The Ultimate Dining List for Copenhagen

I am leaving Copenhagen this weekend and sad to be leaving Denmark.  A new adventure is underway. I am headed to Silicon Valley in California.  I am looking forward to new dining experiences and design.

This past year living in Copenhagen I’ve tried my hardest to dine around town.  If you are headed this way soon here are a few not to miss…. (in no particular order). I hope this list points you in the right direction…. there are many wonderful things to eat in Copenhagen. It is one of my favourite culinary cities.

• Aamanns (modern smorebrod)
• Cock’s and Cows (burgers)
• Gorm’s Pizza (thin crust pizza)
• Schonnemann (classic smorebrod and herring)
• Salon 39 (cosy/bistro like)
• Relae (michelin star- not as expensive as noma :))
• Ved Stranden 10 (wine bar/charcuterie)
• Geist (fun atmosphere/new nordic)
• Famo (italian)
• Host  (new nordic mid priced)

• Mad Klubben Bistro deLuxe (affordable bistro type nordic cuisine)
• Fiskebaren (fish/raw/cooked)
• Mielcke & Hurtigkarl (a stunning showstopper of a room and meal with juice pairing)
• Oliver and the Black Circus (affordable three course meals)
• Kjobenhavn (breakfast and affordable three course meals)
• GoodMorning Vietnam (go for the pho)
• Pho Saigon (go for the bun and spring rolls)
• Grod (porridge)
• CheFe (sister to Era Ora- reasonably priced 90-100% organic restaurant)
• Era Ora (michelin italian)
• Dagh (decent brunch)
• Beyti (best kebab)
• Ahaaa (best falafel)
• Democratic Coffee (best croissants)
• Coffee Collective (coffee + breakfast pairings)

• Atelier September (breakfast, coffee, matcha tea)
• Beau Marche (salads, wine)
• Kaf’ Bar 9 (breakfasts/tea/coffee)
• Sticks and Sushi (sushi)
• Mad Hatter Bubble Tea Emporium (bubble tea)
• Hache (burgers)
• Nordisk Brodhus (bakery/breakfast/bread anything)
• Mother (sourdough pizza)
• Meyer’s Bakery (bread)
• Bageriet Brod (bakery)
• The Next Door Cafe (pulled chicken sandwich, biscotti, ginger lemonade)
• Food Shop No. 26 (lunch/bakery)
• KH Clausen (veggie sandwich/burgers)

• Joe and the Juice (avocado shake, tunacado sandwich)
• The Yogurt Shop (yogurt/skyr/muesli)
• Serenity Cupcakes (cupcakes)
• Strangas Pastry (macarons and other beautiful things)
• Sing Te Hus (tea and mochi balls)

May this list bring you good eats in your travels- see you state side next time we speak.

October Photos In and Around Copenhagen

A few visitors later and you really get around the city.  Here are a few of my favourite shots this month. Ahhh Copenhagen, such a beauty!

01 Lover of the sandwich in all shapes and sizes

02 Inside and outside cultural institutions

03 A short castle trip outside of the city

04 Admiring the beauty of a different time period

05 Multiple cafe visits for cosy (hygge) moments….

06 Interesting and unusual architecture and urban art

07 Touring old monuments with old friends

08 and making sure to start the day off right, Copenhagen style with some grod, muesli or Øllebrød!

When in Copenhagen…. Learn how to bake bread

When you want to learn about your surrounding when living in a foreign country, start with the food and build from there.  In an effort to get in touch with our Danish-ness and celebrate my husband’s birthday, I put him (and me) to work on Sunday in a four hour bread baking class with my favourite cooking teacher in the city, Mia from CPH Good Food. I wrote her to organize the class and mentioned that I wanted the focus to be on all the delicious Danish breads and pastries we find around Copenhagen.

I am obsessed with eating Danish rye bread. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t have a slice.  I prefer to eat it with almond butter or a bit of cheese on top.  Danish rye is nothing like the rye bread in North America- you know the white kind with seeds that you find sandwiching deli meat.  Danish rye is dark, and as dense and heavy as a plate- because it was used as a plate to make open face sandwiches way back when.  You bake it in a loaf pan and cover/fill it with lots of nice seeds and nuts.  Scrumptious.

As we got started on our baking morning, I barely got a chance to stir a thing as my husband dove into the art of Danish bread making. He kneaded, stirred, rolled, spread, measured, and used the “magical” electric mixer with a dough hook when he became tired of kneading.

