A chef applies finishing touches to art on a plate at Nimb Brasserie, located in the historic Nimb Hotel.

Copenhagen: Hungry Little Village

It's dusk on Friday night in Copenhagen, a town that settles into evening as it does everything else—quietly, courteously, effortlessly. Save for strands of cyclists pedaling home from post-work cafés, the streets are nearly empty, an oddity for any town of more than a million people.

Except here, of course, a big-city water village awash in diffused light languishing on the Øresund, a strait between the Kattegat and the Baltic Sea.

I walk with Christina, a young woman who was raised here. We come to a four-lane cross street. I see that there are no cars in either direction, so I figure it's my big-city East Coast signal to keep moving.
Christina touches my elbow. "What are you doing?" she asks politely.

"I'm crossing the street—come on, we should go."

"You can't, our crossing light is red," she says in a slightly mortified tone, as if I've also suggested we toss bottles of Tuborg at cyclists.

"But there's no traffic. There's not another car for 20 miles," I insist. "We're just going to stand here and wait for the light to change?"

"Of course, it's what we do, we wait," Christina says with what I'll come to call the Danish grin, an all-knowing smirk—not toothy or brash—that's at once gentle and sensible, inscrutable and slightly imperious. It is a smile that I see everywhere during my stay, as if the Danes have figured it all out. Not just the city's excellent transportation system, gloriously green architecture, streamlined design, innovative food and a flawless way to spend a Friday night. No, it's an expression that states calmly, "We have figured out the day-to-day—you know, living."

And so, while my leg muscles twitch, I wait alongside Christina for the light to change. In those minutes, she quietly shows me that Planet Copenhagen is an orb that has divined the secret, and it is exceptionally good.

One of life's secrets—good food—has taken on new meaning in Copenhagen. Perhaps the biggest transformation has been on the Danish plate, where New Nordic cuisine has given flavor to a collective menu that had once been as exciting as pickled herring, tuber mash and assorted dry, seedy rye breads better left to the gulls that fly chilly sorties above the city's canals.

Day 1: An Educated Palate

I didn't come to Copenhagen to write a food story. But Bo Frederiksen, who resembles Mark Wahlberg wielding a paring knife like a Top Chef contestant on steroids, changed my mind. It's Saturday night, and he's helping his culinary students—ages 18 to 22—prep for their midterm at Meyer's Madhus (meyersmadhus.dk): cooking a four-course meal with wine pairings for 150 strangers who've paid $100 each to be wowed by the next wave of Copenhagen chefs.

Founded by the Danish chef and founding father of New Nordic cuisine, Claus Meyer, Meyer's Madhus is a culinary school for the masses—both to learn and eat. On the Saturday night I visit, a courtyard in the North Bridge area (Nørrebro) buzzes with Danes anticipating this week's meal the way Americans queue up for Springsteen tickets. Indeed, chefs have attained rock-star status in the city.

What happened? "We got smart," explains Frederiksen. "We realized there's a lot we can do with the food we have in the Nordic region. Food became art, and there was no looking back."

The New Nordic menu delivers dishes such as Icelandic char baked with coriander and lemon with langoustine burger and avocado mousse. Chefs around town offer twists that are, for the first time, winning them Michelin stars.

As I dine alongside the locals, the banter, perhaps for my benefit, is about the culinary cultural shift ("You know, half of the restaurants in town are organic," and "These portions are colorful and divine"), and I can't help but think the Danes are so happy because their dining options have changed so radically. I'm impressed by what the students have prepared, ranging from tender pork loin with seared root vegetables to tarts plump with wild berries plucked within a few miles of the school.

At the end of the evening, the attendees stand in unison and applaud the chefs, many of whom blush or duck behind a comrade. It's the type of humility I see repeatedly around town in restaurants, cafés and a food expo; it's as if every ounce of bravado is held back and delivered instead to the plate, where I'm blown away by three days of dishes that are completely unexpected.

Day 2: The Danes Do Tapas

When Christina tells me we're going to dine on the famous Danish open-faced sandwich known as smørrebrød, I feign excitement. She catches on in a hurry. "No, these are really good," she says. "New Nordic disciples have given them a wild twist—they've made them into tapas and call them smushi." I get it—a cross between smørrebrød and sushi, perhaps raw herring, right? Well, not exactly. The nutty Danes just dubbed the mini sandwiches smushi because it sounds interesting, and they are.

At the Royal Café (theroyalcafe.dk), located just off Strøget, Europe's longest pedestrian boulevard, the atmosphere—chandeliers, playfully anachronistic paintings (King Christian perched next to the Little Mermaid), silk-screened silver walls and ceiling—is one of pure joy.

