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KEBAB

The kebab pizza is Sweden’s favourite

Kebab meat - yes, kebab meat - is the most popular pizza topping in Sweden, according to a new survey which also shows that pizza sales double on New Year's Day.

Published: 29 December 2012 16:15 CET
The kebab pizza is Sweden's favourite

The New Year’s period is a busy time for Sweden’s pizzerias and, according to a survey by pizza delivery company Online Pizza, many Swedes will kick off 2013 by digging into a meaty kebab pizza.

The kebab pizza is a Swedish invention which combines Italian and Turkish cuisine in a way that might horrify Italians and Turks.

In Sweden, however, it has been a big hit, particularly among the drunk, anecdotal evidence shows.

Sweden’s first pizzeria opened in 1947 in Västerås, central Sweden after 300 Italian guest workers moved to the city. In the 1960s pizzerias started popping up around the country and pizza became the most common fast food in Sweden.

Kebab first came to Sweden in the 1980s and is often served with a dipping sauce made out of sour cream or yoghurt and a special spice mix. It is known as kebab sauce in Sweden and can these days be bought ready-made in supermarkets.

The standard toppings on a kebab pizza are tomato sauce, cheese, onion, fefferoni peppers, kebab meat and, of course, kebab sauce. Some people also like to add fresh lettuce or cucumbers to their kebab pizza.

Then there’s the Viking kebab pizza, which is a kebab pizza folded before baking to resemble a Viking ship.

The kebab pizza has topped Online Pizza’s survey for the past four years.

While 27 percent of respondents said that they prefer to make up their own pizza topping combinations or to get one made up by the restaurant, 12 percent said that, if ordering a standard pizza, they would go for one with kebab meat.

Sweden’s second most popular pizza is the plainer Vesuvio (tomato, cheese and ham) followed by Capricciosa (tomato, cheese, ham, mushrooms) and then the Hawaii pizza (cheese, ham, pineapple).

Swedes planning to go for pizza on New Year’s Day better get their orders in quick.

“January 1st is the most hectic day for Sweden’s pizzerias. We get twice as many orders as usual, with most coming in between 11am and 6pm,” said Anders Signell, CEO of Online Pizza.

Online Pizza plans to release a more comprehensive report on Swedish pizza trends in January 2013.

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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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