I managed to get into the action too!  But hey, who am I to hog a birthday present.

We baked four types of bread and pastries (rye, cinnamon swirls, a wheat bread and a white bread) and Mia baked a sourdough with us that she started from the day before.

Around Copenhagen These Days: Photos

A few photos taken around Copenhagen…

When the sun is shining, the city looks so beautiful. There is always something colourful going on.

The Bubble Tea Conundrum

When I moved across the Atlantic Ocean, do you know what I craved the most?  It wasn’t bagels and lox and it wasn’t kreplach.  It was bubble tea.  From my first sip, I developed a love affair with the Taiwanese beverage.  Toronto just so happens to be an incredible city to satisfy a bubble tea fix.

Drive north of Sheppard Avenue, on Yonge Street and you’ll find one bubble tea house after another.  If “905” is more your style, drive east along Hwy 7 between Bayview Avenue and McCowan Road (try Go For Tea for an authentic experience) and you’ll be covered.   Downtowners, don’t have to look past the Spadina and Dundas/OCAD area. But what happens if you leave the confines of Toronto and venture off into the world?

I was having a bubble tea conundrum when I discovered bubble tea was not a universal drink, particularly in EU countries.  To double check, I spoke with a few business school classmates who were posted around the world.  It’s confirmed: Bubble tea is not universal.

So what did I do to satiate my craving?  I researched and travelled.  Wherever I was due to travel to a new European city, I purposely sought out a bubble tea cafe.  Hot or cold, green or black tea, with or without milk, and filled with all the dark brown, chewy tapioca balls I could suck through the oversized straw.  I was determined to sample them all.  However, I draw the line at those popping boba; the ones that burst upon mastication and splash sweet syrupy juice onto your tongue.  I guess you could call me a bubble tea purist.

What I discovered was fascinating:  Bubble tea was in fact, alive, kicking and even thriving in certain cities.  Leave it to the UK, Germany and Austria to lead the pack.  London’s Bubbleology, a bubble tea café themed after a science experiment, has five locations in the city, while Baburu Bubble Tea in Vienna has six shops and Berlin’s Boobuk also has six outposts in the creative city that never sleeps.

Stick with Western Europe and you will find bubble tea emerging in Barcelona, where Wow!Boba is not too far from La Rambla, and in Paris’ 5^th arrondissement where you can sip le bubble tea at Bubble Fever.  Even Copenhagen has the Mad Hatter Bubble Tea Emporium in Norrebro.  I didn’t stop there.  In eastern Europe, you have Bubbletea 7 in Warsaw, tongue twister, Bubu Bubble Tea in Budapest and my personal favourite, Tea & Go in Prague, which opened in Karlin (Prague 8), by three Chinese Studies students from Charles University who share a passion for Chinese and bubble tea.

While the availability of bubble tea in European cities may not reach the same scope as in Toronto, there are plenty of good options at home and abroad and I look forward to continuing my taste test through the continent.  By the way, if you are new to bubble tea, may I recommend trying a litchi green tea bubble tea, cold with tapioca.  It is the perfect summer drink.

A CPH Made trip down Jaegersborggade

Jægersborggade is a great street to visit in Copenhagen.  It’s not a particularly large street where you would spend hours, but it has an interesting mix of local CPH made businesses that add to its vitality and draw.  Over the past four or five years, the Norrebro street has gone through quite the gentrification process, cleaned up its retail scene and re-focused as a destination for food (Coffee Collective, Relae, Manfred & Vin, Grod, Mikkeller + Friends beer bar is around the corner from Jaegersborggade)) and shopping.

Last Tuesday, I went on a one hour CPH Made tour of Jaegersborggade and got to meet three artisans/entrepreneurs who have been located on the street for several years doing what they do best.

I visited: Karamelleriet,  Inge Vincents, and  Ro Chokolade (pictures below).

All three owners gave our small group a nice talk and shared their experiences about working in the neighbourhood, what has changed over the years and a bit about how they got started in their respective lines of work.  For example, Karamelleriet is a business started by three members of a candy making family that spans multiple generations.

Instead of sticking to the main strip of Copenhagen, there are many interesting streets in the neighbourhoods that surround Copenhagen K.  It’s worth exploring and venturing out- plus by venturing out you tend to stumble on a lot of the small artisans and craftsmen who are not into paying high rents to be located in the centre of the city.