Today is the beginning of the Nobel Week. This year’s laureates are meeting for the first time at the Nobel Prize Museum, where they will each hand over an artefact and sign a chair in the museum’s Bistro. At the same time, the Nobel Prize banquet chef and pastry chef will be introduced. This year’s banquet menu draws inspiration and ingredients from the sea and nature in Sweden and Norway. For the first time, the first and main course will also be entirely fish- and shellfish-based.
It will be a busy time for the Nobel Prize laureates who are visiting Stockholm during the Nobel Week. The prize-awarding institutions are inviting the public to press conferences and Nobel Prize lectures early in the week. Laureates will visit a number of primary and secondary schools, and some laureates will participate in a conversation with an astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS). During the week, there will also be time to experience the Nobel Week Lights festival and look at the creations made by students at Beckmans College of Design, inspired by the discoveries and achievements that have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize. First up on the week’s programme is a gathering for the laureates and their guests at the Nobel Prize Museum.
“We have now welcomed this year’s laureates to Stockholm,” says Vidar Helgesen, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation. “During the week, we will celebrate the vital importance of their achievements for humanity. The stories about the artefacts they have donated to the museum this morning will always be inspiring. They will allow our visitors to learn more about the outstanding and unique work of the laureates.”
On 10 December the Nobel Prize award ceremony and banquet will take place in Stockholm. For the first time, chef Jacob Holmström will be responsible for the first course (starter) and the main course at the year’s banquet. Annie Hesselstad is returning to take charge of this year’s banquet dessert. The menu for the Nobel Prize banquet is a secret until it is served to the guests there, but the duo is already revealing a few things. The first course and main course will be based on what is in the sea. Some 21,000 petal-like edible decorations will also be cut out of beets.
“I grew up on Sweden’s west coast and love to cook with fish and shellfish, so I am going to do that for the banquet,” says Jacob Holmström. “In my dishes, I will combine Norwegian and Swedish ingredients − just like the Nobel Prize, which is awarded in both Sweden and Norway.”
The ingredients for this year’s dessert are sourced from different parts of Sweden, north to south. In Mockträsk outside the northern town of Boden, 50 kilos of lingonberries have been picked. Annie Hesselstad will also use tar syrup from central Sweden. She will not reveal the ingredient from southern Sweden until the dessert is served.
“I spend a lot of time in nature and find peace in the forests and mountains,” says Annie Hesselstad. “That is where I found my inspiration for this year’s dessert. Lingonberries are associated with both forests and Sweden. They feel like both a natural and a slightly daring choice. It will also be interesting to see how the banquet guests react to my choice of tar syrup, which is an unusual and distinctive seasoning.”
The menu and all the ingredients will only be revealed when all the guests have sat down at their tables at 19:00 on 10 December.
Press images of the Nobel Week
Press images of the Nobel Week Lights festival
Press images of Nobel Creations (Beckmans College of Design)
Detailed press material for the Nobel Week
Publication dates and times (CET) during the Nobel Week
Seating chart, Table of Honour, Nobel Prize Banquet: 9 December, 11:00
Presentation speeches, Nobel Prize award ceremony: 10 December, 16:00
The Nobel Prize banquet menu: 10 December, 19:00
Press images of the Nobel menu dishes: 10 December, 21:30
The laureates’ speech of thanks: 10 December, about 23:00
Facts
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded 621 times to 1,000 laureates. Because some have been awarded the prize twice, a total of 965 individuals and 27 organisations have received a Nobel Prize or the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
The approximately 60 banquet tables in the Blue Hall of the Stockholm City Hall will be covered with some 800 metres of linen cloth, and the meticulous table setting will comprise no fewer than some 9,240 porcelain pieces, 5,230 glasses and 9,240 items of cutlery. Those who will be working with the banquet meal during the evening include more than 40 chefs and 190 servers.
Jacob Holmström will be responsible for the first course and main course at this year’s Nobel Prize banquet. He is a Swedish chef and restaurateur from Simlångsdalen, near Halmstad. Together with Anton Bjuhr, he ran Gastrologik restaurant in Stockholm, which was awarded one Michelin star in 2013 and two stars in 2019. Holmström won the 2021 Kockarnas kamp (Battle of the Chefs) competition on Sweden’s TV4. In 2022, he was awarded the Gastronomic Academy’s Gold Medal as well as the title Kockarnas Kock (Chef of the Year). Early in 2023 Jacob Holmström moved home to Halmstad, where he plans to open a new restaurant next year.
Having grown up on the west coast, Jacob Holmström likes to use what the sea has to offer in his cooking. This year, the banquet will thus feature a seafood-based menu. He prefers to work with locally produced ingredients, and the ingredients for the 10 December menu have been sourced from Sweden and Norway – a great combination, just like the Nobel Prize, which is awarded in both Sweden and Norway. He will also cut out 21,000 petal-like edible decorations using beets.
Annie Hesselstad is in charge of the banquet dessert for the second year in a row. She was a member of the Swedish National Culinary Team in 2015 to 2016 and competed in the 2016 Culinary Olympics. She lived and worked for many years in both France and Austria. At the beginning of the pandemic, she studied foraging and locally produced ingredients at Örebro University. Today she is the creative director of the patisserie and bakery at Artipelag, an art gallery in the Stockholm archipelago, where her pastries are inspired by nature and the surrounding art exhibitions. She also works at Riksgränsen on Sweden’s northern border with Norway as head pastry chef at a small boutique hotel, Niehku Mountain Villa, where she devotes much of her leisure time to skiing, hiking and fishing.
Her banquet dessert is a tribute to Sweden, with ingredients sourced from north to south. Among other things, the dessert will include 50 kilos of lingonberries picked in Mockträsk, outside the northern town of Boden. Tar syrup from Högtorp farm in Mellösa in central Sweden will also be used.
The banquet menu has been developed in close collaboration with the Nobel Foundation’s gastronomic advisors: Fredrik Eriksson of Långbro Värdshus and Restaurant Nationalmuseum; Ulrika Karlsson of Krakas Krog; and Gert Klötzke, Professor of Gastronomy at Umeå University. Fredrik Eriksson and Ulrika Karlsson are creative leaders at Restaurangakademien.
Stadshusrestauranger is marking its tenth Nobel Prize banquet
For the tenth time the restaurateur behind the Nobel Prize banquet is Stadshusrestauranger (City Hall Restaurants), whose Chef de Cuisine, Gunnar Eriksson, will preside this year over his nineteenth Nobel Prize banquet.
“Several members of our wait staff have served at more than 30 Nobel Prize banquets, and we have a loyal group of employees working in a variety of positions who return year after year to be part of implementing this unique evening,” says Maria Stridh, CEO of Stadshusrestauranger. “Every year presents new challenges, and it is fantastic to participate in continuous development and improvement efforts, to further ensure that the banquet maintains such high quality. I am both pleased and proud of the collective experience and skill of our team.”
Guided tours of the kitchen
On 7 and 8 December, there will be an opportunity to visit the chef and pastry chef in the City Hall’s banquet kitchen. For more information about this, please contact: Maria Torén, Head of Marketing & Communications, Stadshusrestauranger,