The Best Places to Drink and Stay in North Södermalm

Three connected early-20th-century townhouses in a quiet Stockholm neighborhood, Ett Hem runs to just 22 rooms and is decorated to feel less like a hotel and less like a hotel every time you look at it. British designer Ilse Crawford handled the interiors, all low-key warmth and Swedish restraint. There's a sitting room, a winding patio, and a gym with a yoga studio. The name means "a home," which is either a promise or a lot of pressure, depending on your home.

1. The 50 #89 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
2. White Guide Global Exceptional Level · White Guide
3. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

Röda Huset, or The Red House, is a Nordic cocktail bar spread across three floors of a genuinely red building in central Stockholm. The drinks are built around Swedish produce, elderberries, local plums, cold-pressed carrots, and foraged herbs, with the menu laid out as a map of where everything came from. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars, and the whole operation has the quiet confidence of somewhere that doesn't need to explain itself.

1. The 50 #35 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #43 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

The neo-Renaissance facade, all turrets and towers across the harbor from the royal palace, has been Stockholm's establishing shot since the 1800s. This grand old hotel carries that weight without flinching: Carrara marble floors, stately pillars, and a waterfront address that hasn't lost its argument. Nobel laureates and heads of state have all checked in, alongside travelers who simply wanted the best room in Sweden.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
2. White Guide Global Exceptional Level · White Guide
3. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide
2. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Parked on the harbor between the Grand Hotel and the old town, this boutique hotel is essentially Stockholm's answer to the question of what luxury looks like when it stops trying. The design leans into history rather than minimalism, so expect mid-century chairs alongside things that feel almost rustic. A small music venue and a lounge round things out. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

1. White Guide Global Exceptional Level · White Guide
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A 1910 bank building turned boutique hotel, with marble bones and a Stockholm design sensibility layered on top. The interiors pull off the rare trick of honoring the original architecture without turning it into a museum. Rooms run small at the compact end, but all lean luxurious. Multiple restaurants on site, a Parisian-style bar, and a rooftop with views over the city center. Holds a Michelin Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key
2. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

A Jaume Plensa sculpture commands the entry staircase before you've even checked in, which tells you most of what you need to know about this design hotel on Brunkebergstorg Square. The interiors lean into the square's Brutalist bones rather than apologizing for them, with a dark monochrome palette, museum-caliber art throughout, and rooms spacious enough that the desk doesn't double as the dining table. A proper drink cabinet replaces the minibar, a small but telling detail.

1. White Guide Global Exceptional Level · White Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The building's claim to fame, before it became a luxury hotel, was a 1970s bank robbery that gave the world the term "Stockholm syndrome." Now Swedish design trio Claesson Koivisto Rune has turned the 19th-century stone pile into something cooler, pairing original dark-oak-paneled rooms (the Heritage Board is watching) with a palette called "Scandinavian dark blond" and bathrooms wrapped floor-to-ceiling in Carrara marble. It holds a Michelin Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key
2. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

The Red Room, where August Strindberg set his novel of the same name, is now a hotel bar, which tells you something about this Belle Epoque landmark in central Stockholm. The 82 rooms were redesigned in cherry and marble, the suites leaning more extravagant, some with saunas or jacuzzis and interiors by Philippe Starck. The concert hall pulls everyone from DJs to stand-up comics, so request a room well away from the action if sleep is the plan.

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A red brick house on Södermalm that's been around forever, Hotel Frantz is a boutique hotel where the history is structural and the interiors look like a Mondrian had opinions. The colorful modernist rooms sit inside genuinely old bones, and the restaurant, bar, and a breakfast spread that leans toward lavish keep you from ever needing to leave. It holds a Michelin Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key
2. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide

Velvet sofas, original tiled stoves, and rotating art exhibitions share the same room in this family-run hotel on a corner of Vasastan's old Siberia district. The lobby doubles as a living room, complete with board games and a bar that keeps things lively. Rooms run from compact singles to suites with Victorian bathtubs. Breakfast draws the neighborhood. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key
2. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide

Tartan, not tweed, lines the walls and bar front here, a detail that sets the tone for the rest of the room. Tucked inside the Victory Hotel, this cocktail bar leans into a cosy, old-school gentlemen's club feel, with nautical odds and ends, model ships, and figureheads filling the cases and corners. The drinks follow the theme, folding in smoked sea salt and sea-foward flourishes. The kind of place where you settle in rather than pass through.

