Breakfast at Tre Kroner - more than the sum of its parts

Spur of the moment, wife emerged from the shower and announced that we were going to Tre Kroner for breakfast on Sun. No objection here. It had been a very long time, and it was an old fav. and a beautiful day dawning. Off we went.

At 10AM place was full, as was the extraordinarily pleasant, idylically shaded outdoor area on Spaulding, which I did not remember from visits past.

Waited about 20 min. as were seated outside. Genuinely pleasant staff all seemed to be moving quickly, efficiently, and very much trying to keep people happy, which always gives me positive anticipatory feelings.

Ordered 3 of the homemade danish right off. Apple, hazelnut and blackberry praline. These were splended (but, somewhat unfortunately, turned out to be the highlight of the meal as well). I've always liked their pastry, but today they seemed extra fresh - the dough hot, light and flaky. The fillings in lovely proportion to the amount of dough.

Coffee, it must be said, is nothing special.

There was rather an extended wait for main dishes, which the waitstaff put down to a party of 11 in the dining room. I believe that their kitchen is a bit small for the size of the space when it's full and you add on the outside, so this was understandable, though the full 40 min. wait for the meal after ordering did begin to get to me just because I was really hungry.

Corned beef hash/eggs up for me. Nicely hashed hash (not the oversized, unmelded chunks that afflict so many upscale places that do hash). Also nicley browned/blackened on many surfaces. Eggs were actually underdone on the top. I'm not too sensitive about this, but my wife could not have eaten them.

My wife had a special omelet. It invovled ham, broccoli, cheddar...not a combo I look for in an omelet anyway. She said the broccoli was so lightly steamed as to be essentially still raw, which just doesn't work as omelet filling. Also, they do the omelet style where the egg is more or less full cooked flat, then simply folded over the ingredients, but never really coating and cooking with them. For me, this just ain't an omelet. My wife can stand it, though she doesn't prefer it.

Her has browns were pretty good.The chunks a bit too big for my taste, but the surfaces nicely crunchy.

The boy's Swedish pancakes were good. No different from Svea, et. al. The side of American style breakfast links were incredibly greasy. I like a nice greasy breakfast sausage, but these were really amazingly oily. Not bad, but a bit too much. I actually blotted them with a napkin, which was saturated when I was done.

So - in the end, nothing but the danish stood out as quite worth a bus ride. Yet, the service was very friendly and the day was gorgeous and the outside area was so pleasant to sit in that the overall effect was not at all disappointing.

* Meanwhile, a half block west I noticed a storefront promising Ecuadorian food. The space was split in two, with a high counter and just a few tables on one side and a nicer dining room area through a doorway. The menu was largely lots of different paper signs in all different type faces and media stuck up over the counter/grill area.

Couldn't make out most of the signage from outside, but a special seemed to be (if memory serves) "bolas de verde" - now to my rudimentary Spanish, this doesn't quite make sense, so maybe I missed a word.

I believe the name on the window was La Delicias Crucitas. Again, I had nothing to write with and memory fades quickly as the years to by. Anyone seen this place?

Tre Kronor
3258 W Foster
Chicago, IL 60625
773-267-9888

The only objection I have to Tre Kronor is that the bill does indeed usually seem to be more than the sum of its parts-- I'm fairly price insensitive, so when I notice and start feeling like a cheapskate... that said, it is certainly a nice, non-run-of-the-breakfast-mill place.

Here are some Tre Kronor pictures from a while back, I don't feel like resizing them so these are just the links to big honkin' pics:

Pecan danish

Lingonberry pancakes

French Toast

My family was just there Saturday after a five-month break in patronage. They were serving outdoors and in the two indoor dining rooms, so no line for a table but an AWESOME wait for food (the kitchen, of course, remains small). The danish was reheated/nuked to an uncomfortable temperature. The rest of the food was ordinary Tre Kronor quality (to say, quite good), and the staff friendly, but sad to say after five years of loyalty to the swedes, we might have to start looking for an alternative breakfast place up north.

