Uppströms Fisk & Skaldjur

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

Uppströms Fisk & Skaldjur opened its doors on S:t Persgatan in the autumn of 2018, and within a few years it had done something remarkable: it shifted the conversation about dining in Uppsala. The White Guide, which awarded the restaurant its Fine level recognition, put it plainly — something exploded in Sweden's fourth-largest city when Uppströms arrived.

The Philosophy: Simple Is Beautiful

The kitchen operates by a single rule: fish and seafood, always from daily-fresh ingredients. The dinner menu is composed and updated continuously, shaped entirely by what the season offers. There is a strong Nordic current running through the dishes, but the team reserves the right to surprise — unexpected preparations appear whenever the catch or the moment calls for it. As the White Guide describes it, fresh-caught fish and seafood swim in accordance with the motto "the simple is the beautiful."

That restraint shows in dishes like the sea-cat — cooked precisely right, served with bacon, capers, browned pointed cabbage, sugar peas and radish. Nothing extraneous, nothing missing.

Saturday Rituals and Happy Accidents

Saturday lunch has its own tradition: classic fried herring, a dish that needs no reinvention. Saturday evenings from September through April bring themed dinners, announced each August for the autumn season and each January for the stretch toward Easter.

Then there are the happy accidents. If Carl Andreasson has just received a new Riesling he feels must be tasted, it will be. And if he and his daughter have been out in the City Forest picking blueberries — well, that becomes ice cream. The White Guide noted it as "a treat that will be remembered throughout the whole winter." That kind of spontaneity, rooted in real ingredients and genuine enthusiasm, is hard to manufacture.

The Setting

Inside the Kvarnengallerian, Uppströms has built an intimate room with considered details: white fish-scale tiles, stylized drawings. It is a space that signals care without formality. Weekday lunches offer four to five fish and seafood dishes to choose from, while dinner runs by reservation only — a deliberate choice that keeps the experience focused.