Well, what a way to start the year and to start off this journey into blogging. As mentioned elsewhere on the website, this certainly won’t be professional journalism. What it will be, however, is somewhere for people to come and read the experiences of a (we like to think) normal couple travelling. Most the time, we will be doing very short trips/long weekends (think 2-3 days). As this is the case, we apologise profoundly if we have not visited every tourist hot spot or top restaurant there is. The beauty of this, we can also learn from YOU where we may have missed out and where is worth visiting on a re-visit.
Now that is out the way, let’s talk about the first trip of the year, Copenhagen! This was our first-time visiting Scandinavia and quite honestly, I don’t know why it took so long. I normally judge a place from the second I step off the plane, this could be seen as unfair, but the condition of the airport can quite often be telling. Now this is going to sound a bit mad, the second I stepped foot in Copenhagen airport, my nasal cavities were bombarded with smells of coffee, a sort of sweet smell, perhaps from the bakeries located in the departure lounges and a sort of bacon-like cooked breakfast smell. Not only did this make salivate, it also filled me with a sense of comfort. In the winter months, I personally couldn’t think of many more comforting scents. I won’t bore you with all the minor details, but I will also state that the chap at border/passport control was very pleasant. He reminded us we had come to the right place to get our fill of food and alcohol. We were off to a good start.
We opted to use the metro system to travel from the airport to the city centre. I quite often find the travelling from the airport to the hotel the most stress inducing thought before going to any destination. Though as irrational as it usually turns out to be, the thought of trying to hail down a taxi in a frantic pick-up point or pushing/pulling around what feels like a 3-tonne brick on wheels that decides to jar up every time you go over a surface that isn’t smooth and polished through a busy train station. I will say, on this occasion, my irrational fears couldn’t have been more wrong. A few minutes’ walk from the bag collection and we had arrived at the metro station. It was clean and the routes are very easy to figure out. Consisting of four lines (M1, M2, M3, M4). It was rather inexpensive, comparatively to London anyway. The train itself is more of a shuttle, consisting of only two carriages. This would automatically cause concern for how packed the carriages would become. Such was not the case. Sure, as we made our way closer to the city centre it was much busier than the starting point, but we were certainly not packed in like Sardines.
Our hotel was a short walk from the Nørreport metro station (5-10 minutes). We stayed at the Hotel Kong Arthur for the duration of our visit. This was a truly fabulous stay. I am no interior design expert; however, this is what I would describe as quintessential Scandinavian décor. Wooden flooring and furniture, with a real focus of being environmentally friendly wherever you look. This stretched not only from the décor and how the hotel was run, but also the food on offer (I will come back to this shortly). The room had a very modern look to it. Perfectly clean with plenty of space for luggage and clothing. The bathroom, again, was very clean and modern. It had a walk-in shower, which took me a day to get used to. The lack of a door to trap the steam in, seems to make the experience feel colder (this is probably in my head). The breakfast on offer was both vast and of the highest quality. From our experience, there is a huge focus on ‘organic’ food in Denmark, or at least, Copenhagen. There was pretty much everything you could imagine: fruit, yoghurt, deli meats and cheese, waffles, baked goods, eggs, sausages etc. There was a delightfully cosy bar area near the reception desk. Here, you could get teas/coffees and a range of alcoholic beverages. The cocktail menu was impressive. They also offered some light snacks/small plates of food to order. In one corner of the seating area, there was a fire crackling away, the perfect place to end a cold evening walk, post-dinner. On a quick side note, the hotel offers an online check-in which gives you access to your room via a mobile app room-key. This is fine and a streamlined experience, however, make sure you visit the desk still to pick up a card for the room as you will need it for the power.
This could be a good point to talk about the weather in January. We were blessed with blue skies for the duration of our visit for all but one day. The outlier day was as foggy as I had seen. Denmark has cold winter months and a moderate temperature in the summer months. The temperature did feel particularly cold, being so close to open water there is a chilly wind that gusts around. This certainly wasn’t too much of an issue, just remember to bring a thick coat and hat/gloves. We felt that Copenhagen had a charm in the colder weather, thanks to the hearty food and cosy interiors on offer.
