DESIGNED FOR EATING
If you’re in Copenhagen at lunchtime, you’re in for a treat. Tara Stevens discovers how the Danes have turned sandwich making into an art form
In Denmark smørrebrød – literally ‘buttered bread’ in Danish – has provided lunch for the masses for hundreds of years. While its origins are sketchy to say the least, one theory has it that the humble smørrebrød, like Spanish tapas, evolved some time in the 1600s as a plate on which to catch energy rich dripping (fat and meat juices). It was said that true smørrebrød could only be prepared by a virgin.
What began as a poor man’s working meal had become the penchant of the upper classes by the 18th century, when they, too, adopted the tasty lunchtime snack for their own leftovers. Fast forward another 300 years and the smørrebrød that you see today in Copenhagen’s restaurants is increasingly sophisticated – as elaborately conceived as any of Royal Copenhagen’s intricately painted porcelain dishes.
Twenty-first century smørrebrød, you see, is not only the tapas of the North, it’s also the new sushi. This becomes apparent at Royal Copenhagen’s latest gastronomic venture, the Royal Café, the creation of designer Lo Østergaard and Rud Christiansen, a well-respected gourmand. This whimsical café is dedicated to modern Danish design – and we’re not just talking furniture and ceramics. Seated beneath spectacular Holmegaard chandeliers against a backdrop of English tea-room pink walls, on custom-made Fritz Hansen chairs, food tourists get smushi, an inspired hybrid of traditional smørrebrød and the bite-sized Japanese morsels that the Western world has come to love so much.
Here ladies (and gentlemen) who lunch feast on delicate canapés of seasonal fjord shrimp doused in horseradish and lemon juice, or smoked eel elegantly wrapped in an egg roll and topped with slow baked tomatoes and a seductive pop of salmon eggs. Each dish is decorated with a single flower: a violet, a sprig of jasmine or some lavender.
Ostergaard and Christiansen have plans to open a smushi school in the autumn, while Christiansen has plans to exhibit smushi as New Danish Culinary Design in Korea. For now, a light lunch of three smushi, followed by one of the cafés spectacular cakes, makes a magnificent Danish high tea.
With design in mind, it seems appropriate that the new-wave smørrebrød served at Aamann’s in Copenhagen’s well-heeled east lakes comes on Royal Copenhagen china. Adam Aamann is one of the pioneers of modern smørrebrød, updating the ingredients and techniques while throwing in some surprises. His restaurant oozes classical Danish good taste: blond wood, white walls, the best china and streaming light. “I’d had the idea for about four years,” he says. “Smørrebrød was a dying tradition and I saw the need for something new.”
Aamann makes everything in-house, from the rye bread to the sausages, and uses organic, seasonal produce. Instead of serving up old fashioned cooked meats such as rolled pork or tongue in aspic, he takes lean, free-range pork and braises it in a salty-sweet balsamic and rhubarb brine, topping it with crisp escarole lettuce and spring onions to provide crunch and contrast, finished with a spoonful of pickled rhubarb. A home-smoked eel smørrebrød is lively and bright with the flavours of spring, crossed with tender asparagus, pink grapefruit, chervil and a soft-boiled quail’s egg.
Back in the city centre, Restaurant M takes another approach, elevating the art of eating smørrebrød into something clubby and lending a chic, super-trendy edge to an otherwise traditional staple.
A menu card that you fill in yourself is a nod to a bygone era, but when the smørrebrød comes, it’s more do-it-yourself with all the fixings on the side.
“We wanted to do something with a lighter touch that would appeal to a younger, more health-conscious palate,” explains Stine Marquart, whose parents own the place. Unsurprisingly, beef tartar is the most popular dish.
The restaurant also stocks an interesting range of schnapps, the traditional accompaniment to smørrebrød, including Aalborg Nordguld, which has been run through amber to deliver a strong, sweet, honey-coloured liqueur that’s served ice cold.
Then there’s Claus Meyer, the godfather of the modern Danish kitchen and a veritable Jamie Oliver of the North thanks to his relentless quest to revitalise Nordic products. His latest success is in the TV series New Scandinavian Cooking, syndicated in several countries and broadcast by the BBC from September.
Back home in Copenhagen, Meyer is so confident of the smørrebrød he sells in his New York-style Meyer’s Deli, beneath the upmarket department store Magasin, that he serves only one. Suffice to say that this is no ordinary classic of potatoes and prawns. It’s a genius combination consisting of a raft of earthy, freshly baked rye bread topped with smooth cauliflower purée, tiny sliced Danish new potatoes, Greenlandic shrimp ‘cooked’ in lemon juice, dill, parsley mayonnaise and fresh cauliflower breadcrumbs.
The prawns – plucked fresh from the fjords – have a brief summer season and are almost opalescent, extravagantly sweet and silky textured. The ceviche style preparation gives them a delightful twist. The prickle of bitterness in the cauliflower compliments them perfectly while the potatoes give a rounded, waxy texture providing the perfect vehicle for the creamy-rich mayo. A handful of delicate leaves add freshness and bite.
So the new smørrebrød scene is both traditional and unconventional. “Nothing is traditional, but everything is traditional,” says Oscar Davidsen somewhat cryptically. As the son of Ida Davidsen, arguably the most famous smørrebrød jømfru (housewife) in town, his family’s history of smørrebrød making goes back more than a century and has taken them from Copenhagen’s suburbs to Hollywood and back again.
As well as introducing some new flavours and ingredients at their restaurant Ida Davidsen – such as wasabi caviar, a product that will no doubt cause a storm on nearby shores – the Davidsens now boast a menu of some 250 different kinds of smørrebrød, all of them named, many of them classics. The Lawyer’s Nightcap is a traditional combination of new potatoes and smoked cheese; a Fireman’s Nightcap consists of chicken salad, crispy bacon and fire-bright fried carrots julienne; and the Union Jack comprises steak tartar crossed with prawns and a raw egg yolk.
