If you live Stateside, then you might not be familiar with Scandic.
While it’s the largest Nordic hotel chain, they don’t operate on our side of the ocean.
Scandic is set to open their newest location, called Haymarket, in Stockholm. To promote their ambitious new project, the company has created a “mobile hotel” — a 200-foot full-service hotel room housed in a shipping container, complete with television, Wi-Fi, and a working bathroom, that they’re calling Scandic To Go. It’s been touring Europe for a while now (and has developed somewhat of a cult following in the process), but is heading to New York for its inaugural excursion into the United States.
Here as part of the North Nordic Food Festival, the room sat in a little square in the West Village, where it stayed for six days, with a different resident each night. Haymarket is set to both reinterpret the historic Stockholm building in which it resides while accentuating the art deco features that make it unique.
Scandic To Go certainly embodies this design philosophy. While 200 feet isn’t incredibly spacious, a smart layout makes the most of what’s there, making the room feel comfortable and large. Art deco-inspired patterns adorn the bedsheets and wall paper, with abstract art pieces that give the room a unique feel.
Scandic To Go is meant to give New Yorkers the complete Nordic experience, a large part of which is food, especially breakfast. The To Go guests were served a full breakfast the morning after their stay, prepared by celebrity chef Linnea Johansson (who also doubled as hotel manager for the week).
On Monday, select members of the media were invited to have the Nordic breakfast experience, prepared and served by Ms. Johansson. The buffet was expansive (although, I was told, it paled in comparison to the full 100+ item buffet at a Scandic location), featuring traditional items such as: oatmeal served with lingonberries and milk; cinnamon and cardamom buns; seven-minute egg topped with smoked caviar and chives; and (my personal favorite) Smorrebrod open-faced sandwiches.
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New York is a city of cultures that are constantly mishing and moshing and melding together. You can’t walk down a street without hearing at least three different languages or smelling the aromas from different foods from around the world. Scandic is following in this tradition, giving New Yorkers yet another experience to throw into their melting pots.
The new Haymarket Square hotel will open in spring 2016 in Sweden.
