PA & Co

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A Stockholm Institution, Unchanged by Design

Since 1986, PA & Co has occupied the crest of Riddargatsbacken in Stockholm, and in that time it has accumulated something most restaurants can only dream of: a genuine myth. The White Guide, which rates it at a very fine level, puts it plainly – few pubs have been written about and gossiped about as much as PA. Stories, scandals, chandeliers that seem to belong somewhere else entirely, and a reservation system that once left Uma Thurman standing outside an empty dining room. The legend is real, and it is tended carefully.

The Regulars, the Room, and the Ritual

The crowd at PA & Co defies easy categorization – businesspeople, actors, the occasional gonzo journalist – yet they share a common instinct: this is where you come when you don't want to go home. The atmosphere at the tables and along the bar is the product of decades of accumulated loyalty, not interior design or marketing. Service staff work efficiently and, as the White Guide notes, with a distinctly homely ease, joining in the conversation and steering guests through a wine list sorted by price rather than pretension.

Classics That Don't Need Reinventing

The menu anchors itself in Swedish pub classics – råraka, Biff Rydberg, various raw beef preparations, burgers, snails – and the house dessert Gino, which has attained the status of a signature in its own right. A rotating seasonal menu runs alongside, offering something new without disturbing what regulars come back for. The kitchen is not here to innovate for innovation's sake, and that is precisely the point.

Forty Years and Counting

PA & Co took over its Riddargatan address in 1986, and with 2026 marking the fortieth anniversary, the restaurant has hinted that something new may be on the horizon. Until then, the formula holds: call the reservation line at 3 p.m. on the day you want to visit, arrive, and settle in among the people who have made this corner of Stockholm their own.