Inside Ett Hem: the world’s most stylish small hotel
Hospitality insiders around the world speak of this place with deep reverence. It feels like you have arrived at the house of a wealthy relative who also happens to have the most immaculate taste.
In the long summer evenings, sunlight falls softly through the windows of Ett Hem. No matter where you are in this collection of tall, 1910-built townhouses, eclectically fashioned into Stockholm’s finest boutique hotel, it feels as though a ray of light is there to bathe in. The first time we notice this is when we sit down for dinner.
It’s just after 7pm when we leave our our top-floor room to dine in what must be one of Europe’s most unusual restaurants, if you could even call it a restaurant. It’s more like a lovely place to eat. We have spent the afternoon slowly roaming the property, moving from room to room, garden to garden, space to space, exploring Ett Hem’s exquisite nooks and crannies until the lure of the kitchen draws us to eat.
We have been through the kitchen several times already, cutting ourselves slices of cake, sampling the fat ripe tomatoes from baskets left on window sills, and having cups of tea. And when we arrive again for our dinner feast, the first decision is not what we might eat but where.
“Would you like to sit in the kitchen or the dining room, or in the garden, or somewhere else?” asks the softly spoken staff member leading us around. We look in a variety of locations before arriving at one that’s perfect: a huge table in one of the most charming dining rooms I’ve encountered.
“Here seems fine,” we say (the word “fine” being a ridiculous understatement), and so we sit at the table set with dozens of twinkling candles as well as dozens of tiny glass vases filled with summer wildflowers in a room framed by an extraordinary assortment of what can only be described as things. Along one wall is a bookshelf gorgeously stocked with records, novels, art books, coffee table tomes, objets d’art, lamps, artefacts, a record player and many curios, while in the adjoining lounge room we see vintage furniture, floor lamps, rugs, more bunches of flowers, open bottles of wine, bowls of chocolates, paintings, a grand piano, stools, poufs and any number of objects that sit so harmoniously together it feels like you have arrived at the house of a wealthy relative who also happens to have the most immaculate taste.
And as the food starts arriving – read the checklist opposite to see the menu – we find ourselves washed in slanting evening light, the soft northern twilight pouring through the glass. It feels directed to us, a message sent from the heavens to let us know that we are blessed to be here. So this is Ett Hem. No wonder this is considered one of the world’s most desirable small destination hotels.
Ett Hem is spoken about by hospitality insiders in Australia and other places around the world with reverence. Opened more than a decade ago, the hotel doubled its size in 2022 to offer 25 rooms and suites. Comprising several adjoining Arts and Crafts style townhouses in the diplomatic district of Lärkstaden, just out of Stockholm’s city centre, the hotel is the creation of Swedish hotelier Jeanette Mix. Mix has spent a lifetime collecting beautiful things, curating her treasures into one perfectly realised place, this hotel.
For design purists and Scandi nerds, there is a cornucopia of wonderfulness to discover: Edward Collinson stools, Mazo TMBO chairs, Axel Einar Hjorth furnishings and much, much more. But you don’t have to have a particular penchant for mid-century Swedish chairs to appreciate that an extraordinary creative mind is at work here. I can’t ever recall visiting a more delicately gorgeous place.
Our double room alone feels like a sanctuary. Decorated in dove grey, its accoutrements are so elegant that you might want to bottle the style and bring it home. On one side table is a bowl of wildflowers, a clock, a tall white candle, a vintage lamp. Books and art and vases and more flowers are scattered through the room.
Just below us we have access to the sort of living space you would build in your (financially unviable) dreams: a cosy resting place of lounges and cushions, tables, indoor plants, vases, cut flowers, bowls of chocolates, a cocktail trolley, working fireplaces, balconies and vintage led-light windows to let in all that beautiful light. It is something special.
Ett Hem translates to “at home”, and a few days here will make you wish you could move in. This is Swedish style, epitomised.
Checklist
Stay: Ett Hem is in Lärkstaden, Stockholm (etthem.se). It’s a Small Luxury Hotels of the World property (slh.com); SLH Club members can receive special offers. Rates from SEK5200 ($A725).
Getting there: The metro stops about 100m from Ett Hem’s door. Get out at the Stadion T-bana station.
Eat: Even if you can’t stay at Ett Hem, you can dine there. The restaurant is hugely charming. Non-guests eat in one specified dining room; hotel guests can dine there too, or anywhere else they like around the house or leafy gardens. The food is Swedish-themed but international in intention. With some seasonal adjustments, dinner is served seven days and there is a two-course lunch (SEK595; $83) or a four-course lunch (SEK895; $125) Monday to Friday. Dinner (price additional for hotel guests) comprises a seven-course feast (SEK1695; $236). The courses are not fussy or anything resembling irritating “fine dining”; rather, our wonderful feast involves dishes filled with local seasonal produce. We eat a summer tomato and cherry tart, tomato soup, seafood stew, a greens and cheese salad, a hefty slice of pork belly with crackling and fresh-picked mint, a seasonal vegetable plate and a slice with elderflower ice cream and mulberries. It’s delicious, humble yet sophisticated eating in keeping with the theme of being in a rich and tasteful person’s home. There are beautiful wines to match, or cocktails. Breakfast (included) is served in the main dining room and is another event. Watch the chefs cook as you eat a Scandinavian breakfast of pastries, salads, cold cuts, cheese, fruit, eggs, breads and more with coffee, tea and juices. It is also wonderful.
Do: Stockholm is a thriving cosmopolitan city, with a very different vibe to other popular northern capitals such as the picture-postcard Copenhagen. It is full of fun museums and galleries, the pick of them being the Vasa Museum, built to house enormous 17th century vessel that was lost in Stockholm harbour for 350 years. The ABBA museum is also wildly popular. Also be sure to visit Gamla stan, Stockholm’s picturesque old town.