FACTS
Grythyttan
Grythyttan, around 10 km south of Hällefors, obtained its church, town privileges and inn in the 1640s after silver was discovered in the region. The hopes to mine silver ended up leading to nothing, but instead the iron industry took hold. The village became a meeting place for forest dwellers and miners, farmers and crofters when they came into town to go to church or run errands. The district was inhabited largely by migrants from the Finnish parts of Sweden – so many in fact that the church priest held his sermon in Finnish. At the end of the 1800s a railroad was built past the village and the old Inn was overshadowed by the new railroad hotel.
In the 1970s the, then, very fallen down inn was fully restored and a young man who went by the name of Carl Jan Granqvist was entrusted with the role as innkeeper. Carl Jan started holding courses in gastronomy, an initiative that eventually led to the establishment of Sweden’s first high school training on the subject in 1993. The course was set up on location in the Nordic House of Culinary Arts in Grythyttan, a visionary building that originally was built as a Swedish pavilion at the world exhibition in Sevilla some years before, and then re-erected in Grythyttan. The House of Culinary Arts also holds an extensive library concerning food and dining (a branch of the örebro Univerity library), a cookbook museum, boutique and the restaurant Kantinen. Almost next door, on the other side of the river, lies Grythytte Gård with a still functioning old mill.
Under Carl Jan’s management the old inn developed. His successful work, which also brought about the engagement of the surrounding community, made Grythyttan and the House of Culinary Arts a centre point in an attractive region with food and dining in central focus. This inspired many entrepreneurs to put their efforts into building up business ventures in the area, among others; Lena Hall and Lars-Göran Staffare with Bredsjö Mjölkfår (sheep cheese), Uta Riedal and Oskar Jansson with Sikfors Herrgård (manor), Per Fritzell with Grythyttan Vin (wine), Neering Glass och Choklad (icecream and chocolate) in the Grythyttan square.