Stockholm, Sweden

Hotel J

Price per night from$87.54

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (SEK930.80), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Superchic chalet

Setting

Scandinavian seaside

The Hotel J in Stockholm has a style influenced by the smooth lines and fine craftsmanship of yachting. The interior is bright and airy, with light oak furniture and chairs covered in thick white cotton, offset by dark wood flooring. There is a feel of New England in the red, white and blue scheme but the fine view from the best rooms is of Stockholm harbour.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A surprise gift, as well as priority for early check-in and late check-out – extended to 4pm – when available

Facilities

Photos Hotel J facilities

Need to know

Rooms

158, including five suites.

Check–Out

11am.

Prices

Double rooms from £77.66 (SEK1,042), including tax at 12 per cent.

More details

Rates include breakfast.

At the hotel

Guests can use the local gym for free. A jetty, garden and watch-tower provide outdoor spaces for entertaining and enjoyment. The hotel can arrange sailing boats, with or without an instructor, from the neighbouring sailing club.In rooms: LCD TV, WIFi.

Our favourite rooms

Room 216 is a suite in the new wing and has two floors, a double-aspect view and a private balcony. Room 118 has a sea view. Room 431 is the honeymoon suite and has a Jacuzzi bath.

Also

Ferries run regularly between the wharf next to Restaurant J and central Stockholm; the trip takes 25 minutes and ferries run until midnight in summer.

Children

Very welcome. Cots are free, as are extra beds for kids up to 12. Extra beds for over-12s are SEK400 a night.

Food and Drink

Photos Hotel J food and drink

Top Table

Out in the terrace in the summer; by the fireplace in the winter.

Dress Code

Breezy informality.

Hotel restaurant

Brasserie-style Restaurant J looks out over the bay of Saltsjön, and is every bit as yacht-club nautical as the rest of the hotel, with oak chairs and tables, white wooden paneling, red, white and blue furnishings and an open fire. The extensive menu draws heavily from the ocean, and is influenced by modern American cuisine. (Book two days a ahead for the spectacular platter of shellfish.) In summer, the 250-seat terrace by the water’s edge is the alfresco option.

 

Hotel bar

Set in the 19th-century summer house beside the hotel, Tornvillans bar is a cosy clubby spot, dotted with original features including tiled stoves, oil portraits and an open fireplace.

Last orders

Restaurant J takes food orders from 11.30am to 10pm, during the week and from noon to 10pm on weekends.

Room service

A snack or light-meal menu is available 5pm–11pm.

Location

Photos Hotel J location
Address
Hotel J
1 Ellensviksvägen
Stockholm
Sweden

Planes

Stockholm-Arlanda Airport, 50 minutes away by car, is the nearest airport (www.arlanda.se).

Trains

The city’s central station is located 10 kilometres from the hotel – the journey will take around 15 minutes by car. From here, trains go to other destinations within Sweden, as well as to other European countries (www.sj.se). The station also has an underground connection to T-Centralen, on the metro line.

Automobiles

The main roads leading to Hotel J are the E4 and the E18; the city centre is a 15–20-minute drive from the hotel. Car hire and taxis are available from the airport. Parking at the hotel is available for SEK250 a day and charging stations are SEK350 a day (subject to availability).

Other

Ferries run regularly between the wharf next to Restaurant J and central Stockholm. There are also boat services to and from central Stockholm and its Nacka suburb; however, these don't run in winter.

Worth getting out of bed for

Local restaurants

Restaurant J (+46 (0)8 601 30 25) is the other side of the marina from the hotel and has a contemporary menu focusing on seafood. Its sun deck, overlooking the Saltsjön waterway, is perfect on a summer’s day. Michelin-starred Pontus in the Greenhouse on Österlånggatan in the Gamla Stan (+46 (0)8 545 27 300) has all the latest foams and froths, and an exceptional wine list. Operakällaren at the Operahuset on Karl XII’s torg is another Michelin-starred temple to gastronomy and has wonderful views over the harbour. Sturehof, located in a cool precinct on Stureplan, is an elegant brasserie serving good fish and shellfish, with a popular pavement terrace. Riche on Birger Jarlsgatan has an international menu and a glossy clientele.

