July 21, 2022
Punk Royale
On our third night in Stockholm, we walked up to a narrow storefront in Södermalm and barely noticed much beyond a few bright paintings. I snapped a quick picture, as I always do: name, date, evidence.
Outside, a small handful of people were casually drinking beer and champagne. One of them—who looked like he had rolled out of bed and thrown on swim trunks—said, “Tanya?”
I smiled and said yes, immediately clocking how distinctly American we were. The other clue was our 5:30 sharp arrival. The gringos had landed.
“Come on in. I’ll show you your table. And who are you?”
David gave his name as we stepped into a dark little hole of a room with neon splashed everywhere. We were led to a tiny table wedged between what could loosely be called a kitchen and a WC that jutted into the room. Both were about RV-sized. The kitchen had four people and a dish pit crammed into impossibly close quarters.
Two more tiny tables sat near us and, of course, we were the first to arrive.
Welcome to Punk Royale.
Our snappily dressed guide answered a few rapid-fire questions: it had opened in 2014 after starting life as a pop-up somewhere up north.
The only questions he asked us:
Any food allergies?
Do you drink alcohol?
No.
And, unquestionably, yes.
“Okay, we’re gonna have some fun,” he said, and asked whether we wanted champagne, beer, or grog.
Soon, two unhealthy pours of champagne arrived, and we settled in to look around, which was our first mistake.
The décor was dive-bar-meets-stoner-basement-meets-torture-dungeon. Punk phrases scrawled on the walls in what looked like Sharpie. Creepy dolls hanging from the ceiling as though a dog had torn them apart and someone had reassembled them with neon electrical tape. Dismembered Slinky toys. A sinister unicorn higher up that seemed to be holding a grudge. Candlelight mixed with neon bug lights. A horror-movie doll at the next table watching me. I swear it blinked.
The water was poured from an Absolut bottle, which felt less like hydration and more like a warning.
I reached for my phone to take a few photos. Our guide appeared from nowhere with a metal box and said, “Phones.”
Then: “You’ll get them back later.”
Not up for debate.
After a few minutes of taking in, and not documenting, the chaos, our cruise director returned and explained the night. We’d start with snacks before “really getting into it.”
“How long?” David asked.
“Roughly two-and-a-half hours.”
He told us to put our napkins on our laps and yelled “Engelska!” back to the kitchen.
The token Americans had been flagged.
David and I looked at each other with the same question in our eyes: which one of us picked this place?
The people who had been drinking outside strolled in and headed to the kitchen. Apparently they were the staff. One wore a Kobe Bryant Lakers jersey. The rest looked dressed from whatever had been in a heap on a dorm-room floor.
A few more guests arrived. Our first snack came from someone who appeared to be a chef. It was described as: “ham and cheese pie in a broccoli shell.”
No silverware, so we grabbed the poppers with our hands. Savory broccoli crust with a touch of sweet. It was incredible.
Next: a tiny, beautiful radish crudité with mushroom foam and elderberry ketchup dip. Also great. Then: a crispy cracker with sauces—description mostly mumbled, but it was light, crispy, and had a subtle garlic hit.
Then Swedish-speaking people rolled in—fashionably fifteen minutes late—and the place filled up. Maybe forty people total, all at mostly two-tops. We sat there wearing our American merit badges and smiling like we weren’t already slightly concerned.
Our handler returned with what he said was our last snack: “magic mushrooms.” (Not comforting.) Then he dumped another unhealthy pour of champagne into our glasses.
Mushrooms in a light tempura-esque batter. Incredible sauce. Still no flatware. We started feeling grateful for napkins like we’d been raised in a barn.
We sipped our gallon of champagne and studied the wall scribbles while the rest of the room noshed. The classical music started getting noticeably louder. And louder. And louder.
Then two large wine glasses were plunked on our table. Kobe Bryant (the jersey, not the man) delivered what can only be described as a country-club pour of white wine—close to half a bottle.
Two-and-a-half hours was starting to feel optimistic.
Mozart was now blasting at nightclub volume. Our original handler returned and I hollered over the noise, asking if I could have paper to take notes. He poured more wine and shook his head no.
“But—” I started.
Then: “No.” Like the phones. No debate.
A few minutes later, the classical music cut off. Dead silence. A smoke machine fired up. It kept going until it was hard to see each other from one foot away.
Then “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones hit—rock-concert loud.
By now, we and our fellow guests had reached the precise level of alcohol needed for small, involuntary butt-dancing in our chairs.
I yelled at David: did he have any paper in his wallet so I could take notes? He fished out an old scrap with a doctor’s phone number on it.
