IMAGES: HANNAH GRANT; MORTEN RAARUP; MARIE LOUISE MUNKSGAARD; LINE FALCK
The Danish capital is no place for fussy diners, with the city’s chefs,
brewers and distillers keen to stretch the definition of normal
Words: James ClasperCOPENHAGEN
Eat
FIVE COPENHAGEN
FOOD FINDSBrød: This tiny bakery produces
outstanding organic bread and
pastries, such as morgenboller
— a croissant-dough roll made
with cinnamon and brown sugar.Grisen: Danes love flaeskesteg (roast
pork) sandwiches filled with crispy
meat, red cabbage and gherkin — and
this kitsch cafe does the city’s best.
foodand.dk/grisenJohn’s Hotdog Deli: Locals flock to
John Jensen’s van outside Central
Station — with good reason. He’s
the three-time winner of Denmark’s
national hotdog competition.
facebook.com/johnshotdogdeliLeckerbaer: This sleek pastry shop
dishes up beautiful, exquisitely
imaginative Danish butter cookies,
as well as cream puffs, biscuits
and brownies. leckerbaer.dkØsterberg Ice Cream:
Exotic flavours such as
tamarind, jackfruit, sea
buckthorn and yuzu
make this the city’s premier
ice cream parlour.
osterberg-ice.dkI
swallow a slab of salty liquorice at
Karamelleriet, an old-fashioned sweet
shop, and wince. “That’s because you’ve
got a ‘small normal’,” the shopkeeper remarks
— a savage, if unusual, indictment of my
palate. “But your taste buds can change,” he
adds quickly. “You may learn to like it.”
Chastened, I’m determined to expand the
parameters of what I deem tasty. Fortunately,
I’m in the right place. Copenhagen isn’t a city
for cautious, cagey diners. Across the Danish
capital, chefs, brewers and distillers are
pushing the boundaries and stretching the
definition of normal.
I start at 108, a new Nordic restaurant
dubbed ‘Noma’s little brother’ when it opened
this summer. Head chef Kristian Baumann
shows me round the kitchen and dining room
before taking me to the cluster of shipping
containers that house Noma and 108’s
so-called fermentation labs: seven climate-
controlled rooms containing buckets of
fermenting fruit, vegetables, fish and meat.
Inside the first room, the air is humid and
tangy. Shelves groan under the weight of large
plastic tubs. Scrawled labels indicate the
contents, which restaurant is responsible for
them, and the date they began fermenting.
“This is where we make miso,” Baumann
says, referring to the Japanese condiment
typically produced using fermented
soybeans. Not here, though: I spot miso made
with mushrooms, chickpeas, pumpkin seeds
and grasshoppers. Another room contains
varieties of vinegar — kelp, mushroom, rose,celery — and the sauna-like 60C room houses
the more hardcore foodstuffs: fermented
squid, beef and cabbage.
Sensing my bewilderment, Baumann
tells me to see ingredients as letters of the
alphabet. “It’s up to the chef to arrange
them into words,” he explains. “Consider
elderflower: we can salt it, pickle it, make a
syrup or oil out of it or even ferment it.”
My dinner later that evening showcases
this philosophy. Cured mackerel gleams
with celery vinegar; a selection of pickles
(elderberry capers, nasturtium, rosehip) pep
up a delicious lamb tartare; grilled monkfish
glimmers with a mushroom-miso lacquer.
The next day, I discover another kind of
fermentation at Brus, a brewpub launched
by Tobias Emil Jensen and Tore Gynther,
founders of microbrewery To Øl. I arrive to
find Jensen making a Gose — a traditional
German beer with a sour, salty taste produced
by adding bacteria to the wort (the liquid
extracted during the mashing process of
brewing). Sacks of grain are dunked into a
kettle of wort and left to steep for 24 hours
at 40C, Jensen explains. Naturally occurring
bacteria in the grain will convert the sugars
in the wort into lactic acid, giving the Gose its
distinctive sour flavour.
“I always describe a beer by its base
parameters: colour, bitterness and alcohol
— but that’s so simplified,” Jensen says. The
pair use exotic ingredients, such as tropical
fruit and coffee, and enjoy creating a fusion
of flavours. “If I combine raspberry andNovember 2016 63