Everything I Ate & Drank in Stockholm & Helsinki

A complete list with photos and quick descriptions!

Apr 08, 2024

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My husband and I travelled abroad for the first time together last week to Sweden and Finland. We never took a honeymoon after our wedding nearly a decade ago. We couldn’t afford a trip out of the country so we have diligently stuck to finding joy in roadtrips and domestic trips for nine years. It was really hard to wait this long for a vacation like this if I’m being honest. Friends of ours have been traveling to Italy or doing multiple domestic trips on planes a year, and we were barely able to afford one trip every couple of years for a bit there. Even with being content and happy people, it was hard to not compare from time to time while we carefully calculated mileage for our leased car and what trips we could swing.

Part of why I don’t want children is so my husband and I can travel. Since we’ve gotten married, we have been dedicated to getting our finances secure before taking an international trip. We paid off credit card debts several times over, bought a house, decided to lease a car, and all of these very responsible choices pushed off THE BIG TRIP over and over again. In late summer, we committed to take a trip to Chicago, visit our friends out East, and to take a belated honeymoon.

I found a travel agent to help us with the logistics, especially since we wanted to do a couple of countries in just one week, and decided to do Stockholm and Helsinki during my school’s spring break. Everyone asked why we chose to do a trip to Sweden and Finland. It was easiest to say that it’s because we wanted to travel somewhere internationally together that neither one of us had been, or that we like the weather in the upper Midwest so why not just go somewhere with the exact same climate, or that it’s “meaningful for my family” since my grandparents come from those countries. But this trip was a special one for me to connect to my familial heritage with the person who has shown me unconditional love. It was a fantastic trip that felt so healing, affirming, and inspirational.

And now: Let’s talk FOOD & DRINK.

Cafés & Fika

There are SO many cafés (aka cafeterias) in Stockholm and Helsinki. Finnish people drink the most coffee per capita worldwide, and Swedes I’m sure are not far behind. There was a café every two or three blocks, all full of customers, treats, and sandwiches. In Sweden, their afternoon coffee break is called Fika, and is a pause in an afternoon that usually includes coffee and a treat. You know what I love? A little sweetie treatie. Plus, the sandwiches were high quality, focused on a few toppings, and were all delicious. (I think I’m going to be doing a lot of sandwiches this summer thanks to this trip!)

Cafés were refuges for us throughout the trip where we played games of Gin Rummy, reviewed our photos, planned our day, and grabbed a quick lunch. They were all beautiful inside and out thanks to the gorgeous architecture of the two cities. We stuck to ordering cappuccinos, sometimes with whole milk and sometimes with oat milk for the majority of the trip, and almost always got food too!

L to R from top left: 1. cappucinos with a mudslide cake and ham and cheese sandwich, 2. couple of capps, 3. cardamom & cinnamon bun, 4. cappucinos and salami, pesto, and brie sandwiches, 5. cappus (Finnish slang for cappuccinos) with a citron cookie, 6. a morning cappuccino and java chai tea, 7. capps with a sugar custard bun (BEST sweet bite of the entire trip), 8. cappucinos at a Vietnamese owned café with a cinnamon bun and another sugar bun, 9. capps at the Oslo airport in the best branded cups

Look at these gorgeous ceilings in two of the cafés in Stockholm!

These next photos are of special desserts. Our tour guide took us to a café in Porvoo (a riverside town in Finland) to get the dessert on the left. You can get this treat anywhere in Finland in Februrary, but you can get it anytime at TeeHelmi in Porvoo since it was invented in the town. Some guests came over, and they didn’t have anything to offer them alongside coffee so they made a cake out of breadcrumbs! Now, they add small bits of almond and top it with sugar and raspberry preserves too. In Helsinki, we went to Ekberg, the oldest bakery in the city, which began in 1852. It was a 10/10 experience. The staff person that helped us gave excellent recommendations, and was so patient with us while we tried to decide what to get.

