ABOVE: Food at Bastard

Bastard feels like more of a ‘hangout’ than a restaurant – locals congregate at the bar for cheese and meat boards and cocktails, and diners eat surrounded by the whimsical vintage furniture and curios (I was sat next to a kitsch dog sculpture). We left the menu in the hands of our incredibly friendly waiter, and he rewarded us with an epic four course ‘sharing’ feast, where the portions were so big our bikes were groaning when we tried to pedal home. So much of the food comes highly recommend – the white asparagus loaded with roe and a creamy sauce, the baked mackerel, the ginormous chicken salad with sourdough croutons, the rhubarb ice cream (big in Sweden, apparently), the cheese – all excellent.

The following night we had a more unusual, but equally entertaining experience courtesy of A Slice of Swedish Hospitality. This unique scheme allows tourists to dine at a local’s house – and whilst we were a tad nervous when we turned up at a stranger’s house, we needn’t have worried – our host Mia was more than accommodating, serving us a delicious meal of Swedish cheese, salmon, salad and potatoes, a rhubarb crumble, and rather a lot of Swedish beer and wine. We hit it off so strongly we ended up staying until midnight, tipsily You-tubing funny videos (turns out the allure of cats doing stupid things and ‘Dick in a Box’ is universal). I would highly recommend this to anyone wanting to get a whole load of insider advice on a destination (but wouldn’t advise the slightly drunken cycle home).

Shopping

One of my (and even my boyfriend’s) highlights of the trip was a shopping trip with local fashion expert and stylist Mia Berg. She took us to places we’d never have spotted if we’d have been shopping solo – and was a fountain of knowledge about Malmo’s buzzing fashion and design scene.

We started off at the Form Design Centre, a medieval warehouse in the middle of the city selling cutting edge design pieces, before making our way to Altewai.Saome, an up-and-coming women’s fashion brand run by two Malmo girls. The pieces are Scandi style at its best - with clean lines and avant-garde shapes, and would make great work pieces (it’s worth checking out just for the striking shop interior designed by a Malmo-team of interior architects).

We then went on to Davidshallstorg, a picturesque square tucked off one of the main shopping streets, home to Mia’s favourite flower shop Gouteva. Malmo is home to some great vintage stores – our luggage allowance would only allow window shopping in Mani and Chique, but we did pick up a stylish check shirt at mod-themed boutique Popolino.

A weekend in Malmo