My wife and I were there a couple of months ago, for the first time, and when we left, we could not figure out why anyone would return.

We were seated on the second floor, and while being nice, it was a bit cramped. I ordered the French Toast a la Orange. We can not remember what my wife had, but just that she did not care for it.

While waiting for our food, we could see runners bringing food up the very narrow staircase, and put the trays on a sideboard. There it would sit from anywhere from one to five minutes. While the place was full, the waitstaff seemed more interested in talking about the night before, than serving the food. Peoples cups were empty, and food was getting cold.

My french toast arrived, with bits of orange peel scattered across the surface. I guess that is what made plain french toast, into a la orange. The problem was, it was chopped up orange peel, not just the orange part of the peel, but the entire peel, which included the bitter pith.

As we left the place, we could not figure out, why the Reader, et al, gives this place any kind of good rating, and made a note to ourselves, not to return.

I was there for a birthday dinner recently, had a fairly sad plate of very flabby duck breast. Skin was mushy, fat layer was mostly intact and quite chewy; I got the feeling it was maybe braised for a while rather than pan-fried, broiled, or given another high-heat treatment that would crisp the skin and render the fat. Didn't seem like it had been seasoned or prepped in any other way, either. I'm afraid I regularly do better at home with the Paulina Market's smoked boneless duck breasts. The appetizer, baked brie with apple, was better, at least. I think they do breakfasts much better.

I've only been to Tre Kronor for dinner - several times - but I've never been disappointed. I particularly recall an outstanding poached salmon entree; I can't remember other meals, but all have been beyond my admittedly not-great expectations. I like adventurous food, you won't find that at Tre Kronor. But what they do, they do well. Never had any service problems (well, maybe a bit slow, but that would be nitpicking).

Plus, the BYOB, no corkage policy is appreciated.

Not that I doubt Sabersix's story, but I'm confused by the reference to a second floor. I have no recollection of anything but the small main room and the outside area in summer. There's a second floor at Tre Kroner??

Now that you mention it, I've never seen a second floor there, either. Could he confusing it with some other place?

There is at least a staircase. Servers seem to go up and down it. What actually happens there, I cannot say.

Mike G wrote:There is at least a staircase. Servers seem to go up and down it. What actually happens there, I cannot say.

I think they are talking of Michelangelo. Watch out if they descend the stair with a bald spot in the middle of their hair.

Do I dare to eat some lutefisk?

The waiters serve, but do they also serve who only stand and wait?

As JiLS so sagely remarked:

I think they are talking of Michelangelo. Watch out if they descend the stair with a bald spot in the middle of their hair.

Wise advice. Still, by all accounts, this is a wonderful place to measure out one's life with coffee spoons. Besides, I was under the impression that talking of Michelangelo was limited to the room where women come and go....

Gypsy Boy wrote:I was under the impression that talking of Michelangelo was limited to the room where women come and go....

Not having been there, I assumed (1) at least some of the servers are women and (2) they are coming and going from the (mysterious) upstairs room. My work here is done. Let the Brontë references begin!

Tre Kroner opened the upstairs room some time ago. Yes, it exists, and it looks just like a second floor of any two flat in Chicago. I hadn't noticed food waiting for servers to pick up, but it was behind me last time I was there.

And there's nothing about lutefisk to redeem itself for the smell. I wouldn't bother trying it.

I've had brunch on the second floor a few times. It's more like being in somebody's living room than in a restaurant...real cozy-like.

When I'm in the mood for a traditional (in the American sense) breakfast, and am up early enough to avoid the crowds, I love eating brunch at Tre Kronor.

My typical order is one of the several eggs benedict preparations on offer and a cup of almost good coffee.


::trixie-pea

I'm with Trixie-Pea - I like going for the traditional breakfast preps they offer. I had the corned beef as referenced above, and found it to be just okay. The varieties of benedict have been on the mark though, and it is worth it just to start with a danish - which, unlike the poster above I have found to be uniformally great - and have the accompanying potato sausage with my eggs.

