Wednesday, June 20, 7:00 P.M.
Members $85, guests $110

In Sweden, Midsummer’s Eve is an all-night party that would have done Shakespeare and his forest-dwelling revelers proud. Since the sun never sets, bedtime simply doesn’t exist. Instead, Swedes stay up through the bright solstice night, dancing to live music, imbibing, feasting, and generally making much merry. And, like any magical festival worth its salt, Midsummer’s Eve is all about romance: traditionally, when unmarried women finally retire to bed, they put bunches of seven different kinds of wildflowers under their pillows, hoping to dream prescient dreams of the true love they seek.

At the Beard Foundation, we, too, are romantics—it’s just that our idea of l’amour is heavily informed by the palate. And this Midsummer’s Eve, we needn’t put flowers under our pillows to dream of the object of our affections. That’s Ulrika Bengtsson—or, more accurately, her irresistible Swedish cooking.

Bengtsson was born in Hytebruk, in southern Sweden, and trained at the Culinary School of Halmstad. She worked with some of her country’s top chefs, cooking ultra-haute French fare, before taking over the stoves at Fjäderholmarnas Krog, a Stockholm-area Swedish-style seafood restaurant and one of the country’s finest. In 1991, she headed to New York to take up a ladle at Aquavit. After seven years as executive chef at the Consulate General of Sweden in New York, Bengtsson, her sister Ingalena Bengtsson, and partner Mimi Claps launched Ulrika’s. "The place," wrote digitalcity.com, "is a diplomatic coup." New York Times critic William Grimes called Bengtsson’s cooking "earthy, flavorful, and satisfying." He praised the "excellent" gravlax, the "tender" beef à la Rydberg, the pannkaks Tarta ("a stack of miniature pancakes oozing bright-yellow cloudberry jam" that "could not be cuter"). Ulrika’s, DigitalCity.com declared, is "a sanguine escape from the ordinary."

Since the light fades away relatively early in the city that never sleeps, we won’t keep you up all Midsummer’s Eve. But beware: with Bengtsson in the kitchen, magical things may happen. And we promise that you’ll dream delicious dreams of true culinary love.