CPH Trip May 2024 (Købnhavn, Denmark)

[linguafood (Natascha)]

My PIC’s at a conference for a few days, and I decided to tag along - never having been to CPH before.

The flight from Berlin is a mere 40 min (if only all flights everywhere were this short!!), and we got in early afternoon. After settling into the oldest ‘green’ hotel in the city (since 1999), we decided to hit up Tivoli, since it’s a skip and a hop from where we’re staying.

I’d imagined the park to be larger than it is, and most of the “food” on offer tended to fair food: candy floss, waffles, and similar nonsense. We’d found a gastro pub on a whim we booked for dinner, so forewent any of those, but stopped into the Tivoli Food Hall on our way out. It’s a FOOD HALL, how could we not? Plus we were a little peckish late afternoon, having polished off the rolls we’d brought for the trip (with fennel salami and gouda) at BER while waiting to board, so we shared a very good Danish hot dog with all the fixins

There was quite a nice selection of food stands (sushi, ramen, Thai, a brasserie, a fries place, a burger joint, etc.), so I may peruse this again as a lunch option…

Our dinner last night at Bar’Vin, however, was absolutely wonderful - if slightly more $$$ than we’d expected (perhaps that second bottle of rosé was the culprit ).

A small, modern yet inviting space with an abundance of wine shelves, a charming French waiter, and apparently quite popular with the locals.

We started off with their ‘bitter salad’ with olives, Marcona almonds, pecorino, and I swear I detected a lil hint of anchovies in the dressing. A delectable combo, must make this at home some time.

and grilled duck hearts with chimichurri bc DUCK HEARTS. They were so good we ordered another portion

We then split the sweetbreads bc SWEETBREADS with ‘heart salad, crispy bread & watercress’

which were good, but a bit skimpy on the sweetbreads. I’m also not fond of too much breading, and these were overwhelmed by it. Probably our least favorite dish.

The beef tartare, OTOH, was delightful, with pickled beech mushrooms, espelette, capers, and watercress.

Our final dish was the catch of the day, mullet with spring vegetables (wonderfully charred spring onions), mussels & mussel sauce.

All the sauces were sop-up-worthy, and I felt positively stuffed after all that food.

Damage was 1445 Kroner, and I almost fainted. Even divided by 7.5 it was a bit more than we’d planned for

#YOLO, amirite?

[BierMonk]

$210 per Person?

[linguafood (Natascha)]

Oops. Maybe it was less. It ended up being $150 a person with tip. Still more than planned.

Good, tho

[BierMonk]

Glad it was good.
It looks very nice.
Shame about the sweetbreads.

[linguafood (Natascha)]

While my PIC was busy conferencing all day, I got a bit of a late start. Turns out you can’t get breakfast or other food near our hotel after 3pm / before 5pm, as many restaurants close their kitchens between lunch and dinner service.

Being blown around an industrial area of no interest by insane winds got old pretty fast, and I wanted LUNCH. Hopped on the subway and made my way to Torvernehallern, a couple of food halls reminiscent of the Mercato in Barcelona – lots of lovely food stands with lots of tempting foods.

However, when in Købnhavn, you must have smørrebrød, and I scored mightily at the Hallernes Smørrebrød, a local chain with several branches around town.

It was tough to pick just one, but I settled on the shrimp salad roll, accompanied by a crisp rosé.

[linguafood (Natascha)]

Dinner at No. 30, recommended by @digga & the NYT 36 hours series

A TINY place with rather cramped seating – not just the 2-top we occupied, which was squeezed into a corner with absolutely zero space to move my chair. Cozy!

Service was young, friendly, and swift. We opted for the 5 shared courses, which seemed to be the best deal & we didn’t have to make any choices. We shared a reasonably priced Riesling and a decent Blauer Portugieser with our meal.

After the obligatory bread & olive oil (both good)

the meal started off strong with a stunning mosaic of cured cod, leek emulsion and shiso, the fish subtle and tender.

Then the chef came out to explain the next dish: he had dehydrated, then rehydrated carrots (but whyyyyyy), made a carrot sauce & served it all with heavy cream and habanero chili. It was a’ight. He probz coulda just poached the carrots to achieve a similar texture, and – while the habanero provided a pleasant tingle of heat in a cuisine that rarely provides it, I really don’t care for carrot sauce at all (once as a child staying over at a friend’s house, I poured a glass of that vile shit & took a big swig, mistaking it for multivitamin juice of the same neon-bright orange color #traumatizedforlifeyo).

Next up: another tartare. Our third within a week, also very good. This had crispy rye bread and an abundance of radishes, which gave it a nice bite.

The fourth course was the ever-present and always welcome white asparagus – tis the season, after all. Two very al dente stalks with lovage blanquette and ramps.

It’s not a new trend to serve white asparagus barely cooked, and I don’t like it. The sauces were tasty, however. Those Danes really know how to lube things up deliciously

We were pretty full at this point & had also miscounted the courses, thinking the ‘sparagi were the final one, but along came another plate: turbot, crispy sourdough, beluga lentils, and more cream. It was all good but we couldn’t finish the plate. Cream overload.

No room for dessert, as usual. Got a nightcap at the hotel bar – a beer for him, an ice-cold local gin straight up for me, as the only vermouth in the house was Martini Bianco. Yeah, no.

