The Nobel Banquet – an annual celebration in honor of the academic, cultural and scientific achievements of the respective Nobel laureates for this year – is a prestigious event held every December 10, which the general public will never receive the honor of attending. Fortunately, this does not mean that we cannot enjoy any part of the celebrations enjoyed by Nobel Prize winners and their guests.
For the past 15 years, the Stadshuskällaren, a Swedish restaurant hidden in the basement of Stockholm City Hall, has provided every menu served during the Nobel Banquet from 1922 to the present day. (The banquet itself is held in the Blue Hall of the same building.) And with prior reservation, diners can enjoy the same dishes as the winners – from Sir Alexander Fleming, who won in 1945, to Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964 and Mother Teresa in 1979 (They dine on deer, goose liver and beef, respectively.)
“The Nobel Banquet is a holiday that is known worldwide, so we thought it would be a good idea to let everyone enjoy the food,” said Maria Strid, co-owner and CEO of Stadshuskällaren. “It would be fun to do if you travel from another country and want to try something special that is related to Sweden. Often people choose a particular year that is important to them, such as the year they were born or the year one of their country wins the award.
Oyster says no particular year has been more popular with diners, but notes that there are often increased requests for the Nobel banquet menu from the previous year. “Some of the earliest menus offer dishes that may not be as popular with guests today as turtle soup,” she says. “And in some of the menus of the 1960s, the appetizer is chicken, which is no longer considered such a specialty these days.”
But despite the choice of ingredients, the team of chefs responsible for recreating the dishes is adamant that they are as close in taste and appearance to the originally served. To make the experience as authentic as possible, the restaurant also arranges the food in porcelain dishes with gold edging, which is the same as the sets used at the banquet. Each menu is also offered with wine that is as close in taste as the one served for the specific year.
“Some of the wines served over the years are too expensive to serve today,” says Maria, “so we try to find ones with the same character and the same grapes that are suitable as flavor combinations for food.”
Although cooking can often be a challenge – for menus that are older than the previous year, Oyster wants guests to make a reservation at the restaurant at least a week in advance to ensure that the kitchen can accommodate all necessary ingredients. As the restaurant also serves a regular dinner menu every night, there are two kitchens serving the restaurant, one focusing only on dishes outside the historic menu. Oyster estimates that 2,000 visitors come to the restaurant each year to try a dish from this menu. While a smaller group of guests can take advantage of the latest menu, she says that for older menus, visitors must be at least 10 people and that in the past the restaurant accommodated groups of up to 80. The price for a visit varies in depending on the year, but the menu for 2018 is about 1795 crowns or approximately 200 dollars.
Creating a new banquet menu every year is a complex endeavor in itself. The assignment takes about a year to prepare and involves a team of consultant chefs working closely with Oyster and its staff, as well as members of the Nobel Foundation.
For the past 15 years, chef Fredrik Erickson has had the honor of working with the Nobel Foundation on banquet menus. The process is detailed and includes numerous revisions and several official tastings. He and his team must not only create a multi-tiered menu that serves more than 1,000 guests at a time, but must also take into account dietary restrictions and the availability of ingredients, as the kitchen designs the menu in the spring, but must consider what products will be offered during the colder months when the banquet is held.
“We work closely with farmers in Sweden and try to ensure that the menu is as fresh as possible by using local ingredients,” says Erickson. “We also have sommelier who choose wines and a team of confectioners who create desserts to complement the dinner.”
