Copenhagen Cooking – Part 2

A short walk from Torvehallerne is the old city centre and King Christian IV’s Round Tower. And at its base is Den Økologiske Pølsemand (the organic hotdog man), a funny little food truck which was recently voted the top place to eat in Copenhagen by readers of Danish newspaper Politiken. After testing the theory myself I’m totally behind that call. Døp’s excellent free-range pork sausages are tucked into linseed sourdough rolls, topped with remoulade, pickles and mustard, and they really are that good. Just ask Carl.

To follow some classic Danish street food we went straight to the classic Danish beverage, or rather its source. The Carlsberg Brewery was home base for Copenhagen Cooking all weekend. Saturday it hosted Nordic Taste, a mini food festival with a presence from most of the city’s top restaurants plus a selection from Sweden too. Noma’s Nordic Food Lab was running porridge making classes and the Swedish bakery Soderberg & Sara were selling incredible bread, pastries and preserves, plus the first issue of the almost painfully cool international food and design magazine; Fool.

Yesterday the very lovely Heather Nissen took me for a Sunday drive north of Copenhagen. We stopped to enjoy the fleeting sun on the coast near Klampenborg and walked past the Charlottenlund Sobad swimming club (below), which asks its members to swim naked all year round, even in the middle of winter when they must break the ice before jumping in to do their laps. Oh my god. Then we drove a little further north for lunch at Restaurant Sletten, a flash seaside restaurant in a pretty little fishermans’ village. Sitting in their beautiful dining room just by the marina, we watched weather change a good three times and felt a bit bad for the army of blond children in sailing school, battling sheets of rain only to dry off two minutes later in warm sunshine before being blasted along again by more strong wind.

After lunch we drove a little further north to the Louisiana Museum of Modern art, described my many as the most beautiful gallery in the world. The New Nordic exhibition on culture and architecture across Scandinavia was terrific and of course the cafe right on the peninsula, design shop and sculpture gardens all very impressive. I could have happily stayed here all day but Heather whizzed me off again to finish the afternoon with a private tour of Frederiksborg Castle’s rooms and galleries. My highlight was the portait collection spanning from 1500-2012 and a stunner of ‘our Mary’.

To finish the day Heather and I had an early dinner at Søllerød Kro, a very elegant, 15th century country inn turned Michelin-starred restaurant. We started with little pots of Jerusalem Artichoke panna cotta, shredded crab meat and then caviar and champagne. It was all very fancy.

And I think it’s safe to say I won’t be eating and drinking like that again for a long time. Tomorrow it’s back home to early dinners with the kids, scrambled eggs all over the floor and packing school lunches. And actually I can’t wait. It’s been an incredible few days but being so far away from the kids and Tim is beginning to feel a bit strange. For now though, I’ll dig deep…pull out my rented bike one last time and head out to meet Katrine for a day in her trendy neighbourhood, Nørrebro.