A Christmas tour of Copenhagen’s best festive feasts
From mulled wine and pancakes to smoked goose breast and juniper oil, Tom Batchelor sets himself the challenge of sampling the Danish capital’s tastiest delicacies
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Your support makes all the difference.Finland may be the home of Father Christmas, but its Nordic neighbour Denmark gives the country a run for its money when it comes to festive cheer.
Heading to Copenhagen in early December, the winter wonderland experience began before we had even touched down, with the countryside surrounding the Danish capital swathed in glistening white thanks to a recent snowfall. While there’s no bad time to see Copenhagen, there are points in the year when visiting feels extra special. Christmas is one of them.
With more markets than you can possibly tick off in a weekend and opportunities for gløgg (mulled wine) and æbleskiver (traditional pancake balls covered with icing sugar and berry jam) never more than a five-minute cycle ride away – this is one of the world’s most bike friendly cities, after all – the home of hygge is the ideal destination for a festive weekend.
And we timed our visit perfectly: 2021 is the year Danish officials vowed to make Copenhagen the European capital of Christmas, with a grant of one million Danish kroner (£114,000) dished out to local businesses to promote festive food traditions, architecture, crafts and design.
Although, truthfully, Copenhagen really doesn’t need a grant to get in the spirit: cobbled streets, candlelit bars and enticing shops selling everything from locally made wooden crafts to candles, Christmas decorations and caramelised cashew nuts make the city a joy to visit at any time of year, but it really comes to life in December. Then there are the markets dedicated to Christmas which pop up in numerous squares, some specialising in ceramics, crafts and jewellery (such as the Flids Christmas Market), others with more traditional stalls and a focus on festive sustenance (the markets at Nyhavn and Kongens Nytorv among them).
Top of the tree has to be Tivoli, the world’s second oldest theme park, which becomes a shrine to all things Christmas in December, with more than 70,000 baubles, a thousand Christmas trees and snow-clad stalls selling warmed white chocolate.
Ten minutes away by bicycle we had a lunch booking at Barr, a Nordic restaurant inside the old home of Noma on Copenhagen’s pretty waterfront. Its “Christmas feast” was as generous as the name suggests, featuring 12 plates, from a traditional savoury Christmas starter pastry topped with smoked goose breast, horseradish cream and juniper oil, to the roasted duck leg served with kale stew, nutmeg, winter truffles and caramelised potatoes – and all rounded off with a superb version of the ever-present risalamande, a popular Danish rice pudding dessert made here with almonds, vanilla and cherry sauce.
The menu encapsulated all of Denmark’s festive food traditions in one and was so downright decadent that our afternoon plans were curtailed (not helped by the moreish, locally made cherry wine).
For a meat-free take on the classic festive spread, Bistro Lupa’s sustainable Christmas menu makes use of locally foraged ingredients, some of which are delivered by bicycle. The star attraction is a Lion’s Mane mushroom served schnitzel-style; this plate alone is said to be converting Copenhagen’s carnivores to plant-based diets.
Lupa sources the famed funghi from its own organic, urban mushroom farm, and the Australian founder’s mission to feed people sustainably means many of the restaurant’s off-cuts are turned into powders and garnishes, spent wine is re-used in sauces and fruit peels are saved to make cocktail infusions. We opted for the evening Christmas menu, which included the stand-out confit red cabbage with walnut crumble.
The next morning, we were up early for a warming bowl of porridge at GRØD. Its Christmas offering (by this point, if it wasn’t Christmas-themed, we weren't having it) is risengrød – a rice pudding topped with cinnamon, sugar and butter. It was just what we needed with temperatures hovering around freezing and a trip to Louisiana, a modernist museum and sculpture park on the shore of the Øresund Sound, planned for afterwards.
The gallery is around 35km north of Copenhagen, and the train we took snaked out of the central station past grand suburban villas and wooden-clad cabins – as if plucked from the set of a Scandi-noir – just as the snow began to fall again. Louisiana’s year-round charm is elevated even further at Christmas. The adjoining restaurant has an open fire, views out across the water to Sweden, which lurks on the horizon, and elaborately constructed smørrebrød (open-faced sandwiches).
Back in the city, we found ourselves at an unlikely final pit stop – a boat-cafe-turned-winter-hut, the Bådudlejning og Café in the cosy canal area of Christianshavn, complete with a miniature train that does loops of the stationary vessel while punters eat æbleskiver and knock back gløgg.
The home of hygge had truly delivered on its festive promise, proving that, while Finland can lay claim to being the official home of Santa Claus, the Danes really do know how to do Christmas.
Travel essentials
Getting there
Trying to fly less?
There are various flight-free options: you can take a Eurostar and onward trains from London to Brussels, Cologne or Hamburg. Stay the night, then catch an onward train to Copenhagen the next day. Alternatively, you can sail from Harwich to the Hook of Holland, catch the train to Amsterdam and get onward trains from there to Copenhagen.
Fine with flying?
Ryanair, Norwegian, SAS and British Airways fly direct from the UK to Copenhagen.
Staying there
Coco Hotel is a delightful boutique hotel in the central Vesterbro neighbourhood. The groundfloor Cafe Coco bar (and its free glass of wine between 5pm and 6pm), cosy central courtyard and superb breakfast served across the road in sister establishment Delphine all make this an attractive choice of stay. Doubles from 900 DKK (£103).
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