Born in
Helsinki, the orphaned Fredrik Edvard Ekberg was the foster son of a bank clerk. He originally intended to become a watchmaker but eventually became a journeyman baker. During his
journey in the 1840s, he visited
St. Petersburg, the
Baltics and
Vyborg. Ekberg opened his first bakery in 1852 in
Kruununhaka, Helsinki, which moved four years later to the Kiseleffska building on
Aleksanterinkatu. The restaurant Café Parisien, which Ekberg opened in 1873 in the pastry shop on Aleksanterinkatu 52, can be seen as the highlight of his business. It operated on Aleksanterinkatu until 1917. He opened a business on
Bulevardi in 1915, where the family business is still in operation in the fourth generation. Ekberg spoke
Swedish as his mother tongue. He married Eleonora Wilhelmina Österman in 1857 and Johanna Carolina Elisabeth De Geer in 1867. Ekberg died at the age of 65 in Helsinki in 1891. == Literature ==