Today’s tale starts with the great fire of 1802 when Gothenburg burned to the ground.

Well, at least the buildings inside the moat, including the cathedral. Most houses were built of wood, and nobody stood a chance against the flames consuming everything in their path. The fire destroyed 179 houses, rendering 2751 people homeless. The city’s population was estimated at around 13,000, meaning roughly 21 percent of the residents became homeless. It was four days to Christmas.

By this time, Gothenburg had already been plagued with fire for over a decade, and devastating events had occurred in 1792, 1793, and 1794. Even back then, not learning from one’s mistakes seems to have been a hallmark of Gothenburg.

For some, however, the tragedy presented an opportunity. And they had a plan. Wood. How did that work out for them? Here’s a suggestion: we do it in stone. You can almost hear the cogs inside the free masons’ heads turning – the discussion over a sherry at the Lodge over in minutes.

So, even before the ashes turned cold, the Masonic Order had bought two plots of land: one on Södra Hamngatan 31 and one just behind it, on Drottninggatan. As we shall see, it’s on Södra Hamngatan that today’s grim sequence of events unfolds.

But first, an announcement.

To avoid stagnation, Off the Eaten Track will start bringing guests. Aside from needing a third party to add a modicum of restraint, we’re doing this to broaden our views and learn more about the company. We are, after all, curious folk. And many things are brewing now, left and right.

For instance, maybe you’ve heard the expression “Eat the stack” floating around the office?

We recall picking it up with a knowledge boost around deep learning. Later, we followed a Slack thread discussing its etymology but did not leave with any satisfying explanation. Thus, we decided to take matters into our own hands and invite someone who could presumably dissect this elusive turn of phrase: Zenseact’s head of communications. It took some convincing, but in the end, OtET prevailed: we had a +1.

Now, scanning Norra Älvstranden for a suitable venue to dissect the “eat the stack” phrase left us empty-handed. We had to broaden our search. After dismissing one place after the other – our criteria for choosing restaurants away from our usual habitat are strict – we finally decided on Golden Days, even if it’s on the mainland.

What’s important here is that Golden Days serves the traditional Thursday treat of “pea soup and pancakes” (ättsåppa å pangkåker, in traditional Gothenburguese). Pea soup is, by the way, the oldest Swedish dish that’s still being served regularly at lunch restaurants (The roots of the dish go back to the Bronze Age, i.e.,1,000 – 1,500 B.C.) Nowadays, it’s often served with pork, but in the past, it could come with lamb, sheep, seal, and fish. We didn’t come for the pea soup. Or seal. Pancakes are the critical component.

However, there’s more to GD than an edible stack. Much more, as it turns out. Bear with us.

As previously explained, the Freemasonry Society bought the plot at SHG 31 after the fire in 1802. Work began in 1804 and was completed in 1806, “according to drawings by Justus Fredrik Weinberg, ‘captain of the fortification.’ The master builder was Michael Bälkow.”

The main facade, with its beautiful columns, faces Södra Hamngatan. In the rear part of the house, facing Drottninggatan, the Freemasons’ children’s house was built. A restaurant called “Logen” was set up on the ground floor; the other premises were the Freemasons.” (https://frimurarsalongerna.se/)

Life smiled. The halls and salons were filled with weird handshakes, drinking, dancing, and laughter. Deals were made. Conspiracies took form. Prosperity was abundant. Not even gout troubled these fine gentlemen. During the 19th century, “Pelarsalen” (The Hall of Pillars) was the premier ballroom for the Gothenburg Society.

Now, 200 years later, “The Masonic Salons” are still there (available for events) on Södra Hamngatan. But we went to Golden Days, The Masonic Salons’ “sister restaurant.”

However, judging by its website, Golden Days doesn’t feel like a sibling to the Masonic Salons. Maybe a distant cousin. No, that’s unfair. Even if it can’t match the “magnificent ceiling painting by Louis Jean Desprez“ and the “antiquing door tops in relief by the Italian-born sculptor Gioacchino Frulli,” Golden Days is a robust English-style pub known for its selection of beers and communal quiz. The place was inaugurated in 1975, coming up on a respectable 50-year run. Before taking the name Golden Days, it was called Bakfickan (The Back Pocket), referencing its location vis a vis the Masonic Salons.

A decade ago, after 40 years of service, GD needed restoration. But instead of a modern overhaul, it was meticulously restored to its early 19th-century grandeur; it was not a recreation of its more recent past but a faithful revival of its 1820 iteration: every artifact, every pane of glass, and every ornate fixture replicated with historical accuracy.

As a result, for more than 200 years, the restaurant has retained an ambiance suspended in time.

Or not. To us, those 200 years have had a profound effect on the ambiance. And we kind of like that.