The middle photo is of Helsinki’s oldest bakery: Ekberg, and on the right is our spread. We got a Napoleon pastry dessert, a classic cinnamon bun, and an almond brioche bun.

Continental Breakfasts

Europe is THE continent in “continental” breakfasts. Hotels in the U.S. have really robbed us of these spreads, with sad spreads of droopy breakfast meats, soupy eggs, and if we’re lucky, a waffle maker. Since this was technically our honeymoon, we spent $$$ on staying at very nice hotels, and I’d do it again. The breakfasts alone were worth every penny, and the rooms were incredible too.

Hotel Reisen

Our breakfast spread for our first two mornings in Europe. I was most excited about the pickled herring & pickled herring in mustard sauce, the caviar topped boiled eggs, and the pain au chocolate!

Lapland Hotels Bulevardi

Our hotel room had a sauna in it so we were able to sauna and cold rinse in the shower over and over every night before bed! Talk about an ideal nighttime routine.

Finland is famous for its oat porridge so we made sure to get that every day. The oats aren't flat so there was so much fun texture! We had a gorgeous spread every morning.

The Ship!

To avoid a third leg of flying, we took a “ferry” from Stockholm to Helsinki. It was more of a cruise ship than a ferry, but that’s what the locals called it. It had so many restaurants and entertainment options and was FULL of Swedes and Finns traveling with kiddos. It was a very fun way to travel and would do it again in a heartbeat, especially because it took less than a day so we didn’t lose out at all. Plus, this was an experience in and of itself.

the view of a tiny island in the Baltic Sea

Clockwise from top left: Mike had fish & chips for dinner and I had a tofu & veggie curry. We shared a slice of princess cake. We had breakfast at the Grande Buffet. We had a drink at one of two nightclubs! Can you even believe this?

Dinners

We really did dinners well on this trip, I’m not going to lie. Read all about them below!

Aifur

Meatballs for the People

Levant Bulevardi

Ravintola Savotta

This is a traditional Finnish restaurant. Look how cute the details are! I got an Original Long Drink. We shared the warm potato pancakes with smoked salmon mousse and fried leeks alongside a bread basket with butter. Our entrees were reindeer roast with reindeer groat sausage, root veggies, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, AND smoked beef breast with mashed potatoes, picked cucumber, stewed apple, and horseradish.

Seksico Tacos

This place was so strange and fun! Mike got an N/A Paloma and birria tacos. I got a half plate of nachos that were strange but still delicious. Let's remember that this was owned by a Finnish person, and they are interpreting Mexican food. My nachos had both hummus and ranch drizzled on them, queso fresco, a side of spicy mayo, tiny Baltic shrimp called Skagen, and cilantro. It was chaotic but would eat again tbh.

Skansen

Skansen is very large open air museum where we spent an afternoon wandering in nature, looking at historic buildings, and eating. When we first came up the steep hill, we were met with a huge area with more than 10 food vendors so we checked out a few places!

Clockwise from top left: flatbread wrap with moose meat, smashed potatoes, crème fraîche, cloudberries, and parsley; two coffees and a cinnamon bun; flatbread wrap with chicken, cheese, and pesto; salted licorice ice cream and salted caramel ice cream

Lunch & Extras

When we weren’t lunching at cafés, we went to food halls and markets for lunch, and checked out Finland’s version of McDonald’s - Hesburger. We also tried a famous Finnish cocktail, the Original Long Drink. It’s a gin and grapefruit cocktail that is delicious but for some reason is an unsightly grey color. There are other kinds too, like the pineapple variation on the bottom left! Already thinking about how to recreate this in a mocktail version for the summer.

Clockwise from top left: tomato & meatball soup and seafood soup with bread and garlic butter, burger with fries and Fanta at Hesburger, pineapple and original Long Drink cocktail, ham and cheese sandwich and the classic Finnish salmon soup.

Airport & Airplane Food

You gotta read about the sandwich we got served in the air on a KLM flight. It says it’s a cheese sandwich but I swear there’s egg in there. It was so delicate, seasoned perfectly, and the bread was soft and hearty.