Sally’s – Where Stockholm Meets the Spirit of 70s New York
text Jahwanna Berglund
There are cocktail bars that open quietly, and then there are cocktail bars that arrive with the confidence of someone who’s lived several lives already. Sally’s at Sheraton Stockholm is the latter. It sits there on the entrance floor, glowing softly like a whispered secret yet carrying the swagger of New York in the late 70s.
Sally’s feels like stepping into a story that began long before Stockholm ever claimed it. The bar takes its name from the legendary Sally Lippman, the silver-haired disco queen who danced her way through Studio 54 well into her seventies. She was a regular at the original Sally’s at Sheraton New York, a woman who refused to let age, convention, or expectation dim her shine. The new Sally’s channels that same spirit to a place where glamour doesn’t have to try hard, where fun is a philosophy, not a theme.
The man bringing this world to Stockholm is Bobby Hiddleston, a bartender whose résumé reads like a world tour of the most iconic cocktail rooms on the planet. Milk & Honey in London, The Dead Rabbit in New York, a life spent behind bars that defined eras. Now he’s here, in Stockholm of all places, ready to write a new chapter alongside Head Bartender Niklas Forslin (fresh off stints at Tjoget and Hongkong’s Red Sugar).
But Sally’s isn’t nostalgic. It’s referential, the difference between copying a memory and reimagining a feeling.
photo courtesy of Sally’s
A Disco Era Filtered Through Stockholm Cool
Sheraton Stockholm itself carries decades of stories: Axl Rose destroying hotel rooms, Stevie Wonder sliding into the lobby to play the piano. Moments that linger in the walls like perfume. Hiddleston leans into that legacy, not to replicate the past but to fold it into something fresh, something fun.
The bar design, created by ADC Atelier (yes, behind multiple Soho House concepts), isn’t kitschy; it’s quietly cinematic. A hint of Studio 54, a touch of old-school hotel glamour, softened by Scandinavian light and Bobby’s insistence that “comfortable & fun” should be more than a slogan.
The Drinks: Classic, Clever, and a Little Bit Cheeky
Sally’s doesn’t try to reinvent the cocktail. It refines the pleasure of drinking one.
The menu reads like a love letter to the canon:
- Gimlet
- Freezer Martini
- Toronto
- White Russian, completed with a burned marshmallow like a wink across the bar
And then there’s the signature Disco Sally’s, a bright, optimistic mix of tequila, apricot and Cocchi Americano. It tastes like someone bottling a flash of a disco strobe: familiar, a bit decadent, and impossible not to smile at.
Niklas brings speed, precision, and a kind of joyful seriousness to the drinks, Hongkong tempo meets Stockholm craft.
Why Sally’s Feels Like Something Stockholm Needed
Stockholm has incredible cocktail bars, but Sally’s brings something different:
A sense of narrative. A sense of place. A sense of play.
It feels international without being anonymous, retro without being a costume, luxurious without losing warmth. It captures a sliver of the 70s, a whisper of New York, and mixes it with the particular calm confidence of Scandinavian hospitality.
It’s the kind of bar where you go for “just one” and suddenly find yourself two hours later debating whether to try the Freezer Martini or have another Disco Sally’s, because time doesn’t move the same way here.
And maybe that is the true magic of Sally’s:
It’s not trying to be the coolest place in Stockholm.
It’s trying to be the most alive.
