Swedish Halloween Candy Shop in Marylebone: £2.50 Skull Bags

TotallySwedish, at 32 Crawford Street in Marylebone, W1H 1LS, is a Swedish grocery that doubles as one of London's most unusual Halloween candy shop stops. It opens Monday to Saturday from 10am, until 7pm on Thursdays, and on Sundays from 11am to 4pm. Its online shop lists BUBS Sour Skull Raspberry at £2.50 a bag and Lakritsfabriken Salted Witches, a salted liquorice sweet shaped like small witches, at £4.90.

The shop has stopped home delivery, according to its own website, so everything is either bought over the counter or ordered online for collection here. That matters at Halloween: the skulls, the witches and the sour pick and mix all have to be picked up in person, which keeps the shop a neighbourhood stop rather than a warehouse.

The About Us page says TotallySwedish was founded in 2005 by Annethe Nathan, who grew up in Mönsterås in Småland and moved to London in 1995. The shop describes itself as stocking more than 1,000 Swedish food and drink products, along with deli items, chocolate, books and design pieces. The sweets wall is only one part of the store, but for anyone who grew up with Swedish candy it is the reason to come.

Sweden takes its candy seriously. Many Swedish families still keep lördagsgodis, the Saturday sweets tradition in which children get a bag of pick and mix once a week. That habit explains why Swedish candy is sold loose or in mixed bags, and why the flavours lean so heavily toward sour fruit and salty liquorice, which British shoppers often meet here for the first time.

The Halloween star is a sweet that BUBS sells all year: the skull. BUBS is a Swedish confectioner whose foam-and-gummy skulls have become a cult item, and the online shop lists Sour Skull Raspberry, Sour Skull Fruity Lemon Mix and Sweet and Salty Skull Raspberry and Salty Liquorice at £2.50 a bag each. A larger Sweet and Salty Skulls bag is £3.50. Pour several flavours into one bowl and the skulls do the decorating for you.

Lakritsfabriken's Salted Witches, £4.90, is the one item the shop places in its Halloween section, alongside a set of decorative ceramic Halloween pumpkins at £25.00 each. The witches are strong salted liquorice, so they divide a room: Swedes tend to love them and many British guests do not. Buy one bag for the adults rather than filling children's party bags with it.

For a crowd, the shop's own Pick 'n' Mix Sour 200g bag and the Mixed Sweet and Sour 200g bag are both £3.50 online, and they are the best value for filling a bowl. Malaco Gott and Blandat Super Sour, 130g, is £2.75, and Cloetta's Ahlgren's Cars, the marshmallow car sweets every Swede recognises, come in Sour and Slightly Sour Fruit versions at £2.60 each.

If someone in your group asks for something truly odd, point them to the salty liquorice. Malaco Djungelvrål, the monkey-shaped super salty liquorice, is £1.75 a bag, and a single Djungelvrål lollipop is £0.75. Lakritskungen Salty Coins cost £5.50. The Sour Patron and Salty Patron pastilles are £0.40 each, a cheap way to test whether you can handle the flavour before buying a full bag.

Skip the Gåva Halloween pumpkins if you are only here for treats. At £25.00 each they are handmade-style decorations rather than candy, and the money is better spent on three or four bags of skulls. If you want something to keep, the shop's Swedish design shelves have candle holders and napkins that suit an autumn table.

The store mixes groceries, a deli and gifts in one room, so the sweets share space with shoppers buying crispbread and coffee. Weekday mornings after the 10am opening are the easiest time to browse; the late Thursday finish at 7pm suits anyone coming from an office. Sunday hours are short, 11am to 4pm, so leave Sunday for a quick pick-up rather than a slow browse. If the skulls you want are out of stock, the company's second shop, on Barnes High Street in south-west London, carries the same range but closes Monday, Tuesday and Sunday.

Ordering online for collection is the best plan B. The website asks you to specify the day you will collect, and you then pay online and pick up at Crawford Street. For a party on 31 October, place a collection order a few days ahead so that the skulls are set aside before the weekend rush.

From Crawford Street, walk east through the grid of Georgian streets to Marylebone High Street, the neighbourhood's village-style shopping street with independent bookshops and cafés. Daunt Books, with its long Edwardian gallery and oak balconies, is the best-known stop and is free to browse. The walk takes about ten minutes through quiet residential squares.

Turn north from there toward Baker Street and the Sherlock Holmes Museum, set in a period townhouse on the street made famous by Arthur Conan Doyle. Beyond it, the Clarence Gate entrance to Regent's Park opens onto the boating lake, which is a good place to sit with a bag of sweets before heading back to the Tube in the late afternoon light.

Address: TotallySwedish, 32 Crawford Street, London W1H 1LS. Opening hours listed on the official stores page: Monday to Wednesday 10:00 to 18:00, Thursday 10:00 to 19:00, Friday and Saturday 10:00 to 18:00, Sunday 11:00 to 16:00. The closest Tube stations are Baker Street, Marylebone and Edgware Road, each a short walk away.

Prices quoted come from the TotallySwedish online shop on 23 October 2026: BUBS Sour Skull Raspberry £2.50, Sweet and Salty Skulls £3.50, Lakritsfabriken Salted Witches £4.90, Pick 'n' Mix Sour 200g £3.50, Ahlgren's Cars £2.60. The shop no longer offers home delivery; online orders are for collection in store only.

For a fuller afternoon, ask the Karpo APP for a Marylebone café with seats, or a Halloween costume shop near Baker Street.