It’s a delicious (and ultimately, very privileged) thing to spend 48 hours somewhere different, to get out of the country and live another life for a while. To have the sort of trip where you walk around asking yourself ‘could I… move here?’, and then remember that if you did, you’d have to deal with all the same stuff you do at home. Oh, well.
Last week I went with C to Copenhagen for 48 hours, from very early on Friday to early on Sunday, and thought some of the places we visited would be handy to share.
It was our third time there in the past 10 years, so we didn’t want to do anything really touristy - we’d done most of the main things, and with such a short amount of time we really only just wanted to wander around and eat/drink good stuff. Thanks to a combination of tips from friends who know the city, some previous knowledge and some digging on Google and Instagram, we put a wishlist together on Google Maps and tried to visit as many places as we could. Here are the highlights.
Day One
After a shockingly early start (4.30am, cry) to get a 7am flight, we arrived in Copenhagen craving coffee and one of those delicious raspberry slices that I think about regularly (more on them later). The airport is about 15 mins from the city centre by train, one of the many reasons why Copenhagen is great for a short break.
We walked to our hotel Citizen M (very near the shopping streets in the city centre, which we weren’t really bothered with), which is one of those slightly futuristic boutique hotels where your room is fairly small but the price is good. The bathroom situation isn’t ideal for a romantic break with a new person, just a heads up. But besides that it was in a great location, the staff were lovely and it was really quiet (February is most definitely off-season here).
First stop for food was Slurp Ramen Joint, which is a small, cute Japanese-style ramen bar with a compact menu and unreal ramen.
I got the veggie ramen (with no egg), and marvelled at its fresh lemon thyme, charred kale and silky wheat noodles. To drink, I had a gose beer - when in Rome, etc.
As we walked out afterwards, it was a good thing our bellies were full of warming ramen soup - it started absolutely sleeting down, and every time a stray bit of sleet hit me it was like an icicle poking me in the face. We sought shelter in the nearby Torvehallerne, a touristy-ish not very cheap but very fancy food hall, and had coffee from the ubiquitous but always excellent Coffee Collective.
On to the S-train we went next, to head out to Juno the Bakery, which I’d read about and then randomly heard mentioned on Kermode and Mayo’s podcast. Copenhagen is a really walkable city, and Juno is in a mostly residential area with some shops and pubs scattered around.
We knew we’d hit the right place as even though we couldn’t see any signage, there was a queue of hardy Danes standing outside in the sleet, waiting their turn to get in. Juno does bread, pastries of all sorts, coffee and some other snacks - I picked up a banana pastry, a cardamom pastry and a milk roll (a soft, fluffy bread roll).
I then spent the entire day lugging around the box of pastries.
After a quick stop in a local bar, where the atmosphere was… interesting… It was on to the Metro (public transport: number 1242425 of things Denmark does well, although it’s not exactly cheap) to head to the really cool, more multicultural area of Nørrebro for some wine in Pompette.
If I see the words ‘natural wine bar’ I’m in there like a hot snot, so this spot was feverishly starred on Google Maps weeks ago. Inside it was industrial-chic, with a stripped-down menu and truly delicious wine - I tried the red (Gamay-ish, French but I forget all the rest of the info on it), the orange and the pét-nat too. Sure look.
We got there at around 4pm, and by 6pm it was absolutely jointed with people, including some parents with tiny kids, which I fully respected.
After this it was back on the Metro (which is next to Assistens Kirkegaard, a really cool cemetery which I’d visited before) to head to Vesterbro, as I’d booked dinner at Mother, an unreal pizzeria where I’d gone for my birthday during a lovely trip with pals about 5 or 6 years ago. (On that trip, we went swimming in the river in the city, which will remain a core memory forever - just brilliant.)
The reasons why I love Mother? The atmosphere is hygge-cool: all candles and low lighting, ridiculously good-looking locals, delicious wine list, unreal pizza, Scandi aesthetic with a teensy bit of grit. Laidback and yet very buzzy. We slip-slided from the Metro to the restaurant, as the sleet was coming down fairly hard by now.
Mother is in the brilliant meatpacking district, which is a former meatpacking area that’s now home to lots of pubs and restaurants. Every time I visit there I imagine what would have happened if this location was in Ireland: it would have remained derelict for decades before being knocked for offices. Just look at the Victorian fruit and veg market and the Iveagh Markets for how we treat buildings that deserve a better use. We let them stand empty for years, decaying before our eyes.
Anyway, climbing off my soapbox… after pizzas and wine we headed back into the sleet and C dragged me to a place I NEVER, EVER go to on holidays. An Irish bar. I know. Anyway, this was not only free from twee and weirdness, but had a lovely atmosphere, good drinks and was on the way home, so I couldn’t complain.