I'm going for the smorgasborg on the 23rd also. Curious to see how that is since so far I've only been for breakfast.

Had a nice blueberry soup there once also.

a.f.oneill wrote:
I'm going for the smorgasborg on the 23rd also. Curious to see how that is since so far I've only been for breakfast.

Are the Smorgasborg the angry Swedish robots that assimilated Captain Picard on "Star Trek"?

I had the corned beef has with over easy eggs and a side of potato sausage at Tre Kronor for breakfast recently.

It was, in my opinion, among the top plates of breakfast food available, and I am someone who has little interest in "breakfast food".

Best,
Michael

Not that eating at a nominated Great Neighborhood Restaurant is a prerequisite, indeed we're supposed to be judging the overall amount of discussion/acclaim more than the restaurants themselves, but the nominating process has had the perfectly happy result of sending me out to eat at a few places that I hadn't been to for a while. This morning it was Tre Kronor, which falls off my breakfast radar like a lot of places that don't open for Sunday breakfast until 9. (With the kids getting up early anyway and a strong desire to NOT spend an hour in line just for breakfast, the earlier we can be somewhere on Sunday morning, the happier I am. We can even find four contiguous seats at Edgebrook Diner on a Sunday morning, a feat I defy any group of hard-partying twentysomethings to equal.)

But enough about me. My last time out, I liked Tre Kronor, felt it was a little expensive, and had a few qualms that didn't send me rushing back. Qualms included the thought that it's a little pricey, and that it was good but not great, with some unfortunate shortcuts such as microwaving the danish.

Well, it IS pricey, to a level that to my mind takes it out of the Edgebrook Diner class and starts heading toward the hotel or at least bar brunch class. But it was hitting on all cylinders this morning, I've had few better breakfasts in recent memory. My smoked salmon eggs benedict was perfect, simply perfect, fluffy poached eggs, freshly-made real hollandaise, potato cubes that for once were crisped up and cooked all the way through. My wife had a nice spinach-mushroom quiche, the kids had Swedish pancakes and orange-vanilla French toast which were totally comfy-tasting, we all split some Swedish sausage and a couple of danish (probably still microwaved but much less obviously so than the last time) which were completely delectable and we could have eaten a dozen more of, except for the passing out from sugar overload part. (That's lemon cream, shown above.) Top to bottom, about as good as breakfast gets.

Tre Kronor is cute as a button without overdoing the rustic Swedish thing, down to the actual accented blonde waitresses. We took the opportunity to check out the upstairs which, as someone said above, is just like a nice two-flat. It was also much quieter than the downstairs, so we decided to keep the kids' noise downstairs where there was background hum to absorb it. Ironically, given that this was probably the first time we'd eaten in greater Andersonville since the Taste of Heaven flap, the kids were unusually good this morning and the grownups at the table next to us were quite obnoxious. (Much better behaved were some of the bikers awaiting the Toys for Tots parade on Western, which inspired us to go home afterwards, grab a couple of still-shrinkwrapped duplicate presents we'd piled up over the years, and make our way to the parade so the kids could begin appreciating the cruel logic by which you actually have to give "your" toys to somebody else for underprivileged children to have something on Christmas, rather than simply accumulate as many as possible for yourself. Fortunately the logical question this whole process raises-- so if Santa brings us our toys, what does he have against poor kids that he doesn't bring them any-- didn't come up. Yet.)

Incidentally, here's the menu for the special Yule smorgasbord (which is not just on the 23rd but runs all month through the 23rd). I'm sort of curious to try it, sort of have my doubts that eighteen different kinds of herring is really worth $44.95 to me. But if there's interest, I'd go with somebody...



By the way, since they spell it "restaurang" twice, is that actually the word in Swedish? Or just a cut and paste mistake?

Mike G wrote:By the way, since they spell it "restaurang" twice, is that actually the word in Swedish? Or just a cut and paste mistake?

