Stock Bistro & Bar, a minimal, clean, Scandinavian-inspired restaurant, is now open in Richmond. Perhaps most surprising, in a furniture showroom.

Situated within the Txtur showroom in Manchester at 604 Hull St., a furniture brand selling direct to consumer, the owners wanted to combine food with furniture to market both with a focus on handmade items using sustainable ingredients.

While the furniture is an impressive ode to Scandi interior décor, it’s not the focus of this piece. This is all about Stock, the restaurant end of the food and furniture experiment presently in its seventh week of existence.

I went there to try out the menu thinking that a restaurant in a furniture store would smack of Ikea both from a furniture perspective as well as a culinary concept. Not so.

I started with three different cocktails, which were The Pink Passerby (a guest favorite), the DramBOI, and the Montenegro GO!.

The Pink Passerby was based with Henrick’s Gin, which was not too noticeable except for the aromatic and herbal finish of the drink—perfect for a hot summer day. The DramBOI was made with Drambuie, Fernet, and absinthe and had a butterscotch-y mouth feel. The Montenegro GO! was very gin-forward and probably my least favorite of the three. I finished the Pink Passerby entirely.

“I wanted to go on the higher end on cocktails, using a lot of cordials and liqueurs," Xavier Barrett, the master bartender, said. "I used ingredients from that area, like lingonberries for the in-house lingonberry syrup to incorporate the Nordic inspiration. I also use liquors from Nordic areas, where waters from the glaciers are used to distill the vodkas. In-house aquavit, a Nordic inspired herbaceous liquor, is made with a base of vodka and then the addition of herbs and spices from that area.”

The food I was served at Stock exactly encapsulated the New Nordic movement. The Stock Board ($28), which was a large-format charcuterie board, came with fish including smoked salmon, fish dip, and gravlax, with an assortment of cheeses and pickles with rye chips made in-house for smearing. The smoked salmon was perfect. The gravlax was a little too fishy in the aftertaste for me. The cheese side of the Stock Board equation included gouda, blue, Havarti, and goat cheese. It’s a hefty amount of food and could probably serve at least four people as a starter.

From the Smørrebrød menu (these are sandwiches), I tried the smoked duck, horseradish crème fraiche ($17), with pickled asparagus, and potato chips. It was open-faced on thin, rye bread, and served with cucumber salad. This was another one of my favorites—as well as the favorite of executive chef, Kevin Coleman. It also seems like it would travel well wrapped up in a picnic basket, if you’re taking ideas.

For a main course, I had the Smoke in Chimney’s Trout ($30). The trout is fresh caught every Sunday at the Smoke in Chimney’s trout farm in New Castle, Virginia, and delivered to the restaurant the following day to ensure freshness. This trout came filleted and skinned on one side, laying over a potato rösti, with braised leeks, “everything seasoning” crème fraiche, and purple dulce. The trout was perfectly salted and flaky on the filleted side, while being crispy on the other. It was the combination of the flake, the salt, and the crispness of the fillet that got me thinking that Stock could be the root of a new food trend in Richmond, if the New Nordic movement really takes off here.

Last, I had something called Kapsalon ($16), which I was told was what Turkish immigrants to Nordic countries eat. I was skeptical about enjoying what chef referred to as a French fry salad—a layer of French fries, chicken shawarma, greens, tomatoes and cucumbers, and an aioli dressing. It looked quite bad, at my initial judgement, but it tasted like something I couldn’t place my finger on that made me nostalgic. And it was out-of-this-world delicious—perfectly savory and crispy, with a freshness brought in by the greens. If you’re a junk food lover, this is one solid option you can try at Stock.

As far as the furniture showroom goes, guests can eat in and amongst the tables, couches, and chairs set up throughout the clean, bright, space. The dining room is in the back of the space, in a more private dinging room adjacent to the bar.

“The best restaurants in the world are in Sweden, Norway, Copenhagen, and Denmark,” Kevin Coleman, executive chef, said. “Our furniture has a clean design, and we were looking for something timeless, connected with the craft and materials. It’s very clean cuisine.”

And, while ‘clean cuisine’ is a phrase that gets said a lot in the food and drink industry, at Stock it is built into the menu.