EBG Rating: 7.6/10

Choice/Quality of Drinks:
❤️❤️❤️
Extremely mainstream selection, but several tap options and a decent back bar.

Style/Décor:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Scarily effective recreation of a London-style corner boozer, with an unusual level of attention paid to the decoration to achieve a simulacra. Wet gloss ceiling in rich reds, globe lamp lighting, circular high tables, wood-fit back bar, pool table, and other complimentary fittings and partitions. A fairly large venue with gathering area around the bar, tables either side of partitions and further lounge seating and games area along the side of the pub.

Atmosphere/Character:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Lively, city centre, towny crowd with an ‘after work’ feel in the early evenings.

Amenities/Events:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Food, snacks, outdoor seating, TV, pool table

Value For Money:
❤️❤️
Mainstream and fairly expensive.

Description:
Sweden’s relationship with alcohol in the last 200 year is complex, and impossible to cover adequately during a review of a bar. Suffice to say, their native bar culture was annihilated by the temperance movement. In the 1970s with a partial relaxation of laws, there was a need to establish public houses, but little to no reference points. Resultingly, Sweden leaned over to Britain and Ireland, with theme pubs filling the void left by the religious moralists. Even up to the present day, tastes which are more Anglophile than most keep theme pubs alive and kicking.

On our guide we generally go out of our way to avoid such pubs while abroad, but given Sweden’s history, they are unavoidable. To pay some respects, they are also an intrinsic part of Swedish culture as much as karaoke is in Finland.

Kapten Jack is a scarily effective recreation of a London-style corner boozer, with an unusual level of attention paid to the decoration to achieve a simulacra. Wet gloss ceiling in rich reds, globe lamp lighting, circular high tables, wood-fit back bar, pool table, and other complimentary fittings and partitions create an effect that frankly, a few English pubs could take a leaf out of.

This is then an unusual venue being that it is also a full on mainstream city pub with a towny crowd and businessy after-work feel. This is not to its loss, as the atmosphere is pretty lively and conveys a social activity lacking in some other Swedish cities for sure.

The English pub effort does not batter you over the heard with union jacks and tonnes of tat, but instead lets those well put together fixtures and fittings shine.

Drinks are mainstream, prices on the higher end, both of which are predictable, but if you want a glimpse into city life in Sweden and a genuinely impressive recreation of a Victorian/Edwardian era city tavern, this should be bookmarked as an option.

(Added April 2026)