Yep, that's actually the word. It always sounds to me like a restaurant for orangutans. From the latin restaurare (to restore). How it made it from Italy to Sweden, I don't know.

Those three years of latin don't come in handy often, unless I'm trying to eavesdrop on Antonius and Amata..

Hi,

Let me know when you'd like to go, that is if I qualify as a somebody!

Only thing missing is lutefisk!

Regards,

gleam wrote:

Mike G wrote:By the way, since they spell it "restaurang" twice, is that actually the word in Swedish? Or just a cut and paste mistake?

Yep, that's actually the word. It always sounds to me like a restaurant for orangutans. From the latin restaurare (to restore). How it made it from Italy to Sweden, I don't know.

Those three years of latin don't come in handy often, unless I'm trying to eavesdrop on Antonius and Amata..

Me paenitet...

'Restaurant' is built off a Latin word but in a real sense, it's not really Latin; it's a Latinism invented in French.

The Swedish form cited above with -ang is, as Gleam indicates, correct and conforms with the popular pronunciation of the same word in much of Germany (though nowadays, I suspect pronunciations in German reflecting the spelling in «-ant» occur with some frequency, alongside the prescribed pronunciation of standard German, which calls for the imitated nasal vowel of the French model*).

In any event, the -ng reflects the adapted pronunciation of persons who speak a language in which nasalised vowels do not occur but who are attempting to render the nasalised final vowel of the French word. Unless they are sufficiently exposed to and can acquire the foreign sound, they must substitute for it a sound which occurs in their own language which bears some acoustic resemblance to the foreign phone. For Swedish and German the sequence /-a-ng/ is the best or at least the most natural rendering of the French /ã/. Nothing very orangutangish about it at all. In English, we ignore wholly the French pronunciation in this particular instance and pronounce it according to the spelling, as if it were originally English, but of course, this is a rather old loan word in English now.

Incidentally, I assume the Swedes borrowed the word from German and spelled it as they heard it pronounced, rather than pronouncing it one way and spelling it another.

Antonius

* Spelling pronunciations are pronunciations which go against the inherited or historical pronunciation of a word in speech and instead ahistorically follow a pronunciation suggested by the spelling. For example, renderings of the English word «often» in which the <t> is pronounced are such spelling pronunciations (the <t> was lost by sound change long ago (cf. soften) but has been maintained in spelling, presumably keeping a visual reminder of the relationship between oft and often).

I'd also be interested in trying the Julbord -- it's something I've been meaning to do for some time. While I can't speak to 18 kinds of herring, I once had a lunch of herring 10 ways in Copenhagen, and it's something I would gladly do again (-- not sure if I shelled out 44.95, though.) I'm wondering what Jul-style herring is. Could it be fried? That would be wonderful.

Mike, I think you owe me a coke or something. I also was there this weekend to shore up my memory of the place, before the big herring (among other things)-fest on the 23rd (and the days leading up, as you helpfully pointed out).

Agree about almost everything except for the price, which seems real cheap to me: pecan danish, 2 coffees, corned beef hashwith poached egss, swedish pankakken, and of course a side of potato sausage, all for $21+$5 tip. Exactly half of what I paid the next morning for brunch at Jane's. Everything was very nicely done, especially the corned beef hash, which I had brushed off as "regular" or some such in an earlier post. It was not - nicely crisped and a nice potato/CB ratio, with just enough onion to add fragrance and not a huge flavor component. Small chunk beef, which is a style growing on me. Excellent. Everything else was very well done as well.

The place, incidentally, was packed. And at first we were seated by the table directly in the line of occasional gusts of wind coming through the front door. I asked if we could move and the server/hostess very graciously moved us to a warmer, cozy table in the back. Great to see them doing so well and able to accomodate a sort of wimpy complaint from me.

Went to the Sweden shop next door for a Christmas party gift for that night and ended up getting several gifts. They really have some neat gift-y stuff for the holidays.

