A key point, if you plan on going to a Julbord, you need to book as soon as they open<\/strong> (which is usually in November) as it is incredibly <\/em>popular, even with the locals! Essentially, don\u2019t wait too long to book because your first choice may not be available for too long.<\/p>\n There are endless choices of Julbord places to choose from every year, so it was fairly overwhelming to select one that really stuck out to me. To give you an idea, most restaurants offer a Julbord and above that, boats too! Keep in mind, I am a student therefore my budget was relatively limited, which was an additional hitch. However, I have been wanting to do this for a little while and so I had saved up for this.<\/p>\n Thus, my search began\u2026<\/p>\n These were the following factors I considered when looking at Julbord options:<\/p>\n *<\/strong>Options for a novice, slightly picky, aporetic food adventurer and inexperienced traveler<\/p>\n The last factor may seem a bit odd but my partner at the time came to visit and it was his first time in another country, with quite a bit of skepticism as well as wariness with regards to the dishes we had to offer. Which was fair enough considering Swedish cuisine often includes foods like fermented herring (Surstr\u00f6mming)<\/em>, salty liquorice (Saltlakrits)<\/em> and herring cake\/tart (Sillt\u00e5rta)<\/em>.<\/p>\n In any case, a good few spots made the cut and after a week of sifting through webpages and menus, I found gold at a place called <\/strong>Gamla Riksarkivet<\/strong><\/a>. The brick romanesque building is a 19th-century beauty which used to serve as the national archives until 1968. As one can imagine and expect, the interiors would be antique (if not in age at least in style), accented with lights for the given season.<\/p>\n The building itself wasn't the only aspect that drew me to selecting this place, nor how central the location was, or how close to the metro station. All in all, it is ideally located and easy for visitors to find.<\/p>\n Every year, the same famous Swedish chef, Niklas Ekstedt, and other chefs like Karl Ljung, organise and manage the banquet. Niklas\u2019 restaurant, Ekstedt<\/em>, has a Michelin star, therefore, the menu for the Julbord was bound to be spectacular. And sheesh, was it phenomenal!<\/p>\n For a high quality evening at 1195 SEK per adult<\/strong>, you get all the traditional Swedish Christmas dishes, treats and then some. Different times and ages have different prices – the dinner (the one I listed above) is the priciest one. I booked the balcony area, as seen below, but the other rooms were just as beautiful.<\/p>\n Everything from the d\u00e9cor to the food and the staff was wonderful. They had a coat room (included in the price) and a cinema with a Santa Claus for children, on Saturdays and Sundays between 10:00 and 11:30. However, there is an age limit of 18 years for late gatherings from Thursdays to Saturdays.<\/p>\n Do note that the Julbord is typically meat-heavy<\/strong> however, accommodations for dietary requirements, such as labelling all foods with ingredients for those with allergies as well as dishes that are vegetarian and vegan-friendly are part of the banquet. Gamla Riksarkivet and a traditional Julbord includes Janssons frestelse which is a potato casserole, prince sausages (Prinskorv)<\/em>, pork and fish varieties such as herring (including Sill which is caught in the North Sea and Str\u00f6mming that's caught in the Baltic sea)<\/em> in different bastes. Additionally, they also prepared heavenly salmon; raw, smoked, fried as well as other seafood options, most commonly being shrimp, and naturally, the renowned Swedish primaries of any celebration or holiday season; boiled eggs (accompanied with mayo), boiled potatoes and of course\u2026 meatballs!<\/p>\n The star of the show was the smoked ribs. Oh. My. Word. I kept going back for more\u2026 and for the salmon. I am a bit of a fanatic – proof below.<\/p>\n You can also order drinks and or dishes that aren\u2019t included in the already extensive buffet menu. No need to pre-order for that. A popular Swedish Christmas beer is Mariestads<\/em>, of which I, personally, cannot give you a review because well\u2026 I do not like beer, however my companion quite enjoyed it.<\/p>\n One of my favourite areas was the dessert room. It was Swedish sweets galore with charming Christmas trinkets and characters, complemented with a sort of dessert or patisserie bar where you can dish some of your afters. The list for this is endless too with the likes of candy cane (a Swedish invention, might I add), gingerbread cookies, liquorice wheels, lemon curd and meringue tartlets, cheesecake, rice pudding and a lot more!<\/p>\n To summarise, my Julbord experience was amazing and I would definitely do it again! The accommodations, varieties, venue, decorations and service really sold it for me. I can still recall the experience with such vividness and always recommend it to anyone who asks. I will definitely try other restaurants but I could keep coming back to the Julbord at Gamla Riksarkivet<\/a>! It is without a doubt worth the price for at least one splurge to forge your Christmas travels, whether you're a student, family, group of friends, foodie or a solo traveler.<\/p>\n If you are interested in learning all about Swedish Christmas traditions as well as having some of the iconic treats and drinks, don't miss out on our Xmas Xperience<\/strong>! We will walk through the crisp winter streets lined with lights and squares filled with markets and good company. You can book it now through our website<\/a> and affiliate booking platforms like GetYourGuide<\/a>.<\/p>\n God Jul!<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Sanchia Thompson. The Christmas tables (or Julbord in Swedish, pronounced yule-board) are a paragon of the Swedish Christmas experience and one I had to partake in. I hold the opinion that it is one of the final steps to fully integrating in Swedish society, and as I had already been living in Sweden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[196,194,200,198],"class_list":["post-2058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-in-sweden","tag-gamla-riksarkivet","tag-julbord","tag-smorgasbord","tag-swedish-christmas-food"],"acf":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/julbord-01.jpg",1280,1707,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/julbord-01.jpg",1280,1707,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/julbord-01.jpg",1280,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/julbord-01-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/julbord-01-225x300.jpg",225,300,true],"large":["https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/julbord-01-768x1024.jpg",768,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/julbord-01-1152x1536.jpg",1152,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/julbord-01.jpg",1280,1707,false],"trp-custom-language-flag":["https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/julbord-01-9x12.jpg",9,12,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/author\/admin\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Christmas in Sweden<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Written by Sanchia Thompson. The Christmas tables (or Julbord in Swedish, pronounced yule-board) are a paragon of the Swedish Christmas experience and one I had to partake in. I hold the opinion that it is one of the final steps to fully integrating in Swedish society, and as I had already been living in Sweden…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xperiencesthlm.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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