Restaurant of the Month, Sweden
Simple pleasures If the mention of wine bars makes you think of intimidating staff and impenetrable wine lists, think again. Stockholm’s Grus Grus offers one of the capital’s best and most exciting selections of wines in laidback and unpretentious surroundings – and there’s delicious food, to boot.
money for large, expensive machinery. The quality is no less, but there’s a much greater contact with nature, and often a family tradition and generations of expertise behind these wines.”
By Liz Longden | Photos: Tobias Regell
Given that ‘grus’ in Swedish means gravel or grit, you’d be forgiven for thinking the name ‘Grus grus’ was inspired by the concept of terroir. In fact, it is a tongue-in-cheek homage to its sister- bar, the historic Tranan restaurant – ‘Tranan’ for ‘the crane’ in English, in Latin ‘grus’. The name is nevertheless fitting in another sense, because this is an establishment that prides itself on being down-to-earth. “Our concept is really of a place where people can just come to hang out with family, friends or colleagues and enjoy great wine and great 108 | Issue 134 | March 2020
food,” says Patricia Dominguez, Grus Grus manager and head sommelier. “We take inspiration very much from the southern European way of enjoying food and drink – in a sociable way, without complicating things too much.” The bar has been open since April 2018, and stands out from the crowd in particular in its championing of what Dominguez calls ‘artisanal’ wines. “It’s about wines that are made by human hands,” she explains. “Typically, they come from simpler, smaller farms, who don’t have the
Many of these vineyards are situated in less well-known wine-producing areas, such as Switzerland, Hungary and Slovakia, to name just a few, and Dominguez argues that the different ter-