12 Jan Berns Salonger 2013
Berns Salonger, 1940-1949. Dining on the veranda. Photo from Stockholmskällan
Since I first wrote about Berns Salonger in 2011 I have been to this famous Stockholm restaurant three times! The first time was in 2012 with my son Johnny. We had time for just a quick tour but we both knew we’d be back someday.
Last September when I was in Stockholm with my sisters and brothers (SiblingsinSweden) we had a fabulous lunch at Berns with some Swedish friends. Our waitress explained that we had just missed their 150th Anniversary Celebration when there would have been vintage posters hanging on their walls. They had just been taken down for Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, held there August 26-28th.
During World War II, Berns was a popular venue for the Americans and certainly for our parents, Herman and Hedy. It was a short walk from the Legation. In the good weather, diners sat outdoors on the veranda. Berns was glamorous and featured music and dancing. Day or night, it was a place to see and be seen.
Lunch with our friends from Uppsala, Pär and Daniel. Note the mirrored wall behind our table.
We dined in the Berns Asian restaurant. In 1944, it became Sweden’s first Chinese restaurant. I suspect this was inspired by the theatre next door, the Chinateatern. During the war years our parents watched both movies and live performances there.
I knew from my reading that then and now well-known orchestras and bands would perform. Sometimes the lawn would be filled with guests dressed in their finest, sitting on benches, listening to music.
We had peeked into the lavish ballroom next to the dining room where staff was busy preparing for a business conference. What we discovered a few minutes later “wah lah!” was that the mirror behind our table could roll up to create room for a stage or to combine the two rooms into one huge indoor entertainment venue.
In the “then and now” photo below … on the left is a photo on Stockholmskällen taken 1890-1930 of the same ballroom that we saw being prepared for a conference. On the right is a photo of that room taken in 2012. You can see the same elaborate details on almost every surface of the room. In the old photo, on the extreme right is the opening to the dining room where the mirror is today.
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