Tip #5 - Café culture

I often, at work, get asked to recommend a good place for lunch. While there are restaurants open for lunch... one can't escape the immensely popular café culture that you find in Sweden. Swedes, along with their fellow Scandinavians, are the top coffee consumers in the world. There are cafés on every corner throughout Stockholm and they are excellent places to eat lunch. Besides coffee, espresso drinks, tea and pastries they usually have good lunches... everything from salads, grilled sandwiches to regular lunch dishes. They are also excellent places to people-watch and get a feel of the city's pulse!

Stockholmers love to socialize in cafés and even have a word for it: fika (fee-ka). Both a verb and a noun, it means basically to take a break and meet casually with friends over coffee/tea and light food. Truly a Swedish social institution! So, my recommendation for lunch in Stockholm is to stop in at one of the many cafés, order a caffe latte and a grilled sandwich and watch Stockholmers doing what they like to do best.