nearly two weeks in copenhagen and I’m in love. this city is exactly what I thought it would be; lots of coffee, incredible food, delicious wine, friendly people, attractive men, charming landscapes. it’s a dream.
except that everyone wears jeans and runners. well, not everywhere can be perfect.
my time here has involved a lot of exceptional food and a lot of wine. there has been only two days where I haven’t had at least a good handful of glasses of some sort of wine. sorry liver, but this kind of extravagant holiday happens once in a lifetime – so I’m doing it properly. in 12 days, I have been to: studio, radio, manfreds og vin (4 times), amass, brør, noma, geist (twice), AOC, bæst, kadeau – there will be seven michelin stars in total, after last nights adventure to relæ. I’ve also had coffee at coffee collective, market shopped and ate at torvhallerne (twice), ate baked goods from meyers bageri, had breakfast at grød (a place that makes only porridge for breakfast and then only risotto for lunch), had coffee at lillebrør (twice) and I’ve done it all by walking. I know, I know… when in rome, do as the romans do – I wanted to hire a bike and ride around with shit in the attached basket but I come from a country where cyclists basically play russian roulette with their lives as idiot drivers swerve around them, we also drive on the other side of the road… I still cross the street looking in the wrong direction, so I think riding a bike would be a death wish (for me). though I still have two days, maybe there’s hope for me yet.
anyway I could very easy write about every restaurant I’ve been to, but I’m not a food critic and I don’t like spoiling the surprise for people who might make it to this unbelievable city to do a similar thing to what I’ve been doing.
but noma will be my exception. I’m not about to write a review, god knows I’m not qualified to be impartial or critical of the world’s best restaurant. but I will write about the four and a half hour lunch I had on thursday 9th april; because I want to be able to re-read it myself in days/months to come and remind myself of how happy that day was (and how much my cheeks hurt that night because I smiled so much). it was the same happy I feel when I go back to little ray of hope; the kind of happy where “walking on sunshine” would be playing if you were in a movie.
I had originally organised my annual leave a month earlier than what I currently have, but I then realised noma would still be in japan doing their pop-up. so I frantically changed my annual leave, and my flights, to have the chance to get a booking. but in typical shift worker fashion, I was working the night the reservations opened. and to make it even worse, I couldn’t even take my dinner break to make the reservation (it was about 8pm aus time) because I had to pick up my patient from recovery after surgery. I quickly called my sister and rudely interrupted her study to get her to go online and try and make me a reservation – any date, any time – between the 3rd and 16th of april. unsurprisingly, I found myself a spot on the inevitable “waiting list”. regardless, I was coming to copenhagen to eat. I knew I didn’t have a reservation, but that wasn’t going to stop me having the best food eating trip ever!
anyway, I left kenya and made it to copenhagen (after that life changing business flight) and had my first food experience at studio – which has been one of my favourite experiences thus far and spoke to the chefs/waiters/sommeliers quite a lot throughout the meal – it must be because I am eating at a restaurant alone; I’ve learned that people are extremely interested when I tell them I’m in copenhagen to eat. I swear some people assume I’m a critic. one of the guys asked where I was going, I replied, “everywhere but noma!” (which is no word of a lie, I literally went to every place I could). and he told me a cheeky little secret and said to call each morning at 10am when the lines open (and when you can get through) to see if there have been many cancellations.
well, mate, you completely changed my life with that little nugget of wisdom.
tuesday was the first day I called, and after perhaps only 10 attempts to get through, the lovely guy I spoke to told me that according to the system, all reservations between then and when I leave have been confirmed – however, he told me to just keep calling each morning because “you never know”. I won’t lie, I felt a little defeated – so I went to manfreds in jægersborggade (the coolest street in copenhagen) and had a very nice and potentially unhealthy amount of wine and food, and headed off to amass for dinner. (both are incredible places)
wednesday morning rolled around and I tried calling again – 20 calls this time until I got through, and somehow the universes aligned, all was right in the world when she checked the system and she told me there was a place available on a shared table the following day for lunch. I may have stopped breathing, I may have squealed when I got off the phone. I know for a fact I burst into tears and was sobbing when I called my sister. unless you have the same love for incredible restaurants and memorable food, you won’t understand my reaction. this is something I’ve wanted to do for years… and I was finally going to get the chance to do it. I mean, I came to denmark knowing I didn’t have a reservation, and I wouldn’t have called if I wasn’t told to, so I would likely have never got in – and I was perfectly okay with that. but now that I was going? well, that puts a whole different spin on this already incredible fortnight.
