DELICIOUS DANISH DELICACIES: Eating Out In Copenhagen

Roast pork open-face sandwich (Smorbrod) a typical Danish specialty.

It seems that for the week of Thanksgiving, it is appropriate to talk about food, so I am thinking about the food we ate on our recent trip to Copenhagen. Eating out in Denmark was a pleasure—from simple lunches, often at a museum café, to full dinners in restaurants or at our hotel (the NH Collection.) 

Salmon (laks) for dinner at the NH Collection restaurant.

Our days started with a sumptuous breakfast in the hotel dining room, a buffet with choices ranging from eggs and bacon, to fresh baked breads, fruit, juices, yogurt and muesli, platters of meats, cheeses, salmon and herring, and, of course, classic Danish pastries. I was always amazed at how the boiled eggs were perfectly cooked.

This clipper ship is moored just outside the Christianshavn Faiergecafe.

We ate twice at a restaurant called Christianshavn Faergecafe, just a short walk from our hotel, next to a canal. We wondered about all the models and pictures of sailing vessels on the walls of the restaurant until we realized that the name means “Ferry Café” and that a historic ferry stop was outside. The café serves traditional Danish food. I ordered chicken (raised in the Danish countryside along with the fresh vegetables on my plate) and Art ordered fish. 

A small open air market offers flowers and fresh fruits and vegetables.

We returned for lunch several days later on a Sunday, ordering the famous open-faced sandwiches called “smorbrod”, bread topped with your choice of one of dozens of items on the menu. We started with herring, followed by roast pork. The idea is to eat multiple sandwiches but they were so filling that one was plenty for me.

Herring Smorbrod

We also went twice to the Wilder Café, a French restaurant not far from the hotel. On our first visit I ordered fried snails as a starter (delicious and crunchy) and the second time I had moules (steamed mussels.)

Gazpacho and fresh rolls at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

During our days in Copenhagen we walked around the city and visited museums. Almost every museum has a café, perfect for lunch or an afternoon coffee break. At the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (a 40 minute train ride north of Copenhagen) we had lunch in the museum restaurant, where the floor to ceiling windows gave a view to the sea on one side and of the sculpture garden on the other. On a warmer day, we could have eaten outdoors on the patio. The menu at the Louisiana Museum is cosmopolitan. We ordered gazpacho with chorizo and cheese—a tasty combination.

Streetside cafes filled with tourists line the wharf at Nyhavn.

Most restaurants in Copenhagen have English menus, although we learned to recognize the Danish words for foods such as salmon—laks.  In a country surrounded by the sea, fish and seafood are almost always on the menu and frequently were our choice. But everything we ate was good and left us wishing we had room for more and more time to sample some of the many other restaurants in Copenhagen.