14 new restaurant openings in Malmö to watch in 2026

Cin Cin puts wine at the centre without turning dinner into a tasting exercise. Food writer Karin Lei and Kennet Tao, the couple behind Taiwanese restaurant Sanlo, have teamed up with family friend and sommelier David Chan for a small neighbourhood bar at the S:t Knut area in Malmö. Chan brings more than a decade in wine, while the kitchen moves through western and southern European flavours in dishes designed around what is being poured. Wines by the glass are a major focus, joined by tastings and changing events. The name itself is a toast, with a subtle nod to Lei’s Chinese-Taiwanese background.

French bistro cooking meets Swedish ingredients at Edda, set in the former Restaurang Davidshall in central Malmö. The restaurant is run by Mikaela Eliasson, Mikaela Fischerström and Alex Hedén, with a straightforward neighbourhood format and a French-Swedish identity. Both Eliasson and Fischerström have won Mack-SM, Sweden’s national professional sandwich competition, in 2021 and 2018 respectively – useful context for a team with a particular interest in bread, fillings and everyday food made carefully.

Soi is the Italian second act from Alexander Norén and Johanna Jarevik, the couple behind Malmö’s former Thai favourite Soi 29. The new S:t Knut restaurant works equally well inside its high-ceilinged dining room and outside beneath the trees out front. The short menu changes often, moving between focaccia, good olive oil, cured meats and pasta. On our visit, it featured a crudo of wild sea bass and halibut came with tomato vinaigrette, amarillo, melon and chilli. We also had gnocchetti sardi with salsiccia ragù bianco, chanterelles and parmesan. The service is personal and engaged, and the team is good at matching wines to the food.

Tuja Vinbar brings an easy, personal kind of wine drinking to central Malmö, with small-producer bottles, unfussy food and the sort of pavement seating that makes you want to order another glass. Marina Hägg runs the bar with her son Tiwaz, and the name combines those of her parents, Turid and Jan. The wine list moves broadly rather than following one school, with the team happy to guide you towards something unfamiliar. Small international dishes make it possible to stay for more than a drink. In warmer weather, choose the French-style chairs along Stora Nygatan: they turn the street into prime people-watching territory.

Olá Cervejaria Rua do Rei starts with Ola Rasmusson’s Lisbon link: years of eating, drinking and family visits through his wife’s Portuguese family, then a Malmö room built around the kind of cervejaria logic he missed at home. The name translates Kungsgatan into Portuguese, and the room follows with patterned tiles, Super Bock, Portuguese wines, Port & Tonic and food built for passing plates: bifana in papo seco, olives, conservas and pastel de nata from Malmö baker David Fernandes of Patisserie David. Order Chouriço à bombeiro, the sausage grilled at the table on a clay dish over a flame. Don’s miss: Cristiano Ronaldo gets a large, almost devotional bathroom cameo.

Koba Lounge looks to the izakaya for its idea of Japanese dining, moving well beyond Malmö’s familiar sushi format. Tokyo-born chef Daiya Kobayashi builds the menu around seasonal ingredients, Japanese flavour profiles and small plates made for sharing, with sake, wine and low-ABV cocktails treated as part of the meal. An izakaya is essentially a Japanese drinking-and-dining format, so the rhythm is social: order across the menu, share dishes and stay for another pour. Set inside Mayfair Hotel Tunneln near Stortorget, Koba gives central Malmö a broader view of Japanese food culture through an evening format.

Tacopalatset takes the team behind Malmö pizza-by-the-slice favourite Opopoppa into Mexican cooking. David Calgaro and Calum Evans run the taqueria and cocktail bar with chef Albin Bengtsson and Viktor Andersson, sourcing specialist chillies, corn and other ingredients through smaller Mexican importers. Tacos are the centre of gravity, backed by sides, corn chips, salsas and a combo menu for anyone staying for a full meal. Margaritas come classic, spicy or with mezcal. The point is traditional Mexican flavour interpreted by a Malmö team already known for informal food, good ingredients and places built as much for hanging out as eating.

