The culinary habits of the Danes
While the morgenmad (breakfast) is fairly solid, based on eggs, cold meats and bread, the more frugal frokost (lunch) is usually eaten outside in the form of smørrebrød sandwiches, or hot dogs sold in pølsevogn. As soon as the warm weather returns, Danes particularly enjoy lunching in parks, and most restaurants have open terraces.Aften (dinner) generally consists of hot dishes, which are rarer at lunchtime.
Some soups are popular starters, such as gule ærter, a thick split-pea soup served with salt pork. The lighter hønsekødssuppe is a chicken broth served with melboller (small flour dumplings), meatballs and vegetables. Alternatively, let yourself be tempted by tarteletter, generally savoury tarts prepared with a variety of fillings, although traditionally they are topped with a mixture called høns i asparges, a creamy stuffing with chicken and asparagus.
The king of snacks: the smørrebrød
Among all these snacks is one that the Danes have magnified to the point of making it a veritable emblem of their cuisine: smørrebrød, which literally translates as "butter and bread". It consists of a thin slice of dark bread covered with a savory filling. The classics include shrimp, herring, smoked fish (salmon, eel, halibut, haddock), scrambled eggs, cold roast(saltkød) and more. All often seasoned with mayonnaise. There are over two hundred varieties, and new ones are invented every day. The smørrebrød must first and foremost be colorful and tempting, and some are decorated with great finesse.
The bread generally used is the famous rugbrød, made from rye sourdough, quite dense, also emblematic of Danish cuisine. Other breads can also be used, such as franskbrød (white bread, or French bread!), rundstykker (individual round wheat or multigrain bread) or birkes horn, a local variant of the croissant. In addition to the classic toppings, you can add gravad laks (gravlax), salmon semi-cooked in salt and flavored with dill, as well as several types of charcuterie, including the famous Danish salami(spegepølse), liver pâté(leverpostej) and rullepølse, a rolled ham flavored with herbs.
Cheeses are also popular: fromage frais(hytteost), samsø, vesterhavsost and molbo(similar to gouda), mycella (a blue cheese) and havarti, known for its melting yet slightly grainy texture. Not to mention a variety of toppings based on sauerkraut, crudités, coleslaw (a creamy salad made from cabbage and grated carrot), etc.
Meat or fish
Although Danes are becoming increasingly fond of beef and chicken, pork accounts for around half the meat consumed in the country. Traditionally served at Christmas, flæskesteg med rødkål is a tasty pork roast with crispy, grilled rind. It's usually accompanied by candied red cabbage(rødkål) and caramelized potatoes(brunede kartofler). The simpler stegt flæsk med persillesovs features grilled bacon served with steamed potatoes and a creamy parsley sauce. Æbleflæsk, a dish of bacon with apples, is a very old specialty, as is black pudding(blodpølse). Sausages(pølse) are very common in Denmark, and come in a variety of varieties, smoked, fresh or dried. Probably the tastiest is medisterpølse, a finely spiced knife sausage. Kartoffelsalat or potato salad, seasoned with mayonnaise and chopped onion, is often served as a side dish.
At Christmas, other meats are also enjoyed, such as the traditional goose(stegt gås) and roast duck(stegt and), stuffed with apples, prunes and thyme, although these have gradually been replaced by pork, which is more accessible and cheaper. Påskelam (Easter lamb) is grilled with herbs and garlic. Beef is also popular, and bøf béarnaise - served with French fries - is on every restaurant menu. Culottesteg is a beef sirloin roast with herbs, served with potatoes and a green salad. Pariserbøf is similar to half-cooked steak tartare, served on a slice of toasted rye bread, garnished with a raw egg yolk and condiments: capers, raw onion, gherkins, chopped parsley. Very popular are frikadeller (fricadelles), half beef, half pork meatballs, and fiskefrikadeller, in which fish replaces the meat.
Indeed, with some 7,300 km of coastline between the North Sea and the Baltic, not to mention the Faroe Islands and Greenland, seafood is traditionally common in Danish cuisine. Cod, caught from the far reaches of the North Sea, is prepared poached, dressed in melted butter and seasoned with mustard sauce (rémoulade in local parlance). Rødspættefilet is a flounder fillet (flour-coated and browned). Herring or sild is served as smørrebrød, marinated in brine(spegesild), smoked(røget sild) or fried(stegte sild i eddike). There are more than twenty different preparations. Sol over Gudhjem - literally "sun over Gudhjem", a village on the island of Bornholm - is a recipe for smoked herring with raw egg yolk and radishes, chives and onions, all served on dark bread. Otherwise, small North Sea shrimps with a cocktail sauce(rejecocktail) are served as an aperitif, as are oysters, much appreciated by the Danes.
