The best restaurants in Umeå, Sweden

Despite it’s relatively small size, Umeå, Sweden has a rich cultural scene, including several great restaurants. I had the opportunity to visit some of them on my trip to the city. Here are some of my favorite spots.

Rost

Rost is a nice modern restaurant that specializes in vegetarian dishes made from high-quality ingredients.

Their specialties include salads, sandwiches, and soups. They also have great local beers – I had the Dubbelpipa from local brewery Bryggverket – as well as coffee and other hot drinks. This comes in handy during the winter when you’re so far north.

We visited for lunch, and I had a fantastic open faced sandwich with warm feta and pesto balsamic sauce.  I couldn’t resist then having a massive hot chocolate. Sure, it was summer, but it was still delicious.

Rex

I’ve written about Rex in my roundup of Umeå’s craft beer scene. Their food menu features Swedish, French, and bar food.

I went their for lunch on my last day in Umeå and had a nice burger with a beer.

Rådhuskällaren

Rådhuskällaren is in the basement below Rex, and also boasts a great beer selection. To go with it, they also have a nice food menu. We visited on the first stop of our food tour around Umeå.

Benjamin, our host, who looked like Blake Anderson from Workaholics, took us through a sampling of the region’s local beers as well as a few dishes from the restaurant. We sat in a private table in the restaurant’s red wine vault while we made our way through the menu.

We had halibut ceviche with mango and cornbread tostada.

Then we had a bacon bourbon syrup burger.

Both were great. These restaurants in the Umeå Town Hall really know their way around food and drink.

Runt Hörnet

The second stop on our dinner tour around Umeå was Runt Hörnet.

We were able to relax for a while after our last feast before our meal arrived. I had the reindeer dumplings, which were phenomenal. They were a perfect fusion of Swedish & Asian cuisine. I had them with a beer from Lapland.

I also got to try a couple of the other dishes, including the sausages, which were also tasty.

Gothards Krog

Gothards Krog is the restaurant inside Stora Hotellet, the hotel where I stayed in Umeå. While we also had a great breakfast there in the morning, we visited for dessert on our tour through the city.

The dessert was fantastic. It had lemon panna cotta, plus chocolate mousse, and wild strawberry sorbet. We watched it all being made, and the attention to detail was impressive.

While I only had a couple of days in Umeå, I was able to visit several of the city’s best restaurants. In addition to the places mentioned above, there are many other great restaurants to eat at.

Disclosure: My visit to Umeå/Västerbotten was a TBEX press trip sponsored by Visit Umeå & Visit Sweden. All opinions are 100% my own.