Everything here, from licorice as thick as a child's wrist to rhubarb crisp under glass behind the counter, begs to be sampled. What the heck, we order rounds of smushi. The mini presentations, served on Royal Copenhagen porcelain, look like culinary art concocted by Danish elves with a penchant for the outlandish: quail eggs, avocado and shrimp, smoked haunch of venison, gorgonzola married to light jelly, and minced meat with fried egg are among the parade of tastes, textures and rich colors atop yummy slices of bread. This is definitely not Viking ship fare.

Maybe the Vikings didn't give a herring's gill about ecology, but the brain trust at BioM (biom.dk) certainly does. The young chefs (Brian Johansen, Søren Hansen and Heinz Lodahl) point out that food simply tastes better when sourced from responsible stewards of the land—and when salmon comes from chilly Scottish lakes, lamb from the meadows along the Limfjord and apple juice from organic Danish orchards. Great philosophy, but how does it taste?

The inventiveness is what grabs me, especially roasted scallops with grilled pumpkin, parsley purée and rye-bread crumble (for starters), suckling pig with braised rhubarb and bean purée (main course) and chocolate soup with blackberry fragilite and sorbet (dessert).

With chic pendant lighting and furnishings, and recycled utensils that fit snugly in your hand like an aluminum Stradivarius, the eatery keeps its carbon footprint low while wowing guests with its take on food sourcing and preparation. Brian asks what I think of my meal. "Like everything else I've tasted today—surprisingly good," I tell him.

"You can't underestimate a revolution," he says.

Day 3: Food as Show

Something else has evolved in Copenhagen: female chefs. During the annual Nordic Gourmet Tour held at the new Royal Danish Theatre (kglteater.dk), I chat with chef Heidi Andersen of Ofelia, a fabulous restaurant located inside the playhouse. She hands me a seared chunk of salmon seasoned with herbs and buckthorn. I ask her if it's a coincidence that New Nordic cuisine and woman-led restaurants have emerged at the same time.

She doesn't take the bait, but says that women are natural artists and, for the first time, cooking has entered the painterly realm of the aesthete. Andersen asks me to check out other woman-run booths at the show, and she's right: The offerings from her culinary sisters—from polenta with Karl Johan mushrooms to soup of beetroot, verbena and raw shrimp—are stirring…and, yeah, legit art.

I'm also tipped off about the Meatpacking District, or Kødbyen, which mixes a 24-hour, blue-collar edginess with an emerging and decidedly hip dining scene, including Bio Mio (biomio.dk), a 200-seat organic joint where you order directly from the chef; Pâté Pâté (patepate.dk), a brand-new wine bar, tapas café and deli that takes its name from the place's past as a pâté factory; and Kodbyens Fiskebar (fiskebaren.dk/da), with unvarnished concrete walls and a carefree vibe that belies some of the best seafood in town (don't miss the razor-shell scallops)—it helps that the restaurant's mastermind is Anders Selmer, one of the partners behind Noma (noma.dk), recently voted one of the three finest restaurants in the world.

Nipping at Noma's heels is Michelin-starred Nimb Brasserie (nimb.dk), located on the lower level of the Nimb Hotel (circa 1909) inside Tivoli Gardens. The airy restaurant (three kitchens sit in the middle of the open room) feels very much like a swank dining space in, say, Seattle or San Francisco, but the sight lines from every table—illuminated gardens, fountains and an inviting brick-lined patio—make Nimb truly memorable. The food helps create those memories, too, with a menu that changes with the seasons and includes a dizzying array of Danish-raised beef, Marennes-Oléron oysters and braised shank of lamb with piquillo peppers.

After the meal, I walk through sparkling Tivoli, alive with families, couples and the endless possibilities of the Danish mind. I turn to Christina. "You Danes have a pretty good life, eh? And you've just added great food to the cultural repertoire. Nice."

Christina, naturally, shrugs and offers the Danish grin.

For More Information

Copenhagen and Danish Tourism
visitcopenhagen.com
visitdenmark.com

Copenhagen Dining Scene

If you're planning a summer visit, don't miss nearly two weeks of cooking shows, chef demonstrations and competitions, discussions and restaurant events from Aug. 20–29, 2010. Dubbed Copenhagen Cooking, the annual showcase of Nordic cuisine dovetails nicely with the end of summer, when the temperatures are gentle and the sun lingers deep into the evening.

Visit copenhagencooking.dk for a lineup of events.