[digga]

@linguafood

Dinner at No. 30, recommended by @digga

I can’t take the credit for No. 30. That may have been a different Onion (no multi-course meals for us, no siree Bob, as dictated by Spring Onion). Edited to add: I can just hear his little groans with the announcement of yet another course. It would be like torture for him.

The Danes, like the Icelandic, do love their sauces. And their vegetables. Often times, I too found the veggies a little under cooked for my liking (but I ate them anyway).

Enjoying your reports—thanks for taking the time to share your meals here.

[linguafood (Natascha)]

Oh, my bad! I coulda sworn it was in one of your reports, but now I’m glad that I didn’t! Swear, I mean. Which is rare

Norwegians love their cream sauces, too. Like many European traits, I learned about it first in Asterix (a popular comic in the 70s & 80s) which was right on about it in their Asterix and the Normans issue. Cream sauce everywhere

Checking out Reffen food market once my beloved returns from his stupid conference!

[digga]

@linguafood

Reffen food market

Reffen was fun but if it’s windy again today, you might want to go another day? But maybe you’re already on your way out there (we took the bus).

I definitely felt overwhelmed with choices. I went with the Nepali stand.

[linguafood (Natascha)]

It is windy EVERYWHERE. Is the bus faster than the subway (34 min)?

I also think we should be exploring more hoods than we have (Nørreport & around Tivoli, but not much)…

[digga]

@linguafood

Is the bus faster than the subway (34 min)?

Hmmm…if I’m remembering correctly, the Metro didn’t go out to Reffen. Maybe that’s a new line?

Or maybe you’re planning to walk from Christiana?

[linguafood (Natascha)]

You’re right, no metro line. I’m having the hardest time figuring out distances in this town. Today, we walked from Tivoli to Nørreport, a trip I took the subway for yesterday

I’m sure by the time we leave tomorrow it’ll all make sense

[StephanieL]

Thanks for the reports! I have a feeling I’m going to be eating a lot of smørrebrød when I go there next month.

[linguafood (Natascha)]

My PIC was able to skip out of his boring conference early yesterday & was starving, so we went back to Torvehallerne. A fish stand with an incredible array of seafood salads, ceviche & tartare had a few different combo plates to choose from, and we picked the 3 fish plate : salmon tartare with green apple & mint, North Sea shrimp salad lightly dressed with mayo, and octopus with olives and sun-dried tomatoes – a really great combination of flavors.

The salmon tartare was probably the weakest, even though I thought the addition of green apple & mint were a great idea – it just needed more seasoning. As I like to say about Danish cuisine: mild food for a mild people

Because we are gluttons, we also shared a couple of smørrebrøds - I got the shrimp salad again, my PIC the chicken salad complete with bacon sculpture.

[linguafood (Natascha)]

Dinner last night was at Reffen Street Food market, which was the zoo you’d expect it to be on a sunny Friday evening. We’ve been incredibly lucky with the weather here (according to a bartender we chatted with last night, a rarity to have so many sunny days in a row), BUT it was also windy AF.

We avoided the super-long lines for smashburgers, tacos, and Korean fried chicken as we can get plenty of that in Berlin and back home. Instead, we shared a lovely Afghan borani banjan (fried eggplant with tomato sauce and yogurt) that came with a sweet & nicely spicy green sauce - chatney?

then ordered lamb shish from the Kurdish stand, which was hugely popular. It was ok. My PIC’s lamb is mo betta.

We then went to Two Socks, a local chain of gin bars. We were super-excited about a huge selection of gins, and maybe trying 2 or 3 in a martini… when the bar staff informed us that they just ran out of dry vermouth.

THEY WHATTTTTT?

Turns out they mostly specialize in G&Ts, and a lot of the gins include flavored local gins and gin liqueurs. We were too lazy to hoof it to another branch 15 min away that - they assured me - would have dry vermouth, so I had a couple of “strong” Not Negronis and called it a day.

Last few hours here, and I may just have to get another Danish dog before we head to the airport.

[StephanieL]

@linguafood

My PIC was able to skip out of his boring conference early yesterday & was starving, so we went back to Torvehallerne. A fish stand with an incredible array of seafood salads, ceviche & tartare had a few different combo plates to choose from, and we picked the 3 fish plate : salmon tartare with green apple & mint, North Sea shrimp salad lightly dressed with mayo, and octopus with olives and sun-dried tomatoes – a really great combination of flavors.

The salmon tartare was probably the weakest, even though I thought the addition of green apple & mint were a great idea – it just needed more seasoning. As I like to say about Danish cuisine: mild food for a mild people

Because we are gluttons, we also shared a couple of smørrebrøds - I got the shrimp salad again, my PIC the chicken salad complete with bacon sculpture.

I got a lunch here from the same stand! I went with the 1 fish + 2 salad combo: a shrimp & crayfish salad for the fish and cabbage & apple and roasted beets for the actual salads.

[StephanieL]

I’m going to put in a plug for the venerable Restaurant Schønnemann. Reservations are a must, but if you book the 2nd seating you can have a nice, leisurely lunch. They have 150 varieties of snaps (schnapps) and nearly as many dishes. We chose a pickled herring plate, tinned brisling sardines, and a shrimp and crayfish smørrebrod; dessert was simply lemon buttermilk poured over strawberries and small cookies. We had our servers choose 1 snaps for the fish and 1 snaps for the dessert, and they both were great matches (the dessert snaps was distilled from apples and flavored with elderflower). In the end, it came to less than $150 for 2 people, a relative bargain in my opinion.