As is so often the case, however, my most memorable meal was among the simplest. The Royal Opera House is home to one of Stockholm's most formal dining rooms, the Operakällaren. But I walked right past it on my way to the building's back entrance. Here was Bakfickan (literally "back pocket"), where a marble bar sat thirty for a traditional menu of husmanskost—crayfish on buttered toast, grilled fish, meatballs, roast pork with lingonberries, pea soup, pickles, and a shockingly good potatispuré.

I wasn't alone in enjoying the elbow-to-elbow seating that forced even Swedes to break the ice. To my right, a group of Swedish-Americans ordered drinks in a grade-school attempt at the local language; to my left, two Stockholmers displayed the unmistakable signs of an awkward first date.

Bakfickan had the quality Swedes call lagom, or "just right," a kind of effortless sufficiency that is a hallmark of the Swedish way of life. But the city is not without its excesses, which is the dangerous future of dining here. At the enfant terrible of Stockholm restaurants, Pontus! (the enthusiasm is mandatory), I was forced to eat onion foam under a glaring halogen lamp. "Is there a McDonald's around here?" my neighbor asked, as we both waited—and waited—for the second course. In fairness, this proved to be a revelatory meal in terms of taste, but the menu offered more in the way of self-promotion by the eponymous chef ("According to me, Pontus…"; "I, Pontus…"; "Votre Pontus…") than enlightenment. Even the greatest mashed potatoes in human history—which is the only way to describe what Pontus had reaped—were not quite worth that much bloviating.

Fortunately, I was rescued the following evening when my long-lost Swedish contact—a marine biologist named Josefin Sagerman—finally appeared. Josefin was a source on a story of mine many years ago, and we began our reunion as one must in modern Europe: with mini-bar wine and a tense half-hour debate about American politics. And then—because, as the writer James Salter once put it, you are vulnerable only in a hotel room—she led us out into the chilly night.

We walked slowly through the lush parks of lower Östermalm, the candlelit lanes of Gamla Stan, and over a roaring tidal rush to face the soaring bluffs of Södermalm. Josefin led me to what looked like a subway entrance, only we went up, not down, riding an elevator some eleven stories. There, suspended in midair, was a long pedestrian bridge to nowhere that allows Stockholmers to travel to great heights without having to hike (in the old days, witches were said to do this with brooms).

I'd walked past this curious structure all week without noticing what Josefin now took me to: Hanging beneath the walkway—long and low, like a culinary barge moored in the sky—was Gondolen, one of Stockholm's most storied institutions. Back in New York, Marcus Samuelsson had insisted that I try the cleverly updated Swedish staples of celebrity chef Erik Lallerstedt, who's run the place since 1994. "He's a pillar, he knows the history, and his restaurant has an old-school vibe," he'd said. Gondolen delivered exactly that, with burnished-wood details and a rounded ceiling. It has been in continuous operation since 1935; Josefin told me that her grandparents had met there for the first time, back in 1946.