Review: Lilla Bjers farm restaurant, Gotland
One of the loveliest things about autumn is the amount of fresh produce available at our local farms. Lilla Bjers is one of the most historic and well-known farms in the Swedish island of Gotland. People have cultivated crops in the area for at least 2 500 years. This has been proven by a cooking pit from the Bronze Age, found on the farm.
Today, the farm produces plenty of ecological crops, including exotic items such as melon, ginger and even snails. There are also hens and colonies of bees on the farm. All the produce is available for purchase in the year-round open farm shop. You will find Lilla Bjers website (in Swedish) HERE.
They have a restaurant on the property which you can visit for lunch and dinner. I recently enjoyed a four course dinner with them, which I’m sharing my thoughts of below. They choose what dishes to serve based on what’s currently in season. Regardless of what they will be serving during your visit you can be certain that their fresh produce will be the star of the show.
Below, you’ll find their current menu in Swedish, and then translated into English.
The courses in English:
Tomato salad with oil radish and chili flowers
Artichoke salad with apples and lovage
Lamb or Deer racks with variations of carrot, corn and fennel pollen
Roll cake with blackberry jam, blueberry ice cream and lavender
The table as you arrived 
The beautiful greenhouse surroundings
You will enjoy dinner inside their beautiful greenhouse, surrounded by exotic plants. Social distancing measures are in place, and the environment is quiet and calming.
First, you will get a presentation of the menu by a waiter, and you will be asked what kind of drinks you want with your dinner. There are drink packages available (at steep prices). I didn’t opt for any of those, instead I went for a glass of rosé wine, followed by their own apple juice to go with the desserts.
In addition to the dishes from the menu, you will be treated to canapés. Above is their their potato taco, made of crisp potato bread, four kinds of potato purée, and a little bit of garnish. For someone like me who loves potatoes, this dinner was off to a good start.
The next canapé was burgundy snails, cultivated on the farm. It’s always a little endearing to eat snails, but they tasted good and were made with a lot of garlic. 
The first dish from the menu was the tomato salad, which had a tomato sorbet on top. The tomatoes were of perfect consistency, crisp but not too crisp. The dish was also very well balanced between the sweet tomatoes and the powerful chili flowers.
The artichoke salad was also good, but it didn’t pop or stand out as much as the other dishes. I think this was my least favourite dish even if I did enjoy it.
The first of the three desserts was the melon sorbet, which was a pleasant surprise. I really appreciate when the dishes you don’t know that you’ll be having turn to to be so good. 
The blackberry roll cake with blueberry ice cream and white chocolate flakes. Garnished with lavender.
Final thoughts
The food
The quality and presentation of the dishes, and especially the fruits and vegetables are the main attraction at this restaurant. The produce is what sets this place apart. The fact that you see all the produce grow as you’re entering the farm, adds to the perception that you will have a lovely dining experience.
The service
The staff is knowledgeable about the food as well as the wine that they’re serving. They used a very low tone of voice when they presented the dishes, which added to the calm atmosphere, but it was sometimes a bit difficult to hear what they were saying.
I also would have preferred to be shown a drink menu. Instead, they suggested their packages or asked us to make the choices. The problem was that we had no idea of what to choose from. I usually enjoy reading abut the drinks and making an informed decision from the menu, rather than a rushed choice when someone is standing next to me waiting for a decision to be made.
The venue
The restaurant itself was really a green oasis, and I enjoyed how light it was. The outdoor surroundings are beautiful as well. I can highly recommend arriving early to visit the hens, take a few photos and exploring the crops on site. If you’re there during daytime, you may also purchase the produce to take home.
Value for money
One of the first things that I noticed when they presented the dining menu, was that the prices were about 50-150 SEK higher than stated on their website. You can find the prices listed on the website HERE. I’m an advocate of transparency, and depending on the size of the group, this can have a pretty large effect on the bill.
The quality of the food was high, and the dishes were exciting. I enjoyed the menu. The discrepancy between listed website prices, and the prices when you actually arrived did, however lower my overall impression of the restaurant. I’d give the experience a 4 out of a 5 star rating. A correct pricing could have given it five stars.
Oh, my bad! You are absolutely right! The prizes on the stonetablet is for our large five course summermenu. The prizes given on our website is the correct prizes for september 2020. I must have grabbed the wrong tablet in the hurry when I wrote the menu for the last weekend… I am so sorry. The prize on your bill should be the correct, lover prize. If not please contact us and we will make it up to you at once! Thank you for your nice review and beautiful photos! Best regards Margareta Hoas, Lilla Bjers