A beautiful menu of desserts
For a small country, Denmark boasts a wide variety of pastries and viennoiseries. The spandauer, a type of puff pastry often filled with cream or chocolate, the kringle - widespread in Northern Europe - a kind of large puff pastry pretzel filled with apple or marzipan and covered with white icing, not forgetting fastelavnsboller, small brioches filled with whipped cream and covered with chocolate. Note that these pastries are not usually served as a dessert, but as a snack with a hot drink.
Entremets are the preferred dessert, especially as the Danes seem to be passionate about whipped cream, which can be found everywhere. One example isæblekage, a verrine composed of layers of apple compote, crushed cookies and makroner (an almond-flavored meringue), crowned with whipped cream and sometimes redcurrant jelly(æblekage med flodeskum in this case). Alternatively, the very fresh citronfromage is a lemon mousse lightened with stiff egg whites, topped with... whipped cream. Karamelrand is simply an egg cream flavored with caramel, sometimes molded into a ring shape. Fløderand is more like a bavarois, very white, flavored with vanilla and served with red fruit in summer, or canned fruit the rest of the year.
Otherwise, the classic pandekager, French-style thin pancakes, are served with a variety of toppings. Rødgrød med fløde is a summer soup based on red fruits (strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and rhubarb). More frugal, but nonetheless popular, is koldskål, sweet buttermilk, served cold in summer with shortbread called kammerjunker. Risalamande is a recipe for vanilla rice pudding bound with whipped cream - again! - and sprinkled with chopped almonds, served cold with a cherry sauce(kirsebærsovs). Most often served on Christmas Eve. Another festive dessert is the impressive kransekage, a ring-shaped stack of almond cookies decorated with white icing. This tree-shaped cake is served for special occasions.
Finally, there are a number of pastry classics, such as gåsebryst, a sponge cake crowned with a dome of whipped cream and jam, camouflaged under a thin layer of marzipan, or othellolagkage, a multi-layer cake composed of sponge cake, chocolate icing and marzipan.
The drinks
All these pastries are eaten with coffee. The Danes are crazy about it: they consume around 8.7 kg per capita per year, making them the fourth biggest consumers in the world. Classic black coffee is the most common, but of course most cafés also serve espressos, lattes or cappuccinos. Hot chocolate(kakaomælk) is also very popular. In summer, people traditionally sip hyldeblomstsaft, an elderflower-sweetened beverage served warm in winter.
Of all the alcohols consumed in Denmark, beer, known as øl, has been by far the most popular for millennia. Carlsberg and Tuborg are two of Denmark's leading producers, with notable exports, and in recent years have been rivalled by Royal Unibrew. Another emblematic spirit isakvavit, also known as snaps. This 40° potato spirit is flavored with dill and caraway seeds. Mjød is the legendary Viking mead, made from water and fermented honey at 10° to 18°. In winter, we enjoy gløgg or mulled wine, made with red wine, brandy and sherry, enhanced with raisins and almonds. Spiced with cloves and cinnamon, it's inseparable from Christmas. As for wine, which is becoming increasingly popular, most is imported, although domestic production - very localized - is developing on the Jutland peninsula.
The gastronomic revival of Denmark
Since 2004, the advent of the "new Nordic cuisine" has revolutionized Danish gastronomy and brought forgotten products back into fashion. Traditional dishes have been rediscovered and/or revisited and brought to the fore. 2004 saw the opening by chef René Redzepi of the famous NOMA restaurant, ranked "best restaurant in the world" in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014 by the British magazine Restaurant. Denmark has 48 Michelin-starred restaurants.
René Redzepi first worked at Le Bulli in 1999, a Spanish restaurant near Barcelona nominated five times as the world's best restaurant, then in the USA and Denmark, before teaming up with Claus Meyer - a Danish culinary author often regarded as the father of the "new Nordic cuisine" or Det nye nordiske køkken. NOMA (3rd Michelin star in 2021) has set up shop in the outlying district of Reffen, a bucolic spot between land and water. In the skilfully prepared plates, Finnish caviar, Faroese sea urchins, cod liver and cranberry-marinated beef are combined with mushrooms, forgotten root vegetables, wild berries, lichen, pine shoots and moss. The menu varied with the seasons in homage to nature. At the end of 2024, NOMA closed its doors to reinvent itself as an experimental culinary laboratory delivering rare delicatessen products!
Inspired by René Redzepi, a growing number of young Danish chefs are opening their own restaurants. Today, the capital boasts 14 Michelin-starred restaurants. In 2022, Geranium, led by chef Rasmus Kofoed, became the World's Best Restaurant. Most of these restaurants have had a positive impact on local eating habits. Accustomed to hamburgers, paninis, pizzas and other fast-food takeaways, Danes are rediscovering smørrebrød and other traditional specialties with happiness and pride. It's fair to say that over the past twenty-five years, Copenhagen has truly become a laboratory for the very best in Nordic cuisine. Today, chef Bo Bech has opened his new BOBE, while chef Rasmus Munk is shaking things up at his new establishment, L'Alchimiste. His cuisine tackles topical issues: politics, ecology, sociology... and that can be disturbing!