Well, I think $26 is what we fed all four of us for last Sunday at Edgebrook Diner. (Tip may have been on top of that.) Where we spent over $40 for breakfast yesterday. But I'm not complainin' about it any more, just putting Tre Kronor in a price class.

I'm looking into a Yule dinner for sometime next week. Watch the events board.

LTH,

Had a nice breakfast at Tre Kronor Saturday, which I'm coming to think of in similar multipurpose light as EatChicago and Hashalom. In other words, when I'm in the mood for Moon's or Patty's and the bride suggests one of the Hipster Wicker Park/Bucktown breakfast spots, it's the perfect compromise.

Tre Kronor's made in-house Danish, light, flaky, served warm perk the appetite as does the surprisingly good coffee.

Raspberry Danish


I gave up on restaurant versions of Eggs Benedict years ago, all too often gummy Hollandaise masking dried out Canadian bacon and hard-set eggs, not so at Tre Kronor. Light, creamy Hollandaise, perfectly poached eggs, delicious, if somewhat sparse, gravlox make for a winning combination.

Salmon (Gravlox) Eggs Benedict


My wife, a fan of corned beef hash, is particularly fond of Tre Kronor's Ander's Hash, think corned beef hash with "Swedish" spicing.

Ander's Hash


I'm a fan of the lightly crusted Swedish potato sausage, though I find the accompanying Lars Spicy Brown Mustard slightly disconcerting. Visually it's a dead ringer for Koops horseradish mustard, though the flavor has a distinctly sweet note.

Swedish Potato Sausage


All in all a very nice 'compromise' breakfast, friendly efficient service, reasonable prices, well prepared food and pleasant atmosphere.

As an aside, Bridgestone, if you heard a clink somewhere around 11am Chicago time, that was my wife and I toasting you with our coffee cups. As we were in a Swedish restaurant I felt a toast to your health and happiness was in order.

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:I gave up on restaurant versions of Eggs Benedict years ago, all too often gummy Hollandaise masking dried out Canadian bacon and hard-set eggs, not so at Tre Kronor. Light, creamy Hollandaise, perfectly poached eggs, delicious, if somewhat sparse, gravlox make for a winning combination.
Salmon (Gravlox) Eggs Benedict

I see it is served with the traditional Svenska Tabasco sås.

As an aside, Bridgestone, if you heard a clink somewhere around 11am Chicago time, that was my wife and I toasting you with our coffee cups. As we were in a Swedish restaurant I felt a toast to your health and happiness was in order.

Well, Gary, 11 a.m. Chicago time = 6 p.m. Stockholm time. And that's not too far from when, after a day of chopping out and disposing of three large maple stumps from the edge of our yard, grass mowing and hosting a birthday party for our now 1 year-old, I collapsed on the couch, popped open an ice-cold Jever and watched the hour of the day's stage from the Tour of Italy that I had managed to record. I can't spend every afternoon making luxury dinners, can I?

Health and happiness abound over here right now, Gary. Thanks for the thoughts!

3 friends and I went this morning to Tre Kronor for breakfast. No wait and outside table at 10:30. Split a cinnamon roll: it was good--it wasn't smothered in icing and had a nice orange -ish flavor to it, although a bit dry.

One had the omelet special: smoked turkey, brie, and roasted peppers. Another had a smoked salmon and cream cheese omelet. Both good, firm omelets that were just puffy enough. The fillings on both very good, but I thought the smoked salmon stood out. Both came with a side of potatoes...sorta large cut home fries. Nicely crispy.

My girlfriend had hash and eggs. It was some of the best hash I had ever had...the meat was very flavorful and juicy and the potatoes well done.

I had Swedish pancakes with lingonberries and the potato sausage. The pancakes were quite good, although I might have preferred them a bit less doughy. The sausage was really good.

All that, plus a large OJ (fresh-squeezed), small OJ, and coffee came to about $42 before tip. I would definitely go back.

Do they serve breakfast all day?