Saturday, March 15, 2008

Copenhagen - city of fine food

I’m a big (‘literally’, unfortunately) food lover.

In Australia, Melbourne is renowned for its restaurants. Melbournians can eat great food very cheaply, especially by Copenhagen standards. In fact, it’s so cheap you can really eat out every night of the week, should you want, without worrying too much about your wallet. Of course, there are lots of expensive restaurants too but because the country is so big, we don’t have seasonal produce, as just about anything can be grown somewhere at any time of the year.

I was interested to see what Copenhagen’s restaurants were like when I arrived. Overall, despite possible some of the slowest service this side of a morgue, the food is pretty good. While it’s not as cheap as Melbourne, you can still find reasonably priced places around. My favourite so far is this one: Kate's Joint in Norrebro (or Norrebronx as some call it here because of its ‘riotous’ reputation).

What I was rather proud to read in the paper this week was the addition of more Michelin stars to some restaurants in this compact city. Michelin stars are that easy to get and the city now has 11 restaurants in that standard. That’s pretty cool for a city of this size, don’t you think?

I’ve been to none!

It’s a contentious issue in this household because I love the odd splurge but NQDII says it’s wasteful and an indulgence, especially when you ‘say goodbye to it the next morning’.

In any case, they all sound exciting and I am working on getting to at least one. We have friends coming over from London at Easter, so I’m hoping we can take a vote then and democracy will reign for a change. Failing that, I have a friend in Houston, Texas who is a tremendous gourmande and I’m banking on her coming over because I know we’d go through the list!

Here are the latest Michelin starred restaurants:

Geranium
Kiin Kiin
Bo Bech at Paustian
Noma
Restaurant Ensemble
Kong Hans
Formel B
Era Ora
The Paul
Restaurant MR
Søllerød Kro

The following were also mentioned in the Michelin guide

Le Sommelier
Kanalen
Oubæk
L’Altro
Luns

Phew. I'm hungry after all that.

2 comments:

N said...

I tried to find nice restaurants in Copenhagen, but it was all pricey Chinese restaurants. Then I went to Rio Bravo near Tivoli and the Mongolian BBQ next to it. I also discovered a Japanese fast food restaurant nearby. There was even a line up! Overall, I find it very expensive to eat exotic food in Denmark, unless you're ordering traditional dishes.

NotQuiteDanish said...

You're right, of course, it's more expensive than other cities but, at the same time, I've been to more expensive towns. But I think it makes some difference living and working here as the wages are higher than other places too.