Let’s go back to the beginning, to the men in the leather chairs: the shipowners, the lawyers, the doctors – red-faced, rotund men eating smoked eel, chewing cigars, and drinking cognac to celebrate each other’s successes. Getting carpal tunnel syndrome from slapping each other’s back so frequently.

But they wouldn’t have their little club forever. Over the 19^th and 20^th centuries, Gothenburg cemented itself as a working-class city with heavy industries that manufactured ships and, later, cars.

Suddenly, it’s the 1980s and, with it, a new breed of party animals, rubbing shoulder pads and hairdos and getting their steaks flambeed by the table between snorts of coke.

Later still, country folk found their way into town, trying their luck at Golden Days’s dance floor. Crashing into Golden Days on weekends, these hoards have also made an indelible imprint on its atmosphere.

The point?

The building on SHG 31 has seen it all. Until today.

Now, the pea soup and the pancakes are usually not served as the main dish. They can be, but they’re more of an entrée here. No, that’s not true. They can be anything you want them to be. GD serves a lovely buffet, so you can have whatever they offer whenever you want, as much as you want.

That’s cool if you’re eating Thai. But sturdy buffet food can be downright dangerous, especially if you, like OtET, are prone to ambivalence. We didn’t know how and where to start, so we started everywhere and couldn’t stop. This is how we took our lunch: pea soup, veal casserole, salmon, salad, bread, pancakes, more pea soup, cookies, coffee, and pancakes again.

It looks like a lot on paper, doesn’t it? You should have been there.

What began as a joyful feast, a marvel at the abundance, quickly escalated into a pagan ritual of sloppy, primitive gluttony. Eyes red, cheeks shiny with grease, sweaty palms, hunched over our plates like vultures descending on an unclaimed feast. Crumpled up napkins on the table, on the floor. A spilled glass of water. A half-drunken coffee cup.

A contributing factor here is, believe it or not, the service. It’s simply too effective. The moment you put your empty plate down, a waiter takes it away, leaving no trace of your eating. This creates confusion. Did I just …? No…?

And so it went, this devilish iteration, this Ground Hog Day eating experience: Eat. Fret. Repeat. It was a Chaucerian absurdity morphing into tragedy.

Fortunately, just as darkness descended upon our table – by now, we were both mere grams away from blindness – our guest cleared her throat.

“As far as I understand it,” she said sharply, admiring and not being entirely immune to the lure of her pancakes piled so high they were threatening to fall over like a slinky.  “Eat the stack refers to the gradual consumption of traditional, hand-crafted algorithms by AI. It simply means we’ll apply deep learning to more parts of our software’s decision-making process. AI will, you know, eat more of our stack.”

“You eat more of the stack.”

My colleague, crazy-eyed, deranged from overeating, is roaring with laughter. We’re both in a state of near hysteria; neither of us is able to understand a single word our guest (whom we hardly know but who is demonstrating the supernatural patience of a birthday party clown) is saying as she tries, over and over again, to explain the difference between hand-crafted algorithms and black-box issues with neural networks.

Not entirely helpful, one of us starts reading aloud from Golden Day’s website, “The feeling at The Golden Days tastes of England.” It might not seem so funny reading it now, but when the words were spoken out loud, chaos ensued.

For our blessed dining companion, talking to us must have been like, in the immortal words of Gary Oldman, “explaining Norway to a dog.”

• Name: Golden Days, Södra Hamngatan 31
• Cuisine: Husmanskost
• Walking distance from Zenseact: Boat to Stenpiren + 5 minutes on foot
• Price: 145 sek
• Rating: 3,5 NCAP stars (Norra Älvstranden Culinary Assessment Program)
• Pro tip: Pace yourself

But all’s well that ends well.

We bounced back quickly, as we always do. A few cups of coffee later, the three of us participated actively in a nuanced discussion about the role of deep learning in future iterations of our software.

We’d like to close by saying that we have nothing but respect for Golden Days. It’s a fine establishment with a long history, good food, and a friendly staff. It doesn’t judge you. It’s just designed to evoke the charm and character of a bygone era. Nothing wrong with that. It’s new urbanism on a smaller scale.

Rising from the ashes of a burned-down city, it has withstood more abuse during its 200 years of existence than the rest of Gothenburg’s restaurants combined. Even if we did our best to turn the place upside down, the reverse happened. It chewed us up and spat us out. We guess that’s the reward for building something in stone. The Masons got it right.

p.s.

Visiting Golden Days and reading about the Masonic Salons made us think. Having lunch in a place where fancy folk once sat down for a scotch and a cigar triggered something. Something mischievous. What if we could locate a restaurant that caters to the upper strata today?

Imagine the havoc we could wreak.

We’ll return shortly with another review. In the meantime, heed the great Robert Frost’s advice and choose the road less traveled – a wise gastronomic approach and an outstanding professional mantra for every Zenseactian.