A chef returns to his Swedish roots
Long before trips to Copenhagen were de rigueur for every serious food lover and before there was such a thing as “new Nordic cuisine,” there was Ikea.
The populist home of cut-rate, assemble-it-yourself furniture, which opened its first stateside outpost 30 years ago, arguably introduced the American public to Swedish food, one lingonberry and meatball at a time.
But to taste real Swedish meatballs made by a real Swedish chef, I drive a mile or so past the Emeryville location of Ikea to the modern, midcentury furniture-filled home of Staffan Terje, chefowner of Perbacco, Barbacco and — opening later this month — his newest restaurant, Volta.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Terje, who speaks with a slight accent, is Italian; Perbacco, which turns 10 this year, serves Italian food, and Terje has a hell of a way with pasta.
He actually hails from Nyköp-ing, Sweden, a small town 100 miles south of Stockholm. He moved to the United States in 1982, first to Florida for three years, then to Southern California, where he spent a year and a half before finally settling in San Francisco. “I thought I would come to the States for a while, earn bragging rights, then return to Stockholm and tell everyone where I’d been,” recalls Terje, smiling at the memory. “That was 33 years ago.”
At Volta (Latin for “new direction,” a name that acknowledges the restaurant’s non-Italian nature), Terje plans to introduce San Franciscans to the Swedish brasserie, a genre of restaurant popular in Stockholm. “The backbone of Swedish food is French,” says Terje. “People joke that the national sauce of Sweden is béarnaise, and French food is what I learned to cook first.” The restaurant will serve classic French brasserie dishes, albeit with some California twists, along with “a good amount of Swedish food,” including Swedish meatballs.
Terje’s version, a blend of ground beef, pork and veal, enriched with cream, laced with allspice and nutmeg, and fried in butter, are tender and soft; utterly irresistible. He cloaks them in rich brown gravy and settles the rich orbs into a mound of mashed potatoes. “They’re a Swedish Christmas-dinner staple,” says Terje, who serves them in traditional fashion, sided by sweettart lingonberry sauce and a crisp cucumber salad. The meatballs can be made ahead and frozen (a boon for the crazed weeks between now and the holidays) and are beloved by children and adults alike. They are the ultimate in comfort food. Perhaps the meatballs are responsible for Sweden’s peace and the happiness of its residents.
Ikea expects to sell 236 million Swedish meatballs in the United States this year.
But trust me: None of them will taste as good as those you’ll make using this recipe.