals of salt, and sansho pepper.

Quality restaurants in a shopping environment are a bit of a trend at the moment. On behalf of all restaurant owners we’re wishing for a summer that’s as hot as last year’s, when the cool indoors was all you wanted. In the event of more normal temperatures, Misshumasshu has the prep done for dishes you can take out – to nearby Berzelii Park, for instance.

Published december 2019