Adams Smoke House — Restaurant in Stockholm

This may be the worst experience I have ever had in a restaurant in Sweden, and there are a lot of things to talk about, I will try to be as fair as possible.

The place, oh... the place is not prepared for the type of service they offer, there is nothing more, it's horrible. The decor is quirky, but not bad. There really are no assigned tables, you come and sit wherever you can or see clean, but that's not the bad thing, it's a smokehouse and they really honor that, every time in the kitchen they open the meat smokers all the way up it fills the whole restaurant with smoke, and not a little!! I don't understand how that type of service can be allowed, I really don't understand it, just 2 small windows that don't move the smoky air... it's very uncomfortable... be prepared to go straight to the shower when you get home , it's like having a barbecue in a house without windows or chimney🤦🏻‍♂️

Let's talk about the food, if there is something to save it is the food, and it is good since you go to a restaurant to eat. It really wasn't bad, BUT the food brings up another issue... there is no menu, there are no options, they bring you as a garnish a bowl of stale rice, a parsley sauce, a kind of rather poor coleslaw and some "nachos"... everything is ok, let's give a 2/10 to the garnishes, but now let's talk about the meat! How do you ask for it? Well, they tell you to go downstairs and ask for the grams you want and if you want, record a video (in our case we didn't), because yes, the site offers a show and what they are looking for a bit is the show. Once you get downstairs, our friend Adam, well portrayed in all parts of the restaurant as if he were a Salt Bae-style star, asks you "how many are you" and "do you want beef or lamb" and that's where the magic begins, it opens again the smoker and takes out a piece of meat that he thinks is convenient, he removes the aluminum foil wrapping and prepares to hit it against the board so that the meat leaves the bone while explaining that if you like meat that's good, you want meat coming loose from the bone! The piece in question was a beef shank, it is an economical cut of the animal but cooked for a long time it comes out very tender, and in the smoking process it looks good, let's give it a 7/10, season it a little with a mixture of spices that he has in a bowl in front of his board, he adds roasted garlic, a roasted chili and more parsley sauce. We decided to also order some lamb to try another type of cut, and our good friend Adam, once again opened the smoker door and in this case took out 2 small pieces that were (drumroll) exact! Shanks too! But in this case of lamb, of course, they are not very noble or traditional cuts when it comes to a smokehouse, but they are much more used in the East, and the restaurant seems like a mix of both. In this case the shanks had a little more flavor, but nothing special either, let's give it a 7/10. It must be said that for 3 people, 1 shank of beef and 2 of lamb can be a lot of food, especially if it is smoked since it is much more satisfying, but we barely leave less than 100 grams of meat in total (I am a good eater).

And now comes the part that ruined everything... THE PRICE!!! I'd put it in bigger letters if I could... It's a steal, I'm sorry but there is no other way to say it, and it may not be for the next one since the price is random!!! And now you may be wondering "how does that work!?" Well... When we went to pay we had consumed a total of 6 beers and basically what they wanted in the quantities and they wanted as far as the food is concerned, when I approach the checkout it appears again our friend Adam and he says "2500" 😶 As!? There are no prices or menus anywhere in the establishment that tell you anything, they serve you what they want and how much they want and in the end they set a totally exorbitant price, I'm sorry but it is unjustifiable, it is a theft. If we had eaten 1kg of Black Angus or some noble cut I would understand, but the quality of the meat is not good, it is simply well...

TL;DR: Tastes great, worth the money, but a money trap if you don't know what you're dealing with... So ask them to begin by serving you the minimum quantity of 350 grams per person, before you agree on having more meat on your platters!

Full Story: Dear foodies, I present to you a horror-comedy-love story that went from curiosity to bedazzlement, and then to bewilderment and finally to embezzlement in a matter of two hours...

Let me be clear, the food was great, and I would like all of you to visit this place every time you lust for meat, but, I would also like you to take protective measures so you don't walk out of the restaurant having a beef with how they serve and charge you!

CURIOSITY After hearing from numerous friends, during the last few months, about this place in Stockholm that serves Halal smoked meat (well, they actually said Halal Steak, but they also confuse Lahoree Potato Pilaf with Biryani, so forgive them), I finally managed to herd a gathering into agreeing to eat at Adams Smokehouse yesterday...

BEDAZZLEMENT As we entered, the scent of smoked meat aroused us for the meal we were about to have... We were told by the staff that "they are the menu" and they'll tell us what we'll eat when we're ready to order!

