Frantzén
The original and the flagship. Three Michelin stars since 2018; the first and only in Sweden.
Chapter two · The chef
A footballer, a heart condition, and nine Michelin stars.
Björn Frantzén is the only chef in the world currently leading three separate three-star restaurants.
Before cooking
The steak, and the end of football
Björn Frantzén was born in 1977. By his own account the thing that set the direction was a plate of steak frites eaten in a Stockholm restaurant when he was twelve — the steak, a homemade béarnaise, crisp fries, a tomato salad. He has said he wanted to become a chef so that he could make that dish every day.
That is not, however, what he did next. He put his energy into football instead, working his way up through AIK as a teenager and reaching the first team. At nineteen a congenital heart condition ended that career. The kitchen became the plan again, and this time it stuck.
Worth noticing. The discipline of the dining room — timed, drilled, everybody knowing their run — is something guests comment on constantly. It is hard not to hear the training ground in it.
2008 onwards
Building the restaurant twice
The Gamla Stan restaurant opened in 2008 and had two Michelin stars within about two years. In 2016 it closed at that address, and in 2017 it reopened in the Norrmalm townhouse. The third star came in February 2018, the first ever awarded in Sweden.
The same year, Zén opened in Singapore — conceived as a sibling of the Stockholm restaurant but shaped by its own city. It received three stars in 2021.
In October 2024, FZN opened in Dubai at Atlantis The Palm. It was awarded three stars in the following guide, less than a year after opening, and became the first restaurant in the United Arab Emirates to hold the distinction. With that, Björn Frantzén became the only chef in the world simultaneously leading three three-star restaurants — out of roughly 150 worldwide.
Frantzén Group
Nine stars, and a company that keeps growing.
The Stockholm restaurant is the flagship of a group that now spans Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with restaurants, bars and other concepts alongside the fine-dining rooms. Frantzén remains closely involved in the culinary direction across all of it.
Stockholm
Singapore
Zén
Opened 2018 as a sibling to Stockholm, shaped by its own context. Three Michelin stars since 2021.
Dubai
FZN
Opened October 2024 at Atlantis The Palm. Three Michelin stars within a year — a first for the UAE.
The group also runs a range of more casual rooms, including the Brasserie Astoria concept in Stockholm, and has announced further openings internationally. The list moves quickly; the group's own site is the reliable record.
The style
What he actually cooks
The shorthand is Nordic-Japanese, but that undersells the French half. The base is Scandinavian produce, much of it Swedish; the precision, the fermentation and the treatment of vinegar and dashi come out of Japan; the sauce work and the way richness is built and then cut is classical French training.
What holds it together is a refusal to let a dish be merely clever. Guests who have eaten across the group tend to describe the same thing: technically extreme cooking that still tastes like it was made to be eaten rather than admired.