Perfect. Scholarship.
The rest of the details are murky (I was taking clandestine notes under the table, fully convinced my pen would be confiscated), but it went something like this:
The Vibes
The playlist jumped from the Stones to Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling,” to Green Day, to old punk, to “Runaround Sue.”
Then, to keep us psychologically unstable, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” blared. It was July. The Ramones screamed “I Don’t Care.” Joan Jett begged to put another dime in the jukebox, baby—right around the moment we realized the ceiling also contained strobe lights.
Cher arrived to remind us we could believe in life after love. Red Hot Chili Peppers dropped “Californication.” Springsteen made a guest appearance. Then came a Swedish school song out of nowhere that everyone else started singing—and they were delighted to teach us, the token Americans.
It’s amazing how much fun you can have when everyone is interacting instead of staring at their phones. Also: when you’re drinking everything placed in front of you.
The Food
It was a blur, but here’s what I pieced together from my contraband notes. All of it: no utensils. Even though the space was a cautionary tale, the food was incredible.
- We slurped oysters with some granita concoction.
- A plate of I-have-no-idea-what arrived, and our table was so covered in booze glasses they put the plate on top of them and simply said, “Enjoy.”
- Our handler dropped two long-neck beers on the table. We tried to hand him our champagne glasses. He shook his head no and pointed at the last two fingers of champagne remaining. We chugged. Then he took the glasses.
- Foie gras on a crispy brioche arrived with a syringe filled with wine. Instructions: foie first, then syringe wine directly into our mouths. No option, no debate.
- More wine. More dancing. More smoke.
- Something on a stick appeared. The only warning: “Careful of the bone.” It was tender flaky white fish—maybe yellowtail, maybe cod, maybe something that once had aspirations.
- Then Kobe Bryant (again: jersey) came around with two shot glasses and a big black plastic petrol can. She overfilled the shots, splashing vodka all over the table like she was blessing us.
- Our handler commanded: hands in the air, mouths open. We obeyed. He spooned caviar onto the back of our hands. “Eat it,” he directed. Then: “Take the shot.”
- When “Dancing on My Own” came on, the entire room was singing and happily butt-dancing in their chairs.
- Then two pretty little bites arrived and our handler said, “Made with reindeer blood.” Why not?
- And because clearly we hadn’t suffered enough, giant spoons came next. “Open.” We did. Something delicious and lobster-y landed in our mouths.
About two-thirds through, our original handler asked if I was getting all my notes. I was caught. I sheepishly showed him my tiny paper filled edge-to-edge. He rolled his eyes but let me keep my contraband.
A few minutes later he came back with blank POS tape for me. He must have started begrudgingly liking me.
Then we were each given a glove and told to put it on. They let us sit with that for a few minutes—dread and anticipation duking it out—before a savory, sweet, messy dish arrived. No utensils, hence the surgical glove. We obeyed, plunged in, and slurped it down.
This is how time flies, apparently.
Finally, Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” started blaring and we got two dessert courses. By now everyone had hands in the air, singing at full volume. (It is a requirement to put your hands in the air for Def Leppard. It’s in the Geneva Convention.)
Then the lights (or whatever passed for lights) came up enough for the smoke to clear. We got our check and our metal boxes back. Everyone grabbed their phones to photograph the wreckage. I managed one shot of our table, which looked like a crime scene.
I asked our main handler his name: Nils.
Using my extremely valuable POS tape, I wrote “Thank you very much” in my newly learned Swedish—Tack så mycket Nils—and held it up as Nils walked by. He almost smiled and told me I misspelled it. (I messed up the dot, our neighbors informed me. Apparently Swedish dots are a serious matter.)
There was no menu at the end—typical for most 20-course places—but here it felt perfectly on brand. We stumbled out into the harsh daylight (Stockholm summer: light all the time, and please remember it was still only 20:30) with huge smiles, saying goodbye to our new friends, clutching my crumpled notes like classified documents.
Fun is definitely not overrated.
And in case I didn’t mention it: the food was all incredible—flavorful, layered, complex, utterly delicious—even without a five-minute fine-dining lecture before each dish. No offense to the incredible tasting menus we’ve had and still want to try, but this was completely different. Easily the most distinctive dining experience ever. And without the performative tasting menu sermon.
In the days after, when we told people we ate at Punk Royale, we got a knowing smile and questions like:
Were the chefs naked with just aprons?
Did you get the cigarette-ash dish?
Did anyone throw anything at you?
Frankly, those questions only made us want to go back to Stockholm and do it again.
