It took me quite a long time to find Glas. For a start, the taxi driver drove around the side roads off London's Borough Market for an age, insisting there was no Swedish restaurant in the vicinity. "Swedish food?" the cabbie said. "Why do you want to eat Swedish food?" This is exactly what my best friend had said when I asked her to dine with me, but I assured her that many people have made lots of reassuring noises about Glas, its award-winning chef Patric Blomquist and its proprietor Anna Mosesson.
"It'll be seagull food," she said.
When the taxi eventually pulled up at this little gem of a restaurant and I had perused the menu, I realised that, as seagull food should be, it goes pretty heavy on the fish. Especially herrings: herring fritters, herrings in vodka and lime, herrings in herb and garlic, and herrings "glamastar", which, as the helpful waitress Beata told me, is basically done with pickles and cloves.
Beata also explained that the point of Glas, just like Gordon Ramsay's Maze, is that you graze, rather as you would at a tapas bar. She suggested we each had three of the dishes, most of which are reasonably priced from £4.45-£7. But everything sounded so delicious that we chose four each. "That's quite a lot," said Beata.
We had the herrings first. They were delicious: tangy, sweet and refreshing all at the same time. We wolfed them down with superior rye crackers and a glass of white wine from our bottle of lugana, Ca' dei Frati (£19.95). Then we had marinated halibut, which I found too heavy on the lemon, and smoked duck breast, sweetened by the addition of sherry vinegar. We also had gravadlax, which was as tangy and satisfying as the herrings, and roast asparagus with mimosa eggs, which I found over-fiddly (the eggs were shredded); I thought the asparagus was over-roasted, too.
Next came sea bass with tomato, fennel and dill butter, which was rich and buttery, then two meat dishes: squab pigeon and pork belly. The pigeon with pearl barley and wild mushrooms, thick and juicy, was my dish of the evening.
"Goodness," said Beata when she collected our plates. "You ate it all!"
We were feeling quite proud until we noticed that the two pneumatic blondes sitting next to us shared nothing more than a summer soup of peas, chives and carrots between them. Then we felt like pigs. Next to them, though, were two besuited men who'd clearly partaken of quite a lot of aquavit, the Swedish liquor that tastes like a cross between vodka and whisky. It came in a rustic-looking bottle with a charming label. "Where do you get that?" I asked Beata.
"It was hard to find," she said. "We nearly got it from Ikea, but eventually we found our own supplier."
Talking of Ikea, I'd say the decor is the one downside of Glas. The walls are Ikea yellow with strange Scandinavian snowy paintings hung on them. The pine tables are not big enough to manage all the tapas plates that come in a thick succession. The chairs are not particularly comfortable, either.
Having said that, I don't think this is the type of place where you are supposed to sit for hours drinking aquavit. Not that the besuited men seemed to have noticed. Beata looked disbelieving yet admiring when we ordered desserts. We said we were just going to taste them, but somehow ended up scoffing a delicious hot chocolate with doughnuts, and summer berries with almond milk and shortbread.
"You love this food!" said Beata. Best friend and I decided, as we left behind the aquavit men, that we did love the meal.
"Not seagull food at all!" said my best friend. But the clientele ... that's another matter.