It’s expensive, however, probably because the tide of ever eager tourists has fuelled a price hike. But if you finish your food odyssey with a smørrebrød of tuna smoked at the Davidsen’s country house – light and elegant, the translucent tuna spilling over the edges of the rye, topped with a tangle of emerald-green Danish seaweed and piled high with a pale green cream flecked with lime-green pearls of wasabi, lush and tongue-tingling – suddenly spending more than €15 on a sandwich doesn’t seem like a bad idea at all.
Directory
■ Aamann’s 10 Øster Farimagsgade, tel. +45 3555 3344 DKK45–85 (€6–12) per smørrebrød
■ Ida Davidsen 70 Store Kongensgade, tel. +45 3391 3655, idadavidsen.dk Open 10am–4pm Monday–Friday. DKK55–150 (€7–20) per smørrebrød
■ Meyer’s Deli 13 Kongens Nytorv, tel. +45 3325 4595, meyersmad.dk Open daily 8.30am–10pm. DKK75 (€10) per smørrebrød
■ Restaurant M 56 Store Kongensgade, tel. +45 3315 8577, restaurant-m.dk Open 11.30am–10pm Monday– Saturday, 11.30am–3.30pm Sunday. DKK40–70 (€5–9) per smørrebrød
■ The Royal Café 6 Amagertorv, tel. +45 3814 9527, theroyalcafe.dk Open during shopping hours. DKK120 (€16) for three smushi
FR » Une conception de la cuisine
Au Danemark, smørrebrød – littéralement ‘pain beurré’ – constitue le déjeuner des masses depuis des centaines d’années.
Il est né dans les années 1600 comme un plat sur lequel on récoltait la riche graisse énergétique, pour devenir aujourd’hui un must de la scène sophistiquée de Copenhague.
Au Royal Café, les touristes commandent les ‘smushi’: une préparation hybride composée de smørrebrød et de sushi. Essayez les canapés de crevettes de saison, pêchées dans les fjords, marinées dans la sauce radis et le jus de citron ou de croustillants d’anguilles fumées décorées de tomates et d’œufs de saumon.
Chez Aamann, dans la région des lacs à l’Est de Copenhague, le restaurant d’Adam Aamann est une étape du bon goût. Toute sa cuisine est faite maison depuis le pain de seigle jusqu’aux saucisses, et il utilise des produits écologiques de saison. Sa préparation favorite : un smørrebrød à l’anguille fumée rehaussé de saveurs printanières, tendres asperges, jus de raisins rosé, cerfeuil et œuf de caille mollet.
De retour dans le centre, le Restaurant-M offre un certain vernis chic aux produits traditionnels. Ils disposent aussi d’une gamme étonnante de schnapps, accompagnement traditionnel du smørrebrød.
Claus Meyer, parrain de la cuisine danoise moderne, croit fermement au smørrebrød au point que dans son épicerie fine de style new-yorkais, située à côté de la grande surface huppée Magasin, il n’en vend qu’une sorte : une montage de pain de seigle fraîchement sorti du four, couvert d’une fine purée de chou-fleur, de tranches de petites pommes de terres danoises, de crevettes du Groenland ‘cuites’ dans du jus de citron, d’aneth, de mayonnaise au persil, et de morceaux de choux-fleurs frits dans la chapelure.
Ida Davidsen est une autre option haut de gamme, mais lorsque vous aurez goûté le thon sur pain de seigle, enrobé d’algues et de perles de wasabi, le prix n’aura plus d’importance.
NL » Gemaakt om van te smullen…
In Denemarken moest het gewone volk het honderden jaren lang stellen met smörrebröd, letterlijk ‘beboterd brood’. In de jaren 1600 evolueerde het tot een bordvol overgoten met calorierijke braadjus. En nu beschikt Kopenhagen over een verfijnde smörrebrödcultuur.
In het Royal Café kunnen culinaire toeristen een ‘smushi’ bestellen, een briljante combinatie van smörrebröd en sushi. Proef hier ook de canapés van seizoensgarnalen uit de fjorden, gedrenkt in mierikswortel en citroensap, of gerookte paling in een loempia, afgewerkt met tomaten en zalmeitjes.
In Aamann, aan de oostelijke meren van Kopenhagen, is het restaurant van Adam Aamann een toonbeeld van goede smaak. Hij maakt alles zelf – van het roggebrood tot de worstjes – en gebruikt ecologische en seizoensproducten. Zijn smörrebröd met zelfgerookte paling, gegarneerd met zachte asperges, roze pompelmoes, kervel en een zachtgekookt kwartelei, zit barstensvol lentesmaken.
Terug in het centrum geeft Restaurant-M traditionele hoofdschotels een chique toets . Ze hebben er ook een interessant aanbod schnaps, de traditionele begeleider van smörrebröd.
Claus Meyer, de peetvader van de moderne Deense keuken, loopt zo over van vertrouwen in het smörrebröd dat hij verkoopt in zijn ‘New Yorkse deli’ onder het chique warenhuis Magasin, dat hij er slechts eentje serveert: een massa grof, versgebakken roggebrood met daarop een smeuïge bloemkoolpuree, nieuwe Deense aardappeltjes in schijfjes, Groenlandse garnalen ‘gekookt’ in citroensap, en verder dille, peterseliemayonaise, en verse bloemkoolkruimels.
Een andere dure optie is Ida Davidsen. Maar ook hier zijn de tonijn, het roggebrood, het zeewier en de wasabiparels zo lekker, dat de prijs er echt niet meer toe doet.
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