thursday morning arrives and I’m so excited I don’t want to eat. partially because of the excitement and partially because I don’t want to not be able to eat every, single, thing I would be served. I was also really nervous: at least eight years I’ve been desperate to visit denmark because of this restaurant, and what if it was horrible? what if it didn’t live up to the hype? what if it wasn’t worth the money?
well, it was’t horrible. it totally lived up to the hype and was completely and utterly worth the money.
grilled onion with shoots and capers
sweet shrimps in ramsons with rhubarb/grasshopper broth
100 year old mahogany clam and grains
shaved monkfish liver
langoustine and flavours of the ocean part 1
langoustine and flavours of the ocean part 2
male and female lumpfish in cheese, whole milk
black garlic flower
roasted bone marrow, this dish needs to be memorialised somehow. that much bone marrow for one person makes all your problems go away!
aerated icecream with bitters and hazelnut oil
chocolate and forest flavours
white chocolate, sour cream, sea buckthorn jam, elderflower salt
so, the incredible reason I got in on a cancellation is because an american woman named ainsley made a reservation for 4 people in the hopes it would make her chances of getting a table higher. and it did, she got the table but at the last minute (when the restaurant needed table confirmation) two of her friends weren’t able to attend. not wanting to lose her booking, she called the restaurant and told them to fill it with people on the waiting list. then about 10 minutes later, I finally got through with my twenty calls and got myself a spot in this ‘makeshift’ shared table; alongside ainsley and her friend denise, and a solo american, brittany. thank god for ainsley’s flaky mates!!
after an incredible 20 or so courses, we had a tour of the service kitchen, the outdoor fermentation area, the test kitchen, the outdoor grill kitchen, the production kitchen… pretty much everywhere we could visit, we did. At his part made it even more special, because you see how many different stages a dish has to get through to finally be served to guests. it’s not just some quick conjuring of ideas, thrown together and out they go. it’s months of testing, trialling, tasting. seeing that kind of dedication to serving food of such a high calibre makes it even more special. I mean, crazy things like 100 year old mahogany clam isn’t just something you see at your local decent restaurant, same with the black garlic thing – that was out of this world. a chewy garlic lolly. pure innovative genius this place, and a lot of it has to do with rene redzepi. you know you’re in copenhagen and eat at three different restaurants three days in a row and have three different types of cured/slow cooked egg yolk. this city is riddled with chefs who have worked with or under rene’s direction and have then gone off to open their own place or work elsewhere – subsequently spreading the endless knowledge they learned/practised at noma.
even with the service/front of house staff, you can tell this place is the world best restaurant. this is their life. nothing is too much, but it wasn’t stuck up service, it was relaxed and normal. like katherine, our waitress from sydney, said, there’s no point serving from one side and clearing from another side if it feels awkward or interferes with how customers are sitting. if it makes more sense to lean a little over someone’s arm, then so be it.
I mean, restarts often offer still or sparkling water to go with a meal – not noma. we drank birch tree water that was tapped from the forests on the outskirts of copenhagen that morning. as you do. it wasn’t overly powerful in taste, but was slightly sweeter and maybe a little thicker than regular water. see, that? that is why this place is the world’s best restaurant. the incredible attention to every, single, detail. no wonder my cheeks hurt from all the grinnin I did throughout the entire lunch!!
and sometimes, dreams do come true! I can’t thank the waiter at studio for telling me his secret, I can’t thank ainsley’s friends enough for not being able to come, I can’t thank the staff at noma enough for their outstanding dedication to food and wine that allows just 45 people per lunch or dinner to enjoy such an exciting venture in food, and I can’t thank my parents enough for raising me to be a person who appreciates the good things in life. an experience like this – in my opinion – shits all over a new pair of shoes, doing post grad study or buying an apartment. life is too short and you only live once!
travelling alone 