At the traditional smorgasbord at Nyhavn in Copenhagen, or at a homey inn on Funen with a view of the open fields? Over a cosmopolitan menu at a designer restaurant in Aarhus, or at an organic farm store in northwest Zealand? In the summer when the first tender young potatoes are pulled from the sandy soil, or during the Christmas month when marinated herring is washed down with ice-cold schnapps?
Let’s start from the beginning…

 
In larger towns, the famous Danish open sandwich has been given a thorough makeover in recent years. Layered rye bread sandwiches are still served at classic lunch restaurants, often in intimate high cellars with red-and-white chequered tablecloths.

But lunchtime menus at modern restaurants in Copenhagen and larger Danish towns, such as Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg, readily feature more contemporary versions of the open sandwich. This might include wholemeal rye bread with cold slices of boiled asparagus potatoes dressed with homemade, low-calorie mayonnaise and garnished with rings of raw red onion and a sprig of dill. Simple and irresistible!

In the evenings, the very same restaurants offer culinary enjoyment in the form of quality interpretations of the New Danish Kitchen or mainly French or Italian inspired cuisine with splendid use of Danish produce. And, incidentally, some restaurants also showcase very good taste in interior design.

Where city restaurateurs show you to your seat, world-famous 1950s and 1960s table and chair designs by Arne Jacobsen, Hans J. Wegner and Verner Panton top the list.

In the countryside, among the wildflowers by the wayside, you find the traditional old country inns. These rustic lodges and their restaurants are so deeply embedded in Danish cultural tradition that suggested gastronomic travel routes have been created to guide holidaymakers from one great experience to the next. Among them are routes on Hans Christian Andersen’s home island Funen, in the gastronomically unique region of Southern Jutland and among the downs of Mols where the sea view finds special appeal with nature-lovers and golf enthusiasts.

There is good reason to experience inns in different parts of the country because although Denmark is a small and accessible kingdom, the regional kitchens offer great variety – and many inns take pride in serving traditional dishes native to their region.

Modern family establishments have now joined the wealth of historical inns that once played host to kings and their coachmen. But whether new or old, the inns in Denmark are hearty, homey places to stay and nearly always family run.

Walking into a restaurant and ordering a classic Danish dish like butter fried plaice with young potatoes and parsley roux sauce served with a glass of frothy lager is an experience beyond much dispute. It usually disappears like magic…

But you can experience the best of Danish food culture without visiting a restaurant. Danish culinary experiences are widely accessible. A good place to start is along the country roads where you often find small roadside stalls by farms and smallholdings. For the visitor, making sense of the handmade signs can be difficult, but they are likely to read ‘Young Potatoes’, ‘Fresh Green Peas’ or ‘Strawberries’.

The stalls – often just a table – are unmanned. You simply view the produce and make your pick if tempted and leave the money in a small open jar. Roadside stalls have been a part of country life in Denmark for generations – a bag of juicy green peas has made many a country outing just a

littlemore festive, and freshly picked strawberries with sugar and a dollop of cream has always been a welcomed dessert.

With the advent of organic farming, more and more farm stores mushroom the landscape. Here, the roadside sale of fruit and vegetables is supplemented with homemade sausages and ham, dairy products and even honey from their own farm apiaries.

Adding to this there are the fruits of the wild. Just show consideration and a little restraint when harvesting these gifts of nature. Blue mussels can be raked along the shores, and prawns can be harvested in the inlets. Wild raspberries, blackberries, cranberries and blueberries are to be found from mid-summer until autumn

Danish gastronomy is often associated with the summer and its rich abundance of prawns, young potatoes, fresh vegetables and sun-ripened strawberries. But winter food is no less becoming and tempts more and more tourists to choose Copenhagen and other Danish towns as their winter citybreak destination.

From the golden autumn months until Christmas it gets increasingly colder in Denmark. This is reflected in the food, which becomes heavier fare – although not quite as heavy as the cast iron pots often used to cook it in. Nutritious root vegetables, such as celeriac, parsnip and swede, and wild Danish forest mushrooms pair well with game – pheasant, hare and roe venison – when the hunting season is open. To have such a meal served somewhere in Denmark while sunrays enliven the fading palette of the golden forest is a once-in-a-lifetime experience everyone should try at least once.


From mid-November until Christmas, the draught beer in town bars becomes both stronger and darker and schnapps is fetched from the freezer to mark herring time!
Not least in Copenhagen that, if not founded on herring, drew much of its early wealth from the sale of herring stock from the Sound. Herring has also made its mark on the Danish language. In Danish, something worthless is ‘not worth five sour herrings’, a beautiful woman is ‘a delicious herring’, and if you are sitting like sardines in a can, in Danish you are ‘like herrings in a barrel’. And this might just be the case during December if you visit cafés, brassieres and restaurants to taste the famous Danish herring dishes. Rich salted herrings are steeped in water and then pickled in vinegar and herbs – or in some cases spices and cream – before being served on a slice of buttered rye bread and garnished with raw onion rings. Raw herring filets are fried in butter and served with boiled potatoes and parsley roux sauce. Any leftover fried herrings are then pickled and served with rye bread. You could go on like that.

But it has to be experienced…