Reviews

Photos Hotel J reviews

Anonymous review

For as long as I’d known her, the nearest Mrs Smith had been to open water was driving over London Bridge. But here in Stockholm, her eyes were fixed on one of the sleek motorboats bobbing gently in the marina, and she whispered conspiratorially: ‘I know how to hotwire a Princess 440.’ Had there been a misspent youth she hadn’t told me about? Stockholm was serene, bathed in the warm light of a watery midsummer sunset, yet it seemed to have transformed my companion into Cut-throat Jake. I quickly steered her toward the Hotel J, not wanting to spend our romantic weekend in a Swedish prison on a charge of high seas piracy.

It could have been the voyage from the city centre that had brought about this change in Mrs Smith. 15 minutes earlier we’d been sitting beneath the spires and palaces of the Old Town, two perfectly law-abiding citizens. We boarded a white steamboat straight out of the pages of Swallows and Amazons – all varnished wood, flying pennants and brass fittings. What better way to arrive at the Hotel J? As we chugged down the broad Saltsjön waterway that links Stockholm to the Baltic I could feel myself unwind with each spin of the propeller. Mrs Smith seemed to be in her element.

Hotel J stands on the shore beyond the marina, tucked snugly against a rocky headland. The smooth lines and fine craftsmanship of yachting guide the hotel’s design (its name refers to the elegant J-Class America’s Cup yachts of the Twenties and Thirties). The glow from reception beckoned like harbour lights, and we found a bright and airy interior, with furniture and cabinets made of light oak, chairs covered in thick white cotton, offset by dark wood flooring. A faint summer breeze billowed in from the garden, carrying the smell of pine trees and the sea. As our host Inger greeted us, I almost expected her to say, ‘Welcome aboard.’

There is a distinct feel of New England in the red, white and blue scheme. Our room in the older red-brick part of the hotel, built in 1912, had a thick star-spangled blanket draped over the enormous bed. Yet when I flung open the windows, instead of Nantucket Sound or Martha’s Vineyard, the beautiful view was of the mile-wide Saltsjön. The sound of waves drifted up from bottom of the garden and, beyond the tilting masts of catamarans at the sailing club, the northern horizon was ablaze with a burning sunset. Fortunately I’d booked a room with a sea view, otherwise I may well have been made to walk the plank.

Mrs Smith had already set off for the honesty bar, no doubt looking for a tot of rum. I found her in the little candle-filled garden enviously eying the passing pleasure craft. Summer in Stockholm is all about the great outdoors, there being plenty of cold winter months when you can sit by Hotel J’s cosy fireplace trying to remember what the sun looks like. For now, staying indoors seemed very wrong; switching on the TV felt downright criminal. It was past midnight and the sun was still loitering just below the horizon. Even at this late hour the waterway was abuzz with speedboats and ferries making their way back in the twilight from the archipelago between Stockholm and the open sea.

Hotel J could convert even the most ardent landlubber to the romance of sailing – not the blazers and yellow wellies scene of the Solent, but the effortless grace and style of a bygone era. At breakfast in the clubhouse atmosphere of the lounge, I caught myself contemplating one of the many photos of elegant sailing boats and wondering how I’d look at the helm in a thick cable-knit jumper, studying clouds and pulling on ropes, or whatever it is that people do on yachts. There is something wholesome and healthy, something deeply Scandinavian, about the Hotel J, with its use of natural materials, its fresh design lines and its easy-going informality. I vowed to give up a whole host of unhealthy habits once I got back to London.

I managed to get Mrs Smith past the marina without incident, and we waited at the waterfront Restaurant J, the sister establishment of the hotel, for a ferry to take us into the archipelago. Like the hotel, the restaurant attracts an egalitarian mix of young couples, families and style-conscious bon viveurs. We settled into the deckchairs, the only two brunettes in a crowd of athletic blonde Swedes, as a remixed Abba tune drifted over from the sundeck. Short of adding some flat-pack furniture and liquorice fish, the scene could not have been more Swedish.

The ferry took us down the Saltsjön, back past the hotel and out into the maze of islands, their shores dotted with gingerbread summerhouses among the pines. With 24,000 islands to choose from, there seems to be enough peace and seclusion for everyone. Each house got an ‘ooh’ or an ‘ahh’ from the both of us. First we wanted the one with the balcony, then the one with the turret, then the one with the turret, balcony and boathouse on its own private island. ‘Do you know what I’d really like?’asked Mrs Smith. I tried to think. A parrot? An eye patch? A wooden leg? ‘No!’ she said. ‘I’d like to visit the Hotel J every summer, in endless sunshine, with Stockholm on one side and the beautiful archipelago on the other… and a Princess 440.’

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Price per night from $87.54