Book a table - Menu - About Pelikan - Stories - Bars - plug English The wings of history For one hundred years, a restaurant has been run in the beautiful Art Nouveau-inspired premises at Blekingegatan 40. But the home cooking heaven has older origins than that. The restaurant name sends historical threads down to the 19th century, the 18th century and all the way to the 17th century. 1664 OPENED THE CELLAR PELIKAN It was in 1664 that the bartender Hans Georg Cron opened the cellar Pelikan on Österlånggatan in the Old Town. In 1720, it was time for the Pehlekahn tavern to move to Svartmangatan, one of the city's oldest streets that started from the center of the Old Town, Stortorget. The tavern remained there for thirteen years before it moved to the Slussen area in 1733, where it would remain until 1931, for almost 200 years. The restaurant was located on Brunnsbacken, the area where Hornsgatan and Götgatan end, the current Södermalmstorg. Here, the restaurant name eventually came to take shape. On the restaurant's rotunda in glass and iron, a kind of veranda with a roof, there was a sculpture group, a female pelican that fed her three cubs. STOCKHOLM SUPPER For many periods, Pelikan had a reputation for being Söder's (then called Åsön) best restaurant. In the 1730s, it was much of a harbor tavern for everyone who worked in and around the many sailing ships that lay at the quays where Gamla Stan met Åsön. In the 1860s, the restaurant was described as one of the three best in Stockholm for a supper, "where skilled housewives cook healthy and tasty Swedish home cooking". But Brunnsbacken, which was the address, changed. The old pump house and the well disappeared. The construction of the tunnel for the railway began in 1866. The pelican was expanded and rebuilt. And got, for example, a special room with two telephones. ONE CROWN AND FIFTY ÖRE A restaurant called Pelikan remained on the site until 1931 when the buildings were demolished to make way for the new Slussen. Last night, four dishes and a smorgasbord were served, which together cost one krona and fifty öre. In parallel, what would become today's Pelican was born and lived on Blekingegatan 40. There, Stockholm's liquor company, Port Arthur, ran a restaurant. Why it was named after what is today a district in the Chinese city of Lüshunkou is not easy to know. At least in 1904, when the tavern opened, Port Arthur was a place that the navy of the Russian Empire had just lost after a Japanese attack. IN 1904, THE RESTAURANT PROPERTY ON BLEKINGEGATAN 40 WAS COMPLETED It was unusual for a house to be built solely to be a tavern from the beginning. Stockholms utskänkningsaktiebolag was a non-profit non-profit company - with roots in the sobriety business - which had a license to dispense and sell spirits in controlled forms. A kind of forerunner to the system company. The company had about 30 restaurants and would serve good food rather than spread the drinking custom. They closed early and had strict serving rules. The counterbook's restrictions meant that the queues could meander long out on Götgatan for the coveted allocation of alcohol, two whites and one brown. The counter book was a way of regulating alcohol consumption until 1955. The ration for men was 15 centilitres, for example two glasses of purified and one glass of eau-de vie. Women received half as long as they stayed in the pub environment. LADIES FIRST 1984 Pelikan did not get her separate ladies' toilet until 1984 in connection with two women buying the restaurant. The assignment to design the house on Blekingegatan during the beginning of the 20th century had gone to the architect Sam Kjellberg. He was one of the most hired architects in Stockholm. The house became large with many different spaces that over the years got a little different use. Party floor, liquor sales, apartment for the basement master. As well as a couple of different restaurant premises. The large hall, a dining room with wall-mounted bench furnishings and high panels in brown and the more exclusive restaurant environment à la city hotels. With its white linen tablecloths, it was named Linnematsalen. In 1969, SARA, Sweden's Allmänna restaurangbolag, bought the restaurant on Blekingegatan and renamed it from Port Arthur to the tradition-laden name Pelikan. In 1984, the establishment was bought by two women who came to run it for almost thirty years. In December 2013, new owners stepped in who, in addition to Pelikan, among other things, run the historic Blå Porten at Djurgården. RESTAURANT PELIKAN AB BLEKINGEGATAN 40 116 62 STOCKHOLM PHONE: 08-556 090 90 HOME RESERVE A TABLE MENU ABOUT PELICAN PRESS CONTACT US - BY CEYEBR -