After 18k steps I was ready for sleep, but had to open my box o’ pastries first to see if they had survived the walk through the city.
Miracle. They had!
Day two
Woke up still feeling stuffed, and realised that day-old pastries weren’t my ideal breakfast. However, I soldiered on and discovered the banana pastry was ridiculously good: like the best bits of a banoffee encased in a croissant.
After a recommendation from Anthony Remedy, I’d decided we should go to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art bright and early on Saturday. It opens at 11am and is a 30-minute train ride from Copenhagen city centre, so we head to Kobenhavn H, the central train station, and grabbed a coffee and milk roll (so pillowy, divine) in an extremely swish café called Rug Bakery behind the station. It’s located inside the also extremely swish Villa Hotel. If I ever mysteriously come into a fortune, I’ll stay there for a Copenhagen break.
The train journey took us along the coast, but we mainly saw the freezing cold, choppy sea and some ominous forests that would suit a Scandi noir drama, as well as humongous houses in some of the smaller towns. Humlebaek, where Louisiana is, is a quiet town with neat, midsize houses. Even the train station café was a midcentury dream. No dodgy catering here.
Louisiana was great, with some really thought-provoking exhibitions about AI and our work lives. One of the video installations was by Ben Grosser, called Order of Magnitude, which was a collection of clips of Mark Zuckerberg saying the word ‘more’. It was particularly chilling.
There’s a permanent Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room at Louisiana, which was also brilliant - and weirdly means I’ve now been in one of these rooms three times this year (after years of dying to visit them). Life is so strange sometimes.
The other time was in January with my friend Lesley, when we went to see the two Infinity Mirror Rooms at the Tate in London. At that exhibition, there were photos and work from throughout Kusama’s career, and it was brilliant to see how her art evolved - and how brazen she was in the 1960s. What a woman.
Another excellent artwork at Louisiana was by the Finnish artist Pilvi Takala, called The Trainee. For this, she spent a month pretending to be an intern in Deloitte, but doing none of what the company would call ‘work’. By the end, people were asking if she had a ‘mental problem’. Such a blackly funny commentary on the modern workplace.
We didn’t get to see all of what Louisiana offered, but I did get absolutely blasted with wind when I went outside to the part of the museum that opens onto the sea (ultra refreshing) and had a good wander around its merchandise section. As you’d expect, it was perfectly curated.
From here, we got the train back to the city, got out in Østerbro and walked to a Gao Dumpling. It was *insert chef’s kiss*. Friends will know I am a huge dumpling fiend, and these were so good, not the frozen kind you get in some places in Ireland.
I had the double-fried tofu, kimchi fried dumplings and steamed spinach dumplings, and felt happy as a clam. This part of town was also really pretty, with some lovely residential streets and a heap of restaurants, so well worth the visit.
From here we walked into the city centre on a quest to get a raspberry slice in a place called Skt Peders Bageri, where I’d had the raspberry slice that I regularly dream about a few years ago. Reader, they had none there. Cry. So we headed to a Lagkagehuset (a chain of bakeries) where I had a less nice one and vowed to learn how to bake some myself.
We then walked to Nørrebro, with tired feet that could go no further. So we stopped in Too Old to Die Young (that name feels way too close to home) for craft beers. It was still freezing outside, though no sleeting, so we stayed for a few hours.
On the same street are loads of wine bars and the gorge jazz bar Kind of Blue, which sadly we didn’t grab a table in.
I ventured around the corner to check out some vintage shops, but they were all selling 90s and 2000s clothes. I also passed a shop that felt like my spiritual home, called Books and Wine (most of the books seemed to be in Danish).
That night I’d booked a table in Hidmona, an Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurant that had excellent reviews. It had a really chill vibe, which felt similar to a lot of spots in Dublin - lots of gangs of pals. Ethiopian food is so good, especially if you’re vegetarian, with different lentil/bean-based dishes and salads, spices you don’t encounter regularly in Ireland, and it’s served on a fermented spongy bread called injera. You eat it with your hands, so it’s just a cool experience overall. The staff here were a delight too.
Nørrebro is around 25 minutes’ walk from Citizen M, so it was back to the hotel for one last drink (nice views from the bar), and then up early the next day for our return flight.
The only mark on the weekend was the guy in the airport security queue who took my tray *out of my hands* so he could use it himself… am presuming wherever he is, he had a horrible holiday. Ahem.
Ah, Copenhagen. It’s not cheap (we’re talking slightly dearer than Dublin prices) but once you’re there it’s walkable, lovely, beautiful, and has lots of excellent food and drink options at various prices (if you’re in the Michelin star zone, it’s crammed full of fine dining, though that was well out of our budget). Now to dream of an all-expenses-paid writing residency there…