Scandinavian food coming to Broadway – not grandma’s meatballs

This building at 37th and Broadway will open in February as Krokstrom Klubb & Market.

This building at 37th and Broadway will open in February as Krokstrom Klubb & Market.

Scandinavian food is far more than meatballs and pickled herring, but those – rebooted for modern tastes – will soon be included in a huge menu in the Uptown Arts District.

Krokstrom Klubb & Market is opening next month at 3601 Broadway in the old site of the Broadway Jazz Club.

The city’s only Scandinavian restaurant has a menu that is 14 pages long.

Chef Katee McLean.

Chef Katee McLean in the new restaurant space, just across the street from the recently remodeled Ambassador Apartments.

Chef Katee McLean has drawn on her Swedish heritage to offer everything from Lefse (a traditional flatbread) and sausage to sweet plates with coffee.

“It’s so hard when you’re the first,” McLean said. “You feel you owe the country certain aspects of respect.”

McLean, who has worked at the Classic Cup, Dean & DeLuca and more, will own and operate the restaurant with her partner, Josh Rogers, who has worked in management at places like Port Fonda and the Corner Restaurant.

The couple live in the Volker neighborhood and have been working on old dishes with new twists.

“I tried to make your grandmother’s Swedish food sexy,” McLean said.

For the meatballs, she uses ale or Aquavit in the sauce, she said, and has perfected a reboot of how grandmother did it.

The pickled herring will be served differently as well, kind of like crab cakes.

Meanwhile, Rogers has been testing cocktails made with Aquavit, a spiced liquor that he said “cuts through heavy stuff really well and clears your palette.”

They will also sell Aquavit that they make on site, along with pickled stuff and other items.

They went to Canada to get a supply of hard-to-find lingonberries, a tart berry widely used in the cuisine.

McLean said her ancestors, the Krokstroms, moved to Kansas in about 1900 and started a wide variety of businesses over the years.

Now she is following that tradition, she said, and learning that many others have ties to Sweden and its food.

Others still are ready to try things like Lingonberry duck breast, honey glazed salmon with charred leek or fried beets with curried mayonnaise.

“The feedback we’re getting is mind blowing,” McLean said.

6 Comments

  1. Darrell Lundberg says:

    That will be nice to have a place in K. C. I’ll come.

  2. Donna Krokstrom says:

    So proud of you! I can’t wait to try it!! Good luck!

  3. Rodger Benson says:

    Hopefully the menu will still have traditional Swedish foods as well as the remodeled approaches.

  4. Brad says:

    I am excited to try this new restaurant! It sounds wonderful and although I am sorry to see the Jazz Club didn’t succeed, I welcome Katee and her husband into our neighborhood. I live just around the corner from her new restaurant and I believe that with all of the new apartments coming into the adjacent neighborhoods, her establishment will be a resounding success. Best of luck!

  5. looking forward to the restaurant. Nothing better than Swedish pastries. Remember to have potato sausages with a mustard sauce and Kringles and Swedish Creme with berries, then Lutfisk and sturred cabbages rolls and the pepperkoper and the list can go on and on. My Dad was from
    Degefors, Varmland, Sweden. Still have family living in Sweden. Miss Swanson’s store and Carlson’s bakery.

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