So, we checked into the hotel and dropped of our bags and there was only one thing on our minds…FOOD! Fortunately for us, located near the metro station, a short walk away, was the Torvehallerne food market. Split into two market halls (one for savoury food and the other for confectionaries, baked goods and general goods stalls) The vendors offer the highest quality, organic ingredients and the cuisines on offer cover a range of nationalities. We, of course, wanted to try classic Danish dishes. First up we had to get Smørrebrød from 'Hallernes Smørrebrød'. Smørrebrød meaning 'buttered bread' is an 'open sandwich' typically made of rye bread which is buttered and topped with cold cuts, pieces of meat or fish, cheese or spreads, and garnishes. We opted for the Chicken salad (Homemade chicken salad served with bacon and chervil) and the Salmon salad (Cold and hot smoked salmon salad with capers, mayonnaise and sour cream, garnished with smoked salmon, trout roe and rye bread chips). The rye bread was a lot lighter than what we get in the UK. It is firm enough to hold the mountains of toppings but not so dense it clogs your throat up when you swallow. The toppings for both, were fresh, well-seasoned and a perfect mid-afternoon stomach filler. After this, we decided to wander over to the other market building. The smell of fresh coffee instantly hits you as you walk through the door. We were really spoilt for choice in this one. We were craving something sweet following the aggressively savoury Smørrebrød and so stumbled across Albatross & Venner. This was a bakery with a variety of baked goods on offer (we wished there was one near us as the bread looked incredible). We opted for the fastelavnsboller, this is something like a bread roll that is less sweet and buttery than a brioche, filled with cream and lightly topped with a coating of dark chocolate and a pinch of salt. It was delicious, and surprisingly, not too sweet!
Bellies full and taste buds satisfied, we saw this as a good opportunity to flee the cold and return to the warm confines of our hotel room to rest up for…well…more eating. After a not so power-nap, we decided to make use of the hotel bar for a ‘swifty’ before a short walk to our first dinner of the trip. ‘Høst’ was the destination and my-my, what a choice we made. We were welcomed one again with a very wood-based interior, moody dim lighting, a general sense of cosiness (you maybe starting to see a theme here) and there were home-made pickles/preserves on shelves. All the staff were very friendly, accommodating and took particular care as one of us has a nut allergy. One thing I found incredible whilst in Copenhagen, is everyone’s ability to speak English. It is something that often puts me to shame, why is it down to every other nation to learn English, yet often, we don’t bother to learn their languages. So, Høst offers a 3-course or a 5-course set menu, each of these can also be complimented with wine pairing. We opted for the 5-course menu which ended up as a 9-courses (4 surprise dishes). This was a nice touch and certainly meant we left with satisfied bellies. The food was perfection, an orchestrated symphony of sweet, sour, salty, acidic ingredients. The seafood was fresh, tender and full of flavour. The produce was as if it had been picked an hour before our arrival. Two dishes really stood out for us, first being a dish consisting of savoury Æbleskiver (known as Danish pancakes, they are more like a doughnut but in a ball format) filled with a rich molten cheese concoction, paired with a cup of creamy mussel broth that had thyme bathing in it. The combination of the cheesy doughy balls and the salty herby broth was a real assault on the taste buds. The other dish, which really stood out to me, was the dessert. It consisted of a sort of foam-like white chocolate emulsion, little sticks of meringue, soft sticky blobs of apple and topped with a refreshing disc of apple sorbet that had been sprinkled with bee pollen. It sounds like a lot, but this was so well balanced and a really refreshing way to end the meal. I would go through all 9 dishes; however, we would be here all day. Høst is easily in our top 5 restaurants in the world, from the food to the hospitality and care taken to make sure we were comfortable. We would easily recommend it here and even insist that you make it a priority on your trip. It may not be the cheapest, but we truly believe that it was worth it. The question is, how would anything top what we just experienced?
Indeed, what a way to start the trip…
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