The building
From dairy to restaurant and farm hotel
More than a century after it first received produce from the surrounding farms, people gather here around food and craft once again. Now the place’s next chapter is taking shape.
The dairy was built in 1902 and opened five years later. Until 1962, it was part of village life, turning milk from nearby farms into butter and other dairy products. From 1980, the building stood largely untouched.
When Victor Schack and his father bought the building at Easter 2022, it carried decades of neglect. Thousands of hours of restoration followed. Limewashed walls, tiles, windows and traces of the dairy were allowed to remain rather than being hidden behind an entirely new surface.
Restaurang Kalcium opened in May 2024. It has since been recognised by 360°Eat Guide and Dagens Industri (opens in a new tab), while the restoration was nominated for Simrishamn’s Building Conservation Award. The building continues to tell its own story without grand gestures.
Today, the dairy is both a workplace and a dining room. The preserved materials set the tone, while the kitchen and service show that the building is in use again — now for another kind of transformation of ingredients.
The farm hotel · work in progress
The next chapter at Kalcium.
Work on the next part of Kalcium has begun. Four individual guest rooms are taking shape in the old stable, with the same careful approach to the building that guided the dairy’s transformation into a restaurant.
In time, guests will be able to stay overnight in Sankt Olof, just a few steps from the restaurant. The aim is for some of the rooms to be ready by summer 2028, but no opening date has yet been set.
We will share more about the farm hotel and its restoration as the work progresses.
Timeline
The dairy is built in Sankt Olof.
It opens and begins receiving milk from the surrounding farms.
Dairy production ends after more than fifty years.
The building is left largely untouched.
Victor Schack and his father buy the property.
Restaurang Kalcium opens.
The aim is for some of the farm hotel’s rooms to be ready by summer.