4 minute read
Destination CODE: Copenhagen
In association with CODE Travel Guides
Michael Daw visits the Danish capital and discovers there’s more to the city than Noma.
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It’s rare that summer holidays are taken in wetter and colder climates than London, but this year I headed to the food destination that beckons gourmands and jazz lovers alike. Copenhagen is not only the home of thrilling crime drama and bicycles, but to a whole host of exciting restaurants, brasseries, cafes and bars that are sure to get those thinking of a short break away excited.
It’s the culinary prowess that takes us to Denmark. Copenhagen is an intimate place, one could cycle around it in just a few hours. However, tucked away in its side streets are a large collection of some of Europe’s best restaurants and a very chilled-out dining scene.
We start our journey by taking the quaint Metro to Nørreport. Our first stop is a charming little tavern on the Nørre Voldgade. The place immediately captures my imagination. There are timber beams bulging and creaking on both ceiling and floor, elderly men drinking warm dark beer around small fires whilst charming, typically Scandinavian blonde-haired blue-eyed waitresses serve them. It’s as if we’ve surreptitiously sauntered into an old English pub.
It does make me think of the pubs we have in London. I felt this place tried to just exist with nothing fancy or stylish. London can get so caught up in itself that even attempts at a simple, honest pub can go horribly wrong. They’d run out of the traditional little Smørrebrød or ‘open sandwiches’, so we decide to eat elsewhere.
We walk down what can only be described as the Bond Street of Copenhagen, passing luxury watch stores, a Louis Vuitton and a Burberry before we find a spot for lunch. Café Norden is tranquil and its décor has an art nouveau twist. The menu is Viennoiserie’s, salads, sandwiches and a smattering of traditional Danish fare. We opt for salads and pastas with Nordic twists. The food, the service and the style here was reminiscent of somewhere attempting to be a European Grand Café and the bill we received reminded us we were in one of the world’s most expensive countries. The streets are filled with a summer festival of jazz. Everywhere you go there is a side street or back alley hosting an event of just a few dozen people with beer and free jazz to wind away an afternoon. We head to the main museum for an excellent exhibition displaying the diverse demographic that makes up Copenhagen.
It gets me thinking about the diversity of the city’s restaurants. Although I’m sure you can find them, we never really saw a somewhere for Thai food or an Indian restaurant. Instead the dining scene seems to been less imported, more Scandinavian, more Danish. When compared to London its chalk and buttermilk. The restaurants here are proud of their Danish heritage and they celebrate it in their food.
That night we dine out of the city centre and venture to what has got to be one of the finest restaurants in Copenhagen. We originally wanted to go to Denmark in the hope of dining in the venerable and aforementioned Noma but getting a reservation was next to impossible. It is for this reason we end up in Relæ. It is a restaurant set up with the inspiration and creativity that you find at Noma or El Bulli. In fact the chef, Christian Puglisi worked at El Bulli before they closed their doors in 2011. Relæ is located in Jægersborggade, a creative district of the city that is well known for cute coffee shops and bike theft. In Puglisi’s own words, the streets of this neighbourhood are ‘crime-ridden’. We step out of our taxi at around eight forty five on a wet night and rush inside. They serve some dishes in this 40-cover restaurant that are so unique and good they probably could never be replicated.
The food at Relæ is beyond any superlatives – it reminds me of why I love hospitality so much and why I do what I do now. The service was inimitably discreet, the décor was divine and the food and wine were in perfect harmony throughout the whole evening. It was orchestral - many small and individually undetectable things coming together to create something inspiring. Raymond Blanc told me once his definition of luxury was a thousand tiny things that, on their own are meaningless, once layered on top of each other, create luxury. I saw that in Relæ. Everything I love about a meal happened in the 1.5m sq. space that we occupied for those three hours.
Although Copenhagen is littered with restaurants of this quality, I don’t believe food can be better than at Relæ. I know people who’ve been to Noma and they don’t believe food could be any better. A friend of mine went to Amass, another Noma inspired, Michelin-starred Copenhagen restaurant and they don’t believe that food gets better than that. It’s all about perception. For me , there on an appallingly wet night in Copenhagen, it was the best meal I’ve ever had.
The next day we head to a cinema that reminds me of the Curzon Chelsea. We end up watching a crime drama. Like this genre of film, you also can’t escape small exquisite restaurants in Copenhagen. Afterwards, we venture to 20-cover restaurant nearby. We start with the gazpacho and then chilli beef to follow. By no means Scandinavian food but, being near the university on Studiesstraede, its popular with the locals, and I can see why. Our dessert is typically Danish, Koldskål with Tvebakker.
The feel of the dining scene in Copenhagen is more relaxed than London’s, but that doesn’t make it better. It’s smaller, less diverse and a little more expensive but on the plus, it lacks any pretention. It’s self-assured and self-confident and the results are astounding.
