Higher up the culinary food chain are places like Riche, a bistro on the line between the northern districts of Norrmalm and Östermalm, where advertising and media types book the place solid from 6:15 in the evening until midnight (and no, the punctuality-obsessed Swedes do not accommodate latecomers). I stopped at the zinc bar for a flute of pink champagne, the Euro drink of the moment, and then fought my way through the French cuffs and "eye Scandi" just long enough to have my fill.

The next day, I took a more stately tour of the surrounding neighborhoods, settling into the lunch counter at Lisa Elmqvist, a venerable restaurant inside Östermalm Saluhall, a seafood market of red brick and vaulted ceilings, like a Royal Albert Hall for lobsters (to say nothing of Baltic cod, oysters, roe, smoked eel, and seemingly every pâté known to man).

Sitting across from me was a Swedish opera star, and luck put me next to a Ruben-esque musician named Madeline, who has been living in New York longer than I have. She was on an annual pilgrimage home and helped me pronounce the Swedish for grilled bream with leeks—and then warned me not to expect aid the next time I spoke to a Swede. "People in New York are much politer," Madeline insisted with a straight face, unleashing a string of stereotypical adjectives. Swedes were "closed," "frosty," "unfriendly," "reserved," and "shy," she claimed, at least compared with Americans. There were exceptions, such as the aggressive socializing at bars like Riche—"Ugh! Advertising people!"—but in general she was right. Swedes have to be pried out of their shells.

Madeline thought Swedes were still ashamed of doing so well, of being truly wealthy (Sweden is by some measures the richest country in the world). Prosperous, educated, healthy, modern, increasingly multiracial, and technologically advanced, with a clean environment and a strong sense of tradition—the lack of obvious faults can be annoying, like a beautiful woman without a birthmark, or a diamond without a flaw. I have to admit, I felt a shameful shiver of schadenfreude upon discovering a New York City–style drunk rummaging through the trash outside the Clarion Hotel, in Södermalm.

Such gritty moments, though rare, brought the city down to earth but also emphasized the paradigmatic goodness of the Swedes, and of Stockholm. In a chaotic world of violence and disparity, Sweden is the Gandhi of nation-states, a monument to what should be. Goodness may be forbidding, but Stockholm scratches an itch that no other place in the world can quite reach.

The Swedes even do winter well. The next afternoon, as the light began to bleed out of an overcast sky at a few minutes before three, I followed a steady trickle of well-dressed burghers into the Grand Hôtel, a Baltic legend, for the smorgasbord—the clinically clean, seasonally correct, super-deluxe version of the old buffet that Americans love to hate. Under chef Mathias Dahlgren, the meal was a tour of the Swedish palate: berries, herbs, and venison; an amazing array of fresh herring, salmon, and arctic char; and of course lovingly tended spuds, stripped clean and enhanced with everything from a bird's nest of dill to sweet mustards, saffroned sauces, and garlic and orange flavorings. I washed it all down with a glass of champagne, which led to a rare instance of Swedish forwardness: A businessman at the next table leaned over and said, "Now that's the way to do it!"