Hildur, From the Colonie Team, Brings Nordic French Fare to Brooklyn

1. Gran Eléctrica is gone, long live Hildur.

Before Hildur was Hildur, the space housed Gran Eléctrica, a beloved Mexican spot known for flowing margaritas and their sprawling backyard that served the neighborhood for more than a decade. The duo decided that it was time for a change at the end of last year.

“When we first opened, we were one of the few players in the Mexican food scene at the time. There wasn’t much around here in Brooklyn, but now there’s a lot more to choose from,” Kihlström says. “After 13 years of running a Mexican restaurant, we just felt very excited to do something different.”

2. This concept is personal for Kihlström.

Despite the very recent pivot, the idea for Hildur has long been in the back of Kihlström’s mind in one form or another. She’s from Sweden originally, having moved here in 1998, and wanted to do something to honor her ancestry.

“This has always been a lifelong dream, to do something to represent my roots,” she says.

The restaurant is named after her grandmother, a “quite advanced” French-inspired cook whom Kihlström remembers making seafood pâté and home-baked breads. “I could spend hours watching her cook. That was how I started falling in love with food,” she adds. Many of the dishes on the menu are ones that she grew up eating and loving, albeit now with her own twists.

3. Expect Swedish meatballs, trout roe, and pickled herring on the menu.

Among those dishes are Scandinavian bistro fare like pickled herring (“that was injected into my veins,” Kihlström laughs), charred cabbage, and much-more-authentic-than-IKEA Swedish meatballs, served au poivre. They’re getting bread from the Swedish bakery Fabrique, made into fried rye croutons and served with soft eggs and brown butter. There’s a melted onion soup with Gruyère and crisped leeks, roast chicken with turnip and yellowfoot mushrooms, and warm crab dip crowned with trout roe. The kitchen is helmed by an alum of their other restaurant, Colonie, chef Brennan Taulbee.

For dessert, they’ve gone classic, offering Swedish princess cake. “We’ll be making them individually, just slightly different from the traditional way, and they’ll be dark pink and with a little rose on top. They’re beautiful,” Kihlström says.

To best serve the neighborhood, they’ll also have a kid’s menu complete with an original coloring page featuring the Swedish icon Pippi Longstocking, and dishes like grilled cheese.

“We wanted to create a very approachable yet unique menu mix. We know the neighborhood very well, and there are a lot of families here. They’re obviously very important to us,” Kihlström says.

4. Mirepoix martinis, anyone?

The wine list is full of natural-leaning choices curated by Rosenberg, designed to appeal both to the international visitors who often flock to the waterfront as well as neighborhood locals. She’s chosen to highlight producers hailing from Seneca, N.Y. to the Czech Republic in a list that spans three pages. “It’s approachable. We tried to put something for everyone and keep it fun,” Rosenberg says.

Beverage director Abraham Zumba, formerly of Bathtub Gin, handled the cocktail list in collaboration with Schultz. It’s filled with Scandinavian ingredients like lingonberry and aquavit, with a full section devoted to martinis.

There’s the Lingonbaby, with housemade lingonberry soda and garnished with housemade Swedish fish, and the Kobe, a drink inspired by one on the menu at Bird in Copenhagen.

“It’s essentially a Danish creamsicle,” Schultz says. “I was speaking with some Danish guys, and they told me that we had to put it on the list.”

The martini list includes a Mirepoix Martini that features celery, carrot, and shallot (served with a little sidecar of mirepoix “caviar”), the Salt & Pepper with four peppercorns and saline, and an espresso martini with salted agave and vanilla.

5. It’s a whole new space inside.

Guests who previously visited Gran Eléctrica may be doing a double take when they come back to visit Hildur. They’ve still got their legendary 72-seat backyard, which will open as the weather allows, but beyond that, changes are abundant.

“We’ve changed the space quite a lot,” Kihlström says. “It was quite dark and moody before, and now it’s completely the opposite. It’s very bright.”

The space now features plastered walls done by studio Kamp, lots of light raw oak, and brass lights and taper candles mounted on the walls. There are some hand-painted tiles, once gifted to Kihlström for her cottage in Sweden, displayed near the host stand at the front of the space.

“The space is very old, so it has a lot of character, but we’ve thrown in some modern elements. It feels very European Scandinavian to me,” Kihlström says.

Hildur is open daily for dinner beginning at 5 p.m.

Ellie Plass is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. Follow her on Instagram and X. Follow Resy, too.