The shrimp feast becomes a mussel celebration as the long tables return to the Gothenburg city festival

When the long tables return to Avenyn during the Gothenburg city festival, they will do so in a new form. Inspired by the shrimp feasts of the 1990s, this year Gothenburg residents and visitors are invited to a mussel celebration featuring Bohuslän mussels.

-We hope this can become a new tradition at the Gothenburg city festival, says Anna Mjörnvik, project manager for the festival.

This time, Bohuslän mussels are on the menu, but the idea remains the same: to create a place where people can come together in the heart of the city. Long tables will be set up along the upper part of Avenyn, where locals and visitors can sit down and share a meal. Musselbaren from Ljungskile will be serving Bohuslän mussels throughout all four days of the festival.

– The shrimp feasts and long tables on Avenyn are something many people in Gothenburg still remember fondly. Today, the circumstances are different and shrimp are on the red list. We wanted to bring that sense of community into modern-day Gothenburg and create a new public celebration with long tables and another west coast delicacy, says Anna Mjörnvik.

– The Bohuslän mussel is an amazing ingredient and something we are very proud of. Being able to serve it to the people of Gothenburg at long tables in the middle of Avenyn is incredibly exciting. It does not get much more local than this, says Janne Bark of Musselbaren in Ljungskile.

The mussels served during the festival come from farms in the fjords around Orust. Since 2023, the Bohuslän blue mussel has held EU protected designation of origin (PDO) status, the same type of protection granted to products such as Champagne, Parmigiano Reggiano and Kalix bleak roe.

Mussels will be served throughout all four days of the Gothenburg city festival, and the long tables will accommodate around 200 guests at a time. The mussel celebration is part of this year’s focus on upper Avenyn, where the street will be closed to traffic and transformed into a vibrant meeting place. Restaurants and bars will spill out onto the street, while the main stage at Götaplatsen will host performances by artists including Miriam Bryant, Teddybears, Sahara Hotnights and Arvingarna.