A Swedish home away from home

Owner couple Oh Soo-jin and Daniel Wikstrand of Hemlagat / Korea Times photo by Yun Suh-young

Hemlagat

This is the second in a series of articles covering restaurants specializing in authentic international cuisine, produced in collaboration with Todd Sample and Sara Park of food consulting brand ToddSample Eats that recommends authentic international cuisine in Korea. Authentic here doesn't mean sticking to the way things should be, it's about representing the "heart and soul" of a culture. This monthly "dine & talk" journey explores food from different regions and the people who are making them. -- ED.

By Yun Suh-young

Fifteen years ago, this couple would never have thought they would open a restaurant, leaving their daily jobs as office workers. Oh Soo-jin was a product marketing manager mostly in the IT sector and Daniel Wikstrand was the store manager of a Denmark brand's chain stores and worked for a Swedish trading company in China.

The two met in 2003 when they were both 31, exploring a new country, a new language, and learning Chinese as students at an academy. Three years later, destiny brought them together again in China, where they soon became a couple. In 2008 they got married and the following year, they opened a Swedish cafe "Kaffestugan" in Chengdu, China, which was selected by expats as the best cafe in Chengdu for four years out of the five they operated.

Fast-forward to the present, Daniel Wikstrand and Oh Soo-jin are owners of Hemlagat, the first and only Swedish restaurant in Seoul, which has been sailing smoothly since opening in 2014.

Tucked inside an apartment complex at the foot of Namsan, this Swedish restaurant may be hard to find for first-timers, but the food isn't as nearly as hard to enjoy. In fact, stepping inside this small restaurant, visitors feel at once at home, both from the food, the atmosphere, and from the kind and caring service by the owner couple who personally serve the dishes.

On our visit to the restaurant on March 22, the couple showcased a new batch of dishes on the renewed menu which were to be served starting end of March.

A herring dish (above) and pork rind dish with cheese paired with snaps / Courtesy of ToddSample Eats

Daniel:

This is a classic Swedish dish which is not eaten anymore. The cheese (Monterey Jack), we mash with cream, butter, pepper and snaps (schnapps -- Swedish vodka) for the flavor. Then we spread it on home-baked whole wheat bread. The pork rinds are boiled, marinated and deep fried in dill mustard. We call it "Swedish classic."

The most consumed meats in Sweden are pork, reindeer, and boar. The pork rinds served with cheese was one of the two appetizers chef Daniel brought out. The other was a herring dish of three types of marinated herring served with eggs and dark bread.

Eat herring first. The way to eat herring is with dark bread -- they go very well together.

Soo-jin:

There are two kinds of marinated herring -- clear and mixed in cream (sour cream or mayonnaise). The variation is limitless because each region has its own recipe. We salt the herring and then desalt and add vinegar and herbs. The adaptation to Korea is the salt. Usually they're very salty so we desalted them because Koreans think salt is evil.

Todd:

Not only are you introducing these for the first time to Koreans, but to be able to introduce Swedish food to Swedish people and have them react... especially in Korea where the Swedish population is just a couple of hands!

Fusion is nice and fun but what we want to sell is tradition.

For many Koreans coming here, it's probably their first Swedish food. We don't want them to have carbonara meatballs. They're making great effort to come here and experience Swedish. So I think it's our mission to provide Swedish.

The first six months, people said, "You should have kimchi in this." But it's more about people looking for something unique.

We're able to do that because we're small. If we were bigger, we would have to go mainstream with more demand. So the customer group doesn't have to be gigantic. If there are enough people who want authentic Swedish, then we just go for that.

Not only is it the only Swedish restaurant in Seoul, it's the only Scandinavian restaurant as well.

For us, our fall back are family recipes. This is what we've been eating. I grew up on this. My parents grew up on this.

Time changes so palates change too. That's also a fun thing for us. Twist within the Swedish level, time wise.

With every meal, comes a different snaps of a different flavor to match with the food. For the Swedes, the strong liquor is a must-pair beverage during the meals because it matches well with herring and pork.

