Singer Emiliana Torrini on Mokka Kaffi, Reykjavik, Iceland
Reykjavik is a city where few venues stand the test of time. If a new owner takes over, the first thing they change is the interior – they throw everything out. So a place like Mokka Kaffi, on Skólavörðustíg in the centre of town, that sits unchanged for six decades is really special.
It has had the same brown interior since it was opened in 1958 by husband and wife Guðmundur and Guðný. I used to go as a child with my parents and grandparents. I always ordered the same thing I do now, a big hot chocolate with ice-cold fresh cream, and a waffle with jam. It was the first coffee shop in Iceland to serve espresso and cappuccino, so my Italian father was happy. I love taking my son there now. He gets very excited, as I did. Mokka has a long history with Icelandic artists. The owners let them hang their work on the walls and so it also became one of the oldest galleries in Reykjavik, showing both Icelandic and foreign art. Guðmundur passed away a few years back but the cafe is still in the family. They are the guardians of this rare place, where generations of families and artists gathered for a cuppa – and still do.
• Mokka.is. Open daily 9am-6.30pm. Emiliana Torrini is an Icelandic singer; her most recent album, Tookah, was released on Rough Trade Records
Singer Ingrid Helene Håvik on Teaterfabrikken, Ålesund, Norway
I miss my home town, Ålesund, all the time and I often think about this bar called Teaterfabrikken. It’s in a building dating from 1904 and used to be a fish factory before being renovated in 1997. Today, it’s also a theatre and concert venue and is decorated with all kinds of props and costumes from plays. It has long, thick, Viking tables and I don’t think it sells anything but beer, wine and peanuts. Which is all I need to have a good time. Teaterfabrikken is right next to the ocean, or kind of grows out of it, so in the backyard you have the most beautiful view over the water, and the mountains and islands. It’s just a very different experience to be at this place.
• Teaterfabrikken.no. Check website for event listings. Ingrid is lead singer in Highasakite; the band’s latest album is Silent Treatment
Chef Antto Melasniemi on Yrjönkatu swimming hall, Helsinki, Finland
Every time I go back to Helsinki, and once a week if I’m at home, I visit the old Yrjönkatu swimming hall, built in 1928 and a well-kept local secret. You walk through an iron gate and down an alley. You get your ticket, bathrobe and towel, leave your shoes and step upstairs to the mezzanine. Into your own dressing booth with a bed. Change. And now you start to relax. The acoustics have a gentle echo, with the sound of water, that makes you feel isolated from the surrounding world.
You sit outside your booth, order something to drink, perhaps a snack. The menu is based on classic Helsinki cooking, no unnecessary twists: herring with dried rye bread, salted cucumber with smetana and honey, bread with minced meat and eggs, whipped lingonberry porridge, schnapps and sima, a special Finnish mead.
While you wait for the food to arrive it’s time for the first shower and a session in the wood-fired or steam sauna. Nobody talks much in there. When you return to your seat your drinks and snacks are waiting. You repeat this: eating, drinking and going to the sauna, while watching men swimming naked downstairs (although, since 2001, you are allowed to wear a costume). For me, Yrjönkatu is for relaxing, thinking, recovering the day after a party or getting ready for the next one.
• Yrjönkatu swimming hall. Check website for opening times and prices. Antto Melasniemi is a recent winner at the British Street Food Awards; his restaurants and pop-ups include Kuurna, Ateljé Finne, Hel Yes! The Solar Kitchen and The Open Kitchen
Singer and film-maker Jenny Wilson on Vinterviken, Stockholm, Sweden
Since I have a dog I try to be out among nature as much as possible, and I often go to a place called Vinterviken. It’s a nature park by the water – and was originally the place where gunpowder king Alfred Nobel used to blast his powder back in the day. That combination – of beautiful old oak trees and paths that lead to hidden places and the remains of a gunpowder test park – makes it feel like exotic ground. I need this kind of place: to think, to make up new melodies and to be alone. Away from commercialism and stress.
• Vinterviken. Jenny Wilson is a Swedish singer-songwriter and filmmaker. Her video for The Future was nominated for a UK music video award
Singer Asbjørn on the Lakelands, Denmark
I moved to Denmark’s lake district with my parents when I was 15. It is the home of Denmark’s longest river, Gudenåen, and its third-highest point, Ejer Baunehøj: a terrifying 183m. We call it the sky mountain. I spent my teenage years surrounded by this idyllic scenery, in what now seems like an endless summer of drinking wine, swimming in the lakes and tasting the local weed with my best friends. It felt like we had all the time in the world to find ourselves, surrounded by the woods, lakes and occasionally a visit from the rare kingfisher Alcedo atthis (also known as the halcyon).
When I was 18 I started producing music with a friend and we recorded most of my first album in the Lakelands. It was a very poetic goodbye. Sometimes I relive this teenage haze in my head and think to myself that I want to grow old the same way I grew up: in the Lake District, where time is a fluid thing, my friends are down the street and we can canoe into the unknown.
• visitskanderborg.com. Asbjørn was named one of Ja Ja Ja’s 5 to watch in 2014
Emiliana Torrini, Asbjørn, Highasakite and Jenny Wilson play the Ja Ja Ja festival, a Nordic music festival held at the Lexington, Islington, London, on 13 and 14 November and all day at Queen Mary Great Hall in east London on 15 November. Antto Melasniemi will curate the festival’s food programme