Malmö’s food cultures meet by the water at Cantin, a 3,000-square-metre container park in the former shipyard district of Varvsstaden. Permanent kitchens, visiting food trucks, three bars, music, markets and a sauna turn it into an open-air social hub, built with reclaimed materials wherever possible. Start with Mamak Shop’s roti prata, nasi lemak or beef rendang, then look to Kiosko by the Sea for its Mufuletta or fritto misto. Gaijin Izakaya brings Japanese cooking with a Swedish touch, while Verde Gelato’s pistachio flavour uses Bronte DOP nuts. It sits ten minutes on foot from Malmö Central and changes through pop-ups and seasonal arrivals.

Ekke is the kind of small neighbourhood bar Malmö does particularly well: a few drinks, something to eat and no need to turn the evening into an occasion. Sara Kamme and Madeleine Jardby run the compact Karlskronaplan address with a deliberately lived-in feel, putting beer, wine and easy conversation ahead of an encyclopaedic drinks list or elaborate kitchen concept. Its scale is part of the appeal. This is somewhere to drop into for one glass and stay longer, adding another independent address to a part of Malmö where bars, restaurants and cafés increasingly spill into one another around the square.

Coffee, wine, bread and flowers is the brief, but the Gothenburg link is what gives Altona some backbone. This is the Malmö cousin to Cum Pane, the long-running Gothenburg bakery, with Cum Pane owner Robin Edberg also part of the setup here. The courtyard, taken over from old Liket territory, has exactly the sort of easy pull Malmö likes to pretend it discovered first. Go for bread and pastries, stay for wine and accept that half hip Malmö will be fighting for those tables once summer settles in properly.

Pink marble, spritz energy and a touch too much in the right way set the tone at Osteria Amore, the Milanese-leaning restaurant on Malmö’s canal edge. The project comes from Nicholas Hertzman, who previously made noise with Amore Fantasia in Helsingborg, and it carries the same sense of dinner drifting towards a party. Start with the charcuterie and a Negroni, then move into house-made pasta or the crisp pizza milanese the restaurant pushes hard. The room is pitched as a palazzo rather than a trattoria, which tells you plenty. Come for lunch if you must, but this place is built for later.

Inside Börshuset, the 1862 trading house by Malmö C, one address runs on three speeds. Niclas Jönsson, best known from two-starred Aloë, leads the food with Micke Björkman, whose CV runs through Nobu London, Vassa Eggen and Riche. Margaux handles the classic side, with three-course cooking and dishes such as duck liver brûlée, grilled beef tartare, red sole with Champagne sauce and grilled beef with café de Paris butter. Como comes in looser, serving lunch, from grilled sourdough with tomato, roasted garlic and anchovy to calamari fritti, beef tataki and grill skewers. Then comes Delibaren, for breakfast, lunch, coffee, bread, pastries and smaller sweets baked downstairs.

With fifteen seats and eleven courses, this omakase counter in Malmö neighbourhood Gamla Väster keeps the focus on craft, pace and the pleasure of watching dinner take shape. Umenoya is chef Takao Fujii’s set menu, shaped by his grandmother’s izakaya recipes and a fixation on tsukemono, Japanese pickles paired with seasonal local produce for bite and texture. Fujii grew up on a small island near Hiroshima, worked in Paris for Comme des Garçons, then moved into kitchens including Nobu Milan. The space is designed by Malmö architect Jonas Lindvall, with stone, wood and ceramics keeping the mood calm. Drinks run champagne, wine, sake, shōchū and thoughtful non-alcoholic pairings.

Canal-side beer is the first move because Bärstronomi is not a random bar with a tap list; it is Hyllie Bryggeri’s Södertull outpost. The independent Malmö craft brewery also runs its Stormgatan taproom by the tanks behind Malmö C, while this city taproom sits on the main pedestrian stretch with the canal in front and a sunny patio made for lingering. The kitchen pulls from Central Europe and the British Isles: schnitzel, club sandwich, langos, fish and chips, fries and small plates. On our visit, the food looked the part, though some flavours needed more bite. At Bärstronomi, the beer does the heavy lifting.