Copenhagen

Refshaleøen · Refshalevej 96

Noma speaks for itself. There are books for the history; the advice is much simpler: try to get a table, try hard, and don’t give up because it isn’t easy. If one opens up, go. It is more than you expect, even when you expect a lot.

Torvehallerne · Frederiksborggade 21

Ma Poule is a French stall inside Torvehallerne, and they make a duck confit sandwich that gets lodged in your memory. The duck is reheated in its own fat and piled into bread with mustard and rocket, hot, rich and outrageously succulent. You remember it, and then you crave it.

Copenhagen can give you some of the most inventive food in the world. After days of food making you think, this one just makes you want another: warm bread, duck fat soaking into it, mustard and a pile of confit.

One important tip: If you like spice, get a bottle of Lol-Tun habanero from La Boca nearby and put it on the sandwich. The bright, vicious heat cuts through the richness of the duck perfectly.

Kødbyen · Flæsketorvet 100

Kødbyens Fiskebar is in Kødbyen, Copenhagen’s former meatpacking district, inside an old butcher’s shop with white tiles, concrete, steel and a square bar right in the middle, which keeps the whole place feeling properly industrial and very cool. The terrace is great for a drink before or after, but eat inside.

Once you sit down, the best move is to trust the captains and let them take over, because the menu makes you want far too much of it. If Baby Kys are on, get them: tiny No. 5 oysters from Brittany, not something you come across often. After that, let yourself be surprised. Ask what came in, say yes to the fish they are excited about, and take the things you would never have thought to order yourself.

Gråbrødretorv · Gråbrødretorv 14

Le Pavé is the French bistro on Gråbrødretorv, the little cobbled square with the coloured façades and the big tree in the middle. Sit outside if you can. The terrace is right on the square, and inside it is white tablecloths, exposed brick, old beams and a menu full of escargots, tartare, moules-frites and crêpes Suzette.

It is not trying to do anything clever. It is just very good at being exactly this: a proper French meal, a bottle of wine, and a couple of hours on one of the prettiest squares in Copenhagen.

Latin Quarter · Vestergade 21

Musen & Elefanten is old and a little run down, and that is most of its charm. It smells old too: wood, smoke, leather, the kind of bar where it feels entirely normal to order a whisky or rum and light a cigar.

That last part is increasingly unusual. Musen & Elefanten is one of the few bars in Copenhagen where you can still smoke cigars inside. There is also a very old bartender who can be spectacularly grumpy, mostly in a way that is extremely funny. Have a cigar, get something brown in a glass and enjoy the place exactly as it is.

Vesterbrogade 3, 1630 Copenhagen V

Tivoli opened in 1843, making it one of the oldest amusement parks still operating, and Walt Disney came here while thinking about what Disneyland could become. It still sits right in the middle of Copenhagen, and somehow none of that history has turned it into a museum piece.

Give it an afternoon and evening rather than walking through for an hour. Get the ride pass. The Demon is a proper looping roller coaster, the Star Flyer throws you around 80 metres above the city, and Rutschebanen has been running since 1914 with an actual brakeman riding the train.

There is enough here to make a whole evening of it. Sticks’n’Sushi sits above the Food Hall looking back over the Gardens, and it is genuinely good, not “good for an amusement park” sushi. Then go back out as it starts getting dark, because that is when Tivoli gets especially charming: the pagoda and lake light up, bulbs appear through the trees, and the rides keep moving through all of it.

Ofelia Plads · Kvæsthusbroen 1, 1252 Copenhagen K

Copenhagen is very good from the water, and Hey Captain is a much nicer way to see it than sitting in rows on a big canal boat. The boats are small and open, everyone sits around a wooden table, there are drinks, and the captain can actually talk to you rather than perform a tour at you. If you have the time, take the longer tour and do it near the beginning of your stay: you cover a lot of the city, can ask about whatever catches your eye, and inevitably come away remembering places you want to go back to.

The longer route goes well beyond the central canals, out through Nordhavn and to Trekroner, the old sea fortress sitting out in the harbor. The whole setup is deliberately social: everyone faces each other, the captain gets the conversation going, and over a couple of drinks you may end up chatting with people you would never otherwise meet.