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Is this the best cafe in Sweden to grab a fika?

Fill up the coffee cup and help yourself to a 'kanelbulle'. This is Sweden's best café according to food experts.

Published: 31 May 2016 11:53 CEST
Is this the best cafe in Sweden to grab a fika?
Annas Hembageri in Mariefred. Photo: Sofia Marcetic/TT

White Guide, the foodie group that annually lists the Nordic country's top restaurants and bars, and which Swedes like to think of as their very own Guide Michelin – has released its pick of Sweden's top cafés.

If you want to jump on the world's rapidly growing 'Swedish fika' trend of sitting down for a coffee and cake alone, with friends or work colleagues, apparently Annas Hembageri in Mariefred is the place to go.

Located in the central Swedish town by Lake Mälaren, about 50 kilometres west of Stockholm, the café claimed the top spot at the awards late on Monday. It is run by Robert and Anna Schweiz, a married couple who started the business after leaving behind their hectic lawyer and economist careers in the capital.

“For turning that little red cottage into a genuinely warm experience where craftsmanship and a sense of service brings joy to the constantly returning customers,” read the White Guide jury's motivation.

“Amazing,” Robert Schweiz commented the win. “We're trying to take in the praise as much as we can.”

WATCH: Fika is a coffee break, with emphasis on 'break'

What's fika? Well, if you've lived in Sweden for more than five minutes you'll be well aware of the almost-daily coffee-and-something-sweet routine. But the phenomenon has also been going global in recent years, with more and more Nordic coffee shops popping up abroad.

On home turf, the intimate, low-key tradition has put up a good fight against big chains cashing in. US coffee giant Starbucks did not open its first café in the country until 2010. It now owns 17 stores across Sweden. 

However, Swedish chain Espresso House owns 56.8 percent of the café market share, closely followed by Waynes Coffee at 21.4 percent, according to Delfi Fastfoodguide, which puts together statistics on the food and restaurant markets.

“You can tell that the big café chains are growing. But at the same time there's an explosion of new, cozy little cafés,” said Schweiz.

“That's what the audience wants. At the same time the big chains are going to stay at the central addresses where we are not even able to rent premises.”

Meanwhile, Nygrens Café in Alingsås, which has the most cafés per capita in Sweden, took home the award in the Fika Place of the Year category. 

“Our fika tradition in Alingsås dates back until a time when we had a lot of industries in the town and workers didn't have time to bake themselves, so they ate out at cafés,” co-owner Sandra Grönkvist told The Local of the centuries-old tradition earlier this spring.

Winners in all White Guide 2016 café categories

Café of the Year: Annas Hembageri, Mariefred

Patisserie of the Year: Conditori Nordpolen, Vara

Coffee Bar of the Year: Kale'i Kaffe & Mat, Gothenburg

Shooting Star of the Year: Älskade Traditioner, Stockholm

Sustainable Café of the Year: Hornsuddens Ekocafé, Strängnäs

Worth-a-trip of the Year: R C Chocolat, Sigtuna

Fika Place of the Year: Nygrens Café, Alingsås

Bakery of the Year: Bageri Petrus, Stockholm

FOOD AND DRINK

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

Should you tip in Sweden? Habits are changing fast thanks to new technology and a hard-pressed restaurant trade, writes James Savage.

Published: 5 April 2024 13:59 CEST
OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

The Local’s guide to tipping in Sweden is clear: tip for good service if you want to, but don’t feel the pressure: where servers in the US, for instance, rely on tips to live, waiters in Sweden have collectively bargained salaries with long vacations and generous benefits. 

But there are signs that this is changing, and the change is being accelerated by card machines. Now, many machines offer three preset gratuity percentages, usually starting with five percent and going up to fifteen or twenty. Previously they just asked the customer to fill in the total amount they wanted to pay.

This subtle change to a user interface sends a not-so-subtle message to customers: that tipping is expected and that most people are probably doing it. The button for not tipping is either a large-lettered ‘No Tip’ or a more subtle ‘Fortsätt’ or ‘Continue’ (it turns out you can continue without selecting a tip amount, but it’s not immediately clear to the user). 

I’ll confess, when I was first presented with this I was mildly irked: I usually tip if I’ve had table service, but waiting staff are treated as professionals and paid properly, guaranteed by deals with unions; menu prices are correspondingly high. The tip was a genuine token of appreciation.

But when I tweeted something to this effect (a tweet that went strangely viral), the responses I got made me think. Many people pointed out that the restaurant trade in Sweden is under enormous pressure, with rising costs, the after-effects of Covid and difficulties recruiting. And as Sweden has become more cosmopolitain, adding ten percent to the bill comes naturally to many.

Boulebar, a restaurant and bar chain with branches around Sweden and Denmark, had a longstanding policy of not accepting tips at all, reasoning that they were outdated and put diners in an uncomfortable position. But in 2021 CEO Henrik Kruse decided to change tack:

“It was a purely financial decision. We were under pressure due to Covid, and we had to keep wages down, so bringing back tips was the solution,” he said, adding that he has a collective agreement and staff also get a union bargained salary, before tips.

Yet for Kruse the new machines, with their pre-set tipping percentages, take things too far:

“We don’t use it, because it makes it even clearer that you’re asking for money. The guest should feel free not to tip. It’s more important for us that the guest feels free to tell people they’re satisfied.”

But for those restaurants that have adopted the new interfaces, the effect has been dramatic. Card processing company Kassacentralen, which was one of the first to launch this feature in Sweden, told Svenska Dagbladet this week that the feature had led to tips for the average establishment doubling, with some places seeing them rise six-fold.

Even unions are relaxed about tipping these days, perhaps understanding that they’re a significant extra income for their members. Union representatives have often in the past spoken out against tipping, arguing that the practice is demeaning to staff and that tips were spread unevenly, with staff in cafés or fast food joints getting nothing at all. But when I called the Swedish Hotel and Restaurant Union (HRF), a spokesman said that the union had no view on the practice, and it was a matter for staff, business owners and customers to decide.

So is tipping now expected in Sweden? The old advice probably still stands; waiters are still not as reliant on tips as staff in many other countries, so a lavish tip is not necessary. But as Swedes start to tip more generously, you might stick out if you leave nothing at all.

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