So far so good... (Side note: I made a reservation for 8 people via The Fork, but only 6 of us made it to the dinner gathering, so Adam gave me an earful for not updating my reservation because they charge him 50kr per booked person! Crazy!)

BEWILDERMENT When the moment arrived for us to place the order, we were summoned by the staff to the chef's counter where Adam started off by grilling one of our friends who thoughtlessly asked if he also served chicken... The rest of us, tranced by the presence of brisket, shanks (he only had one left, so he also grilled another one of us, who asked for shanks, for being stupid and not going for the full lamb shoulder instead), and ribs on the counter ignored our chicken buddy's verbal abuse and nodded sheepishly while he seasoned and torched platter after platter to serve us, which we then happily carried through a flight of stairs by ourselves to our table on the upper floor... Only to realize that we'd been terrible customers and had forgotten to pick up our drinks, so we had to interrupt him in the middle of a conversation with his friends to be allowed to pick them from the fridge behind his counter...

Anyways, our feast began, among unsuspecting reflections on how we thought there was way more food than the 6 of us could eat... And unsurprisingly, we were full to our tonsils when we went downstairs again to request permission to take some take-away containers to pack along the leftovers...

EMBEZZLEMENT We reached the pinnacle of self-esteem-preservation when Adam asked us to show him the pictures that we took of our food so he could calculate how much meat he had served us... Because we obediently did as he said...

This was the first "rupture", a.k.a. realization, that the show that we were enjoying before the feast was actually sponsored fully by us...

After 10 minutes of Adam switching between our check-out, and another customer's payment troubles (a party of two, who were unprepared to make a debit card payment of 3500kr), he caused the second rupture, that vaporized the sweet food coma that usually follows heavy eating, with information that we'd been served 817 grams of meat per person... Which costs as many crowns (kronor) per person!

So... Yeap! Noodles and crackers on our grocery lists for the rest of the month, I suppose...!

As we say in Punjabi: Rull tay gaye aan per chass bari ayee aey!

Will certainly go again, but with more scrutiny of the...

Staff is really sweet! ❤️ The price for 2 people was 1399kr, that was for lamb and cow. The grill master did tell us that the lamb was more tender and that the cow was dry before we insisted on cow. He was right, it was dry but we were very hungry and don’t usually like lamb so we took cow anyways. The reviews of the place seemed good. There wasn’t any other options presented to us and maybe it was because we got here 3 hours before closing. Maybe the other meat was out.

I can recommend going there to try but for me I felt a bit uncomfortable as the price was very high and I was confused most of the time to how I was supposed to order the food.

You go to the desk where the meat is and discuss with the grill master what to be placed on the wooden tray then you bring it back to your table yourself. It is common to do so in Stockholm nowadays at many places but never have I had this experience for this high price.

I guess it’s my own fault because I didn’t ask how much it would cost when he cut the meat up for us. He just ask how much we wanted and said it’s up to us. He cut a big chunk and since we’re Swedish we just trusted that it wouldn’t be more than 1000kr since I’m very tiny and we were only two people. We also quietly got some punie words out of us commenting that we usually can’t fit that much. But I’m not sure if he didn’t hear us or if he just ignored us.

So do what you wish with this information I do regret not asking how much it would cost before he cut up the meat. I’m not sure what his calculations was based on when I payed either since he didn’t weigh the meat as he cut it. It felt like he just took a price that he felt was right in the moment.

I eat out a lot in restaurants and have worked in kitchens myself so I appreciate concepts that challenge the norm. But I did feel a bit fooled and to be honest a bit sad when I left. Because I love supporting family-ish vibe restaurants, but I don’t like being taken advantage of. So legally the restaurant have done nothing wrong, but emotionally I will carry this with me when people ask me if I’ve been there.

It’s also good to mention that the place is a smoke place so theres a light fog through the restaurant. I didn’t think of that because I thought the kitchen would suck it all up though it’s ventilation.

In short; I just felt lost most of the time and neither the sides or the the all-you-can-drink sodas (no alcohol was included in our bill I might add) made it feel worth it. So, yeah… looking at the other reviews the price didn’t reach the same amount but maybe I should have spoken up more. At the same time, it is not only my responsibility to make me feel safe and secure at a restaurant with many new elements to the experience of being there.

I don’t know, maybe the grill master didn’t like me for some reason. Maybe I was too quite or running up and down the stairs too much because I wasn’t sure how to order food. Maybe this was just today. I hope other people had a...