Boo for the whole penny

This is part two of our gastronomic road trip. You can read part one here and part three here.

After the somewhat miserable experience at Kolmården Camping, we were really ready for new exciting experiences. We had high expectations for Boo Natur, but what came as a surprise was the rest of the village. The small village of Hjortkvarn is packed with castles, churches, old well-kept houses and beautiful nature. It almost feels like you have been transported to another time and space, far removed from the challenges of the rest of the world. Our guess is that it is largely due to the fact that the area is one of Sweden's largest privately owned properties, owned and managed by Boo Egendom with Carl-Fredrik Hamilton at the helm. The property is also one of the few fidei commissions which has managed to survive the test of time.

Below you can see the Boo Church that was built by the Hamilton family so that they would not have to go all the way to the neighboring parish every Sunday. The house in the picture next to it is now a homestead but was a school until 1953. The school was inaugurated in 1851 and was then Närke's first primary school. School meals were also offered here for the less well-off children who had a long journey to school.

Boo Natur is truly something out of the ordinary. The owner previously worked at Frantzéns in Stockholm but has created something completely unique with his new restaurant. It is food art of the highest class where great care is taken both in presentation and composition, but it is also seen as a matter of course that the menu is continuously adapted to the locally produced ingredients that are offered at the time. They also create a very relaxed atmosphere where both environment and staff breathe harmony so that nothing disturbs and all your senses can focus on the dining experience. When we visited them, they had also picked up on my wife's filling up, which resulted in them knocking on our motorhome before dinner and offering champagne and their own air-dried ham. A nice touch that we really appreciated.

After the pleasant introduction, a menagerie of food and wine experiences followed. It was a fifteen-course tasting menu where each new serving offered something unique. The staff also took the time to describe both food and wine in an excellent way, which also enhanced the experience.

Above is a selection of the dishes, but below you can read about the dishes without pictures. The letter in the picture was also taken with you when you left, which was another very nice detail. As always with this type of menu, a big part of the fun is challenging your senses with unusual flavors and aromas. This usually results in a kind of roller coaster where you are tossed between good and not so good experiences. However, it was not the case with Boo Natur's tasting menu. Even dishes that you normally have a hard time with were so exciting and well prepared that you just wanted more. After a number of hours of these amazing experiences, it was really perfect to have the motor home only ten meters from the restaurant.

The Rendahls were a little cranky the next day, but after a good night's sleep and a strengthening breakfast, it was off to the Hjärtasjön archipelago. On the way there we made a quick stop in Hallsberg to buy suitable pastries.

When we went back, we accidentally found an amazing log house that made us both happy and sad at the same time. The positive part was the fantastic craftsmanship and you are really impressed with how houses were built in the old days. The negative part was instead what the previous owners did to the poor house. They had sawed off the knots to make it more modern, they had sawed holes for new windows to let in more light and as if that wasn't enough, they had also sawed off the cross beams to get a more open plan. All of this together had caused the house to collapse and the only thing now holding it upright are the stilts that were put on afterwards. The new owners were a little disheartened as it had now gone so far that the only choice they had was to demolish the fine old house. A log house is a fantastic construction that can last for hundreds of years and it really hurts the soul when you destroy such a beautiful house out of ignorance.

It now took off to Boskulla, which is also part of Boo Egendom. It used to be a so-called widow's seat, but these days it is rented out for weddings, conferences and similar activities.

When we saw that it was Boo Vilt who organized the Afternoon Tea, we were a bit skeptical, but instead of violence to tradition, it meant a refreshing variety. The boring English cuts had been replaced with locally produced game products making it more of a meal rather than a coffee break.

It was two nice days with many pleasant experiences and we can really recommend you to pay a visit. We had actually intended to also catch up with a bit of other things in the area such as e.g. Brevens Bruk and Ditt Skafferi, but Hjortkvarn had so much to offer unexpectedly that we simply didn't have time for anything more.