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Food

Meet the Hip-Hop Pastry Shop of Sweden

In the coastal city of Gothenburg, Pasteleria 413 is turning out desserts inspired by American rap music. Think Wu Tang-branded macaroons, dimebags of caramel, and deep-fried ice cream in tribute to Flavor Flav.

Gothenburg, on Sweden's west coast, is a city well known to fans of Nordic culture and cuisine. Renowned for a local culinary scene that focuses heavily on seafood, it also holds an impressive total of six Michelin stars as of this year. Not bad for a place with just under half a million inhabitants.

Yet, for some, its crowning achievement is a dish known as the "halv special," consisting of a hot dog with two scoops of mashed potato perched on the top—and, if you're feeling really luxurious, added shrimp salad. Despite this, restaurant trends move fast in Gothenburg. The food truck bug has bitten hard, and new flavours, techniques, and ingredients are constantly creeping onto menus across the whole city.

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A selection of cookies at Pasteleria 413.

One of the city's most interesting new food projects is quite difficult to categorise: It's an art project, a pop-up fine dining experience, a nascent social media channel, a dessert bakery, and a living mixtape in one. It's called Pasteleria 413 and was developed by dessert enthusiasts and brothers-in-law Jimmy Wigh and Kalle Silfverleijon. They are restaurant scene veterans, lifelong rap fans and, as of right now, organizers of a constellation of like-minded designers, musicians, artists, and chefs under one banner.

Pasteleria 413 takes the concept of the dessert kitchen and blends it with hip-hop culture on a conceptual level. Dishes are thought out carefully in terms of flavours, plating, design, execution, and how they're served—all as a tribute to the founders' favourite type of music.

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GZA, "B.I.B.L.E" Sudachi macaroon, jasmine sabayon, miso cremeux.

The idea came to Wigh a few years ago, while he was out on a beach collecting driftwood to be used by a friend and colleague as part of the tableau for a world pastry championship. "He asked me what I'd put into my display if I was competing. My first thought was that it's never going to happen. But then I started to think that, if I did, I'd make a chocolate record which played, and put some music into a display, which usually just includes static things like pictures."

This idea developed into a deeper consideration about how to serve desserts that reflected both the founders' love of music, and their urge to give people something that they could enjoy and remember.

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Raekwon, "Ice Cream." Vanilla mousse, pecan granola, honeycomb, rum praline, chocolate ice cream, caramel cremeux.

"The main thing is, you can't just say, 'Oh, this is fun,'" Wigh notes. "It has to taste delicious." As a result, every ingredient and technique on Pasteleria 413 plates are carefully linked to an element of the record or the artist to which they're paying homage.

Executing dishes in ways that aren't merely gimmicky requires balance. As the popularity of the "We Want Plates" Facebook group proves, people are becoming fed up with food served on unnecessary items. How does this affect dishes like theirs? "Thinking of Flavor Flav, you can put, like, cheesecake on a clock," says Wigh. "But that's no fun on its own." Instead, he began to develop a fried ice cream creation accented with O'boy, the popular Swedish chocolate milk drink with a name that's not too far removed from its subject's catchphrase.

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Snoop Dogg, "Serial Killa." Semi-frozen dulce cremeux, raspberry and minus8 tapioca, vanilla foam.

The next step was to work closely with Mia Martinius of Västergården to make Public Enemy gun sight plates. Martinius has also fired plates with gold bite marks, as well as shanks, graffiti-themed crockery, and brass knuckle dishes. (Another friend, Måns Nilsson, has been put in charge of screenprinting logos for the pasteleria as well as its range of yuzu- and tonka bean-flavoured beers that they've developed for their pop-up events. He also laser-cuts placemats and other props.)

These accessories undoubtedly draw attention to the fact that the founders listen mostly to gangsta rap, and as a result—with the brass knuckles, Uzi stencils, dime bags of caramel, and smoking paraphernalia on the plates—Pasteleria 413 could be seen accused of glamorizing elements of rap music, which some might interpret as violent, aggressive, or simply cliché.

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Wigh is quick to dismiss this notion, however: "[We use the] brass knuckle … representing a Busta Rhymes lyric. We think the brass knuckle is a beautiful design. But it's a really cowardly weapon. There's so much hate in it. You take a design that represents something that we're interested in—the music—and fill it with love. Fill it with sugar. There's nothing purer than sugar."

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A "sugar-free for two minutes" token.

Up until now, Pasteleria 413 have been holding events in and around Gothenburg and—at the time of this writing—are building up to a weekend event in Tredje Långgatan, a street heavy on alternative nightlife. Letters containing baggies of caramel dust—flavoured with liquorice and intended to be tipped over ice cream prior to the event—are currently being sent out in preparation. AA-style tokens that read "sugar-free for two minutes" have been laser cut, either to provide a memento for the event or to be traded in for a "relapse truffle" afterward.

The grand finale is now being perfected: an ice cream "red stone" (referencing Röda Sten, a well-known art gallery and graffiti centre) which is made to be shared with your table companions; time-lapsed filmed graffiti art by Ollio; and additional painting by local rap legend PSTQ, which takes the form of a tribute to Gubb, another local rap star. It also includes butter sauce-filled coffee cups—representing rapper Roffe Ruff's neighbourhood of Majorna—and a mix by Gothenburg's most celebrated dancehall DJ, Axxionpack.

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"Röda Sten." Chocolate shell with vanilla ice cream.

The concept is set to travel elsewhere in the country. "We want to bring a bit of our 'hood to your 'hood, and the Top of Gothenburg dessert is designed to show the best of GBG," Wigh says.

Response within the city has been overwhelmingly positive so far, both from the press and the diners. But Wigh and Silfverleijon don't want to find themselves standing in front of crowds of people, lecturing them on the fundamentals of hip-hop before they're allowed to enjoy their desserts. "The people who we make these things for, maybe they don't care about the details. Sometimes they just want a cake."