Four types of snaps placed next to a napkin with snaps song lyrics on it / Korea Times photo by Yun Suh-young

Sara:

I looked up on YouTube and it says the order of eating is: song - snaps - herring.

Everybody sings together when they drink snaps. There's a snaps song.

In the midst of the laughter and trying to sing the snaps song, came the main dish -- game meat with gel served with potato and mushroom stew.

(You came at) the perfect time, because we're changing the menu next week.

That's a 70's dish -- you will never find this in a restaurant in Sweden nowadays because they would consider it old school. (He said this as he pointed to the potato next to the game meat.)

Suh-young:

It looks like the whirlwind potatos (hoeori gamja) found in the streets of Myeongdong!

That's why Koreans and Swedish food are similar. Over 90 percent of our customers are Koreans because they like those flavors. Meat, potatoes, marinated herring...

Sweden is also a peninsula, three sides surrounded by ocean. There are lots of similarities with Korea. Family values, food... the way they cook slow on low heat and preserve food with salt.

Game meat with potato and mushroom stew / Korea Times photo by Yun Suh-young

Daniel is not a trained cook. But cooking was engrained in him since he was a toddler so it was something very natural to him.

Since when did you start cooking?

As soon as I could reach the stove. My parents always encouraged me to cook. I was around 6 or 7. Then I started to bake cakes, help mom roll beef balls, and mash potatoes. Ever since then, I have always loved cooking. Way before I came to China in early 2000, I took evening classes to learn how to cook so that was my (only) proper education. Everything else was through cook books and mom and dad.

He was vegan for over 10 years so if you're a vegan you have to cook.

Why did you turn vegan?

There were some TV shows in Sweden on how they treat the animals.

Why did you switch back?

A Vietnamese friend in China had a very nice rooftop and one day he had pork sausages and ribs and I tried it and it was so good so I flipped.

The decision to open a cafe, and later a restaurant, came as the couple sought for better quality of life.

The interior of Hemlagat / Courtesy of ToddSample Eats

When we decided to open a cafe in Chengdu, it was right after the Lehman Brothers crisis. Money was not the biggest value at that time. Also we'd been in China for a year. At that time we realized we didn't have time together and we wanted to have more time together and a better quality of life. He likes cooking and I like coffee so a cafe seemed to be the right choice. At the beginning it was a one year project and then it kept going and going and we spent five years doing it. After five years we wanted something new.

The decision to come to Korea and open Hemlagat came at the time of the opening of the Volvo factory and IKEA in Korea. The word "Hemlagat" means "home-made" in Swedish.

They didn't have a Swedish restaurant in Korea. We were thinking of a few different places -- Taiwan, Korea or Japan. But at that time, my parents were getting sick so Korea seemed to be good choice. But Korea has too many cafes, so opening another cafe did not make sense. Since Daniel was not a trained chef, it was practice for him. It was fun to try to cook new things. At the time, we tried a few Swedish dishes and they (Swedish workers at Volvo) really liked it.

Do you ever regret quitting your jobs?

No but it's much harder than we thought. But we're so happy to do this together. I cannot see myself going back to the normal job.

This is my longest job ever. Most of the time, I never stayed more than 3 or 4 years at one company. Usually 2, 3 years. This one has lasted the longest. I've been on this job for more than 8 years, almost 9.

Don't you think you're appreciating your life now more because you had that experience before?

In unison:

Definitely.

We can really value and cherish our lives right now because of that experience. We're working 80 hours a week but that's how we could go on.

I play out loud my favorite music non-stop for 14 hours during work. At what workplace could you do that? Long hours are tough but it's also fun.

And you want to continue cooking?

Yes.

It's work but it's a calling. We can always call off a day for special occasions. It's good to live like that. Unless you feel like you're creating value, we wouldn't be creating these dishes. Every Christmas we close and go to Sweden. Christmas is the peak time but for us it's more important to stay with the family. We want to cherish the time we have together. I'm lucky he has the same values as me.

Information:

Hemlagat is located near Hoehyeon Station, line 4, exit 1. Address: #123 Namsan Lotte Castle, 35 Sogong -ro, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea. Tel: 02) 318-3335

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