1. White Guide Global Exceptional Level · White Guide
2. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Bikes, kayaks, and skateboards are available at the front desk, which tells you everything about the vibe before you've seen the room. This Scandic hotel in the middle of Stockholm leans into the urban-explorer fantasy with twelve room types, from snug solo quarters to apartments sleeping twelve. The rustic-meets-city interiors feel very Stockholm, and the rooftop Nest Cocktail Lounge has panoramic views for when the exploring is done.

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The Crystal Bar claims what is plausibly Stockholm's largest chandelier, and the rest of the hotel leans into that energy. This luxury boutique hotel occupies a stately old building near the Royal Opera, decorated in Gustavian style with a French accent, updated in a renovation that kept the opulence and added modern color and comfort. Rooms vary in size the old European grand-hotel way, so it pays to look before you book.

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

An Art Nouveau girls' school from the early 1900s, now a boutique hotel with a glass-and-steel addition by architect Gert Wingårdhs sitting quietly on top. The two eras don't fight each other, which takes more skill than it sounds. Rooms carry that particular Scandinavian ease where everything is considered but nothing announces itself. The restaurant leans into modern Nordic cooking, which in Stockholm is less a trend than a default mode of seriousness.

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

An oxidized copper roof crowns this Jugendstil landmark on the waterfront at Nybrokajen, and the building's bones are suitably grand. Inside, a recent renovation has softened it into something more quietly contemporary, the kind of hotel that business travelers choose on purpose rather than by default. Superior rooms look out over the Stockholm archipelago, which is a nicer view than many suites elsewhere manage. Gamla Stan and Östermalm are both a short walk away.

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The island of Skeppsholmen sits surrounded by Stockholm but somehow separate from it, and this boutique hotel occupies a pair of buildings that have been standing since the late 1600s. The restoration left the old bones alone and let well-chosen furniture do the talking, so modern and cozy manage to coexist without fighting. Locals cross the bridge for the bar and the afternoon coffee ritual, which is a decent sign the place hasn't gone full hermitage.

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Mahogany panelling and wall-to-wall carpet nod to the bank director's office that once occupied this building, which tells you everything about the mood at this intimate cocktail bar tucked off the Bank Hotel lobby. The room is small enough that the bartenders clock your preferences after a round or two and start steering accordingly. The signature list leans classic, with Old Fashioned riffs doing the heavy lifting.

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide
2. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Stockholm, Sweden

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Fine Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Fine Level · White Guide

1. White Guide Very Fine Level · White Guide

Burl wood headboards custom-made for each room and retro radios on the nightstands set the tone at this design-forward hotel in Södermalm, which holds a Michelin Key. A roster of Stockholm designers worked on the restoration of a 19th-century landmark, and it shows. One of the two restaurants sits inside the original chapel. There's a Scandinavian sauna and cold plunge for when the weather does what Swedish weather does.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A boutique hotel named for a flower-filled family cottage, Villa Dahlia hides soft-toned rooms, Murano glass, and dahlia-red accents behind a firmly Brutalist facade. The rooftop was made for evening views, there's pétanque in the courtyard, and a Nordic spa upstairs for when you've overdone it. Bikes are available to borrow, though the Michelin Guide awarded it a Key, which suggests staying put has its own argument.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Floor-to-ceiling windows open onto a rooftop terrace on both sides, which makes Le Hibou feel less like a hotel bar and more like a very well-appointed penthouse you've somehow talked your way into. White marble bar, low leather sofas, chrome ceiling, the whole aesthetic. It has its own street entrance, mercifully separate from the hotel below. Capacity is tight, so on weekends the early arrivals win.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A brick in the spa wall still carries a woman's footprint from when it was laid centuries ago, which sets the tone for this waterfront hotel in Gamla Stan. Rooms vary between vaulted medieval ceilings and wide views over the water to the old sailing ship Chapman. The Tjärn spa is built into Stockholm's original defensive wall. The Royal Palace and the old town's narrow lanes are steps away.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A hotel on Djurgården, the park island where ABBA The Museum is practically a neighbor, Backstage is entirely devoted to theater and the creative arts, which means rooms that lean into drama rather than away from it. Think plush and slightly diva-adjacent. Next door is Konsthallen, a combined shop, bakery, and restaurant running all three meals. The staff apparently track what's actually happening around town, which is more than most hotels manage.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A lighting architect named Kai Piippo has quietly stolen the show from everyone else at this 169-room hotel a short walk from Stockholm's central station. The 1960s office-block exterior requires a leap of faith, but the inside is all Scandinavian minimalism, run through with shifting light installations. Mood rooms project moving patterns on the walls and cycle the headboard through a spectrum of wintry tones, which is either soothing or a lot, depending on your evening.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide