Chef Nick Curtin of Copenhagen\u2019s Alouette turns seasonal ingredients, kitchen byproducts and unexpected flavors into one of the restaurant\u2019s most distinctive nonalcoholic pairing experiences.<\/p>\n
Camilla HansenHow Nick Curtin Is Growing Danish Terroir From Field To Glass<\/p>\n
Nick Curtin has spent much of his 12 years in Denmark trying to disprove one sentence.<\/p>\n
Before opening Alouette in Copenhagen, Curtin and his wife, Camilla Hansen, were recruited for a restaurant project about an hour north of the city. The owner asked what Curtin wanted to cook. He replied that he wanted to use the best ingredients the surrounding land could provide.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you should have moved to France,\u201d the owner told him.<\/p>\n
The partnership ended. The remark stayed with Curtin.<\/p>\n
At Alouette today, his response can arrive in a glass made from Danish Discovery apples, brown butter, gooseberry and cascading lime thyme. It tastes like unripe pineapple, although it contains none. Served beside white asparagus, fig leaf oil and caviar, the drink turns the dish into something close to a pi\u00f1a colada.<\/p>\n
It belongs to Alouette\u2019s Field Pairing, a nonalcoholic experience developed by Assistant Service Director Aaron Pearse Gavin, who playfully serves as the restaurant\u2019s \u201cNAmmelier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curtin\u2019s argument reaches beyond whether Denmark can grow a great strawberry or white asparagus. Through Alouette Fields, his team is helping cultivate unusual crops on a 500-year-old family farm outside Copenhagen. The restaurant contributes labor, accepts part of the financial risk and gives those ingredients a path to diners.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur dream is to become an active participant in Danish agriculture, not just a customer of it,\u201d Curtin tells Forbes.<\/p>\n
Gavin carries the idea into Alouette\u2019s drinks. He uses cold pressing, fat-washing, infusion and careful seasoning to transform crops into something that can stand beside Curtin\u2019s food. Those same fields can inform the cocktails served later in the evening, when guests move into the lounge for final bites and a concluding drink.<\/p>\n
At Alouette, terroir does not end when the plate leaves the table.<\/p>\n
What Danish Terroir Tastes Like<\/p>\n
Curtin heard Denmark compared unfavorably with France before he had the chance to test what the country\u2019s farms could produce.<\/p>\n
The comparison frustrated him because it dismissed ingredients many Danish diners had barely encountered.<\/p>\n
\u201cA Danish strawberry or white asparagus from northern Sj\u00e6lland will absolutely change your life,\u201d Curtin says. \u201cThese products are barely accessible in Danish supermarkets, much less sold internationally as high-value items.\u201d<\/p>\n
Agriculture covers 2.6 million hectares in Denmark. Cereals occupied approximately 1.2 million hectares in 2025, according to Statistics Denmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n Those numbers help show the scale confronting smaller producers experimenting with less familiar vegetables, fruit and herbs. Growing an unusual crop requires a buyer. Planting it again requires evidence that somebody wants it.<\/p>\n Curtin believes restaurants can help create that demand. A chef can place an unfamiliar ingredient within a memorable dish, explain where it was grown and give diners a reason to ask for it again.<\/p>\n \u201cChange is risk for farmers,\u201d Curtin says. \u201cAs a restaurant, we are uniquely positioned to take on the risk and drive demand by creating it.\u201d<\/p>\n Terroir at Alouette appears in the difference between apples from two orchards or in the bitterness of a leek grown on one particular farm. Those differences shape the food, the Field Pairing and any cocktail that eventually carries the ingredient into the lounge.<\/p>\n Why Nick Curtin Left New York<\/p>\n Curtin arrived in Copenhagen after building a serious restaurant career in New York. The work had gradually lost its pull.<\/p>\n Conversations with owners kept returning to dishes believed to be safe for business.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s put a burger on the menu,\u201d he remembers hearing.<\/p>\n \u201cDid I make a damn good burger? Absolutely,\u201d Curtin says. \u201cWas it what I wanted to be doing? No.\u201d<\/p>\n He wanted his food to express a clear point of view. He also wanted enough time outside the kitchen to maintain relationships and interests unrelated to restaurants.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted my food to mean something,\u201d he says. \u201cFollowing the crowd was simply not why I became a chef.\u201d<\/p>\n Moving to Denmark exposed him to a different approach to restaurant employment. Full-time workers receive at least five weeks of paid holiday and generally accrue holiday allowance equal to 12.5 percent of salary, according to Workindenmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Danish system didn\u2019t treat people as tools,\u201d Curtin says. \u201cIt treated them as investments.\u201d<\/p>\n Curtin and Hansen carried that thinking into Alouette, which opened in 2018 and received its first Michelin star eight months later. Their employment model includes a shorter workweek, pensions, paid leave and support for continuing education.<\/p>\n Copenhagen also gave Curtin room to reconsider how a restaurant could work with its farmers, cooks and drinks team.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that a restaurant could come at the benefit of employees, instead of at their expense, is the gift Copenhagen gave us,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n How The Field Pairing Earned Its Name<\/p>\n The term \u201cField Pairing\u201d gives Alouette\u2019s nonalcoholic program an identity that does not depend on what has been removed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt means the drinks come from the same place as the food, both literally and in how I think about them,\u201d Gavin says.<\/p>\n He works with ingredients grown around Copenhagen and with the farmers supplying Curtin\u2019s kitchen. Sometimes the drink and dish share the same crop. He may also focus on a part the cooks cannot easily place on the plate.<\/p>\n \u201cI like that it is called the Field Pairing rather than the non-alcoholic pairing,\u201d Gavin says. \u201cIt gives it its own identity. It is another way through the menu, built specifically for the food.\u201d<\/p>\n The restaurant\u2019s alcoholic and nonalcoholic options give guests different paths through the tasting menu. According to Alouette\u2019s current booking description, those choices include the Field Pairing, Cellar Pairing and Reserve Cellar Pairing. The experience concludes in the lounge with final bites and a cocktail, coffee or tea.<\/p>\n Gavin\u2019s advantage is control. He can adjust acidity, bitterness, aroma and texture around a specific course. The drink can disappear from the menu when the crop behind it is no longer available.<\/p>\n That freedom comes with pressure. Every structural decision has to be made inside the restaurant.<\/p>\n A Drink Built Like A Cocktail<\/p>\n Gavin enters menu development while the kitchen is still deciding what a dish will become.<\/p>\n \u201cI try to be involved early enough that I understand what the dish is trying to end up as,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n A pairing may work during an initial tasting and collapse after one small addition to the plate. Gavin cites anise hyssop as the kind of ingredient that can disrupt the entire balance.<\/p>\n \u201cThrow a little bit of anise hyssop on there and all bets are off,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The exchange works in both directions. Gavin can tell the cooks when his drink reveals a promising flavor. They can tell him when the pairing pulls attention away from the ingredient they want the guest to notice.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing involved from as early as possible means the pairing feels natural,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you jump in at the end, it can sometimes feel forced.\u201d<\/p>\n His white asparagus pairing illustrates the process.<\/p>\n Gavin starts with cold-pressed Discovery apple juice from an organic orchard about 45 minutes outside Copenhagen. He fat-washes it with brown butter, a technique more readily associated with modern cocktail bars than juice service.<\/p>\n The liquid is cold-infused overnight, seasoned with lightly salted gooseberry juice and refrigerated for another night with cascading lime thyme. Together, those ingredients create the impression of unripe pineapple.<\/p>\n The drink has to cut through fig leaf oil and caviar without overwhelming the white asparagus. Excessive brown butter would make it heavy. Too much gooseberry could erase the quieter flavors on the plate.<\/p>\n When the balance works, the drink changes the next bite.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of a sudden, it\u2019s a pi\u00f1a colada,\u201d Gavin says.<\/p>\n The preparation sounds elaborate when separated into steps. Gavin wants the finished glass to feel much simpler.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the glass, it should just make sense,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Making Alcohol-Free Drinks Feel Luxurious<\/p>\n According to Alouette\u2019s current menu, the Field Pairing costs 1,200 Danish kroner, about $187. The two alcoholic pairing options cost 1,400 DKK and 2,500 DKK.<\/p>\n A complete evening with the Field Pairing is priced at 3,500 DKK, only 250 DKK below the equivalent experience with the standard alcoholic pairing.<\/p>\n The narrow difference reflects the restaurant\u2019s belief that an alcohol-free drink can earn a luxury price through its ingredients, scarcity and development time.<\/p>\n A Field Pairing drink may take several days to produce after another week or two spent developing the recipe.<\/p>\n \u201cI think luxury is the feeling that something has been made specifically for you,\u201d Gavin says.<\/p>\n Gavin\u2019s creations may have none of that scaffolding. Their value has to emerge through temperature, glassware, service and what happens when the guest returns to the food.<\/p>\n \u201cIt should arrive in the right glass, at the right temperature and feel completely considered alongside the dish,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The limited scale contributes to that luxury.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I can do is serve a drink that exists for this menu, in this time, made in this building and in a smaller quantity than a wine producer would ever consider,\u201d Gavin says. \u201cThis is like a couture atelier of the non-alcoholic. That feels luxurious to me.\u201d<\/p>\n The broader drinks market is becoming more receptive to serious alcohol-free options. IWSR estimates that global volume for no-alcohol beer, wine, spirits and ready-to-drink products grew 9 percent in 2025. It forecasts 36 percent growth between 2024 and 2029, when the category is expected to exceed 18 billion annual servings. IWSR\u2019s research<\/a> included nearly 8,000 legal-drinking-age consumers across 10 markets.<\/p>\n Those figures describe packaged beverages rather than $187 restaurant pairings. Alouette is making a harder argument. Each drink must justify its price beside Michelin-starred cooking.<\/p>\n \u201cA serious program needs research and development time and somebody who actually owns it and cares about it,\u201d Gavin says. \u201cIt cannot just be handed to someone after everything else is finished with a vague instruction to make something interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n Alouette Moves Into The Field<\/p>\n Alouette Fields operates at Seerupgaard, a 500-year-old family farm outside Copenhagen.<\/p>\n Curtin says its farmer, Neel, suffered a knee injury followed by surgeries that prevented her from harvesting the property herself. Alouette had gradually become one of the farm\u2019s largest customers. Taking a more active role helped keep the land productive during her recovery.<\/p>\n The first season includes Badger Flame beets, Red Dragon napa cabbage and a small melon suited to a colder climate.<\/p>\n Curtin recalls encountering a locally grown melon only once during his 12 years in Denmark. Melon vines ordinarily consume valuable tunnel space, so the Alouette Fields team is training them vertically. The method improves air circulation, reduces mildew and creates room for more plants.<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot wait to see the looks on our guests\u2019 faces when we serve them Danish melon,\u201d Curtin says.<\/p>\n Its flesh may appear on a plate. The skin, seeds and fruit that fail a visual inspection could give Gavin material for a pairing or cocktail.<\/p>\n That second use is commercially important. One crop can create several moments across the evening instead of producing a single course.<\/p>\n What The Kitchen Can Give The Bar<\/p>\n Direct relationships with farmers change what Gavin can place in a glass.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not just working with whatever apple I can get my hands on or a bit of thyme from the supermarket,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He knows the orchard behind an apple and how a specific herb behaves when infused. A forager may arrive with something that sends the next drink in an unexpected direction.<\/p>\n \u201cI pull my notes of the 12 different apples I tasted last year or the type of seaweed the kitchen used two weeks ago,\u201d Gavin says. \u201cA forager we work with might just swing by the restaurant with something to taste, and that might spark something for a new pairing.\u201d<\/p>\n The kitchen also tells him what arrived in abundance, what will disappear quickly and which parts are unlikely to reach the plate.<\/p>\n Walnut skins bring bitterness and grip. Strawberry tops offer a greener expression of the fruit. Tomato skins contribute umami. Whey can supply acidity and texture.<\/p>\n These qualities also matter in cocktails. A spirit may provide strength and warmth, but the surrounding ingredients determine how the drink moves across the palate. Bitterness can keep sweetness in check. Acidity gives the drink definition. Infused woods, herbs and fruit skins can add aroma without relying on artificial flavoring.<\/p>\n Gavin refuses to use a byproduct solely because it would otherwise be discarded.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is not enough of a reason,\u201d he says. \u201cIt still has to make the drink better.\u201d<\/p>\n He is equally wary of treating rescued ingredients as a moral victory.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a danger of becoming far too pleased with yourself because you rescued something from the bin,\u201d Gavin says. \u201cThe guest still has to enjoy it. It still has to taste good.\u201d<\/p>\n Curtin points to blackcurrant wood as one of Nordic cooking\u2019s overlooked flavors. Alouette uses it for smoking, tea and an infused oil that he says can resemble extra-virgin olive oil. In a drink, its tannin can supply structure and grip.<\/p>\n \u201cWow,\u201d Curtin says. \u201cTannic, sour, fruity. Extremely versatile.\u201d<\/p>\n The Cocktail At The End Of Dinner<\/p>\n After approximately two and a half hours in Alouette\u2019s dining room, guests move into the lounge for final bites and a cocktail, coffee or tea.<\/p>\n Curtin calls the transition \u201ca long exhale.\u201d<\/p>\n The lighting becomes darker and the progression of the tasting menu loosens. Guests have time to sit with what they have experienced.<\/p>\n The cocktail changes the mood without abandoning the agricultural story. A local herb, preserved fruit or smoke can return in a less formal form. Guests may choose an alcoholic drink or continue without alcohol.<\/p>\n This final choice gives drinks a role from the beginning of dinner through departure. The Field Pairing handles the close relationship between each course and glass. The lounge cocktail allows the same ingredients to speak more freely.<\/p>\n Curtin admits to feeling a small pang when a guest drinks only water throughout the meal. A carefully built drink may reveal an aroma that otherwise remains quiet. Its acidity can also prepare the palate for what follows.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is in the glass impacts the way we taste and perceive the food,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Gavin tests his drinks where the guest will encounter them. Something impressive in isolation can feel completely wrong several servings into a tasting menu.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to taste these drinks where the guest will actually drink them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He wants beverage professionals to stop treating alcohol as the dividing line between serious and lesser drinks.<\/p>\n \u201cNever think that because a guest has ordered non-alcoholic that they\u2019ve ordered or expected a lesser experience,\u201d Gavin says.<\/p>\n A Restaurant Built Around Rest<\/p>\n Curtin\u2019s approach to sustainability includes the people preparing and serving those drinks.<\/p>\n In his first New York leadership role, he regularly worked close to 100 hours a week. He arrived around 9 a.m. and sometimes left at 2 a.m. When a boss summoned him to the office, Curtin expected concern about how overwhelmed he had become.<\/p>\n The boss questioned whether 9 a.m. was too late to begin the day.<\/p>\n Curtin continued at that pace until panic attacks forced him to reconsider.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to deprogram myself,\u201d he says. \u201cI had to rid myself of the mentality that the answer was to just work harder.\u201d<\/p>\n A joint analysis from the World Health Organization and International Labour Organization found that working at least 55 hours per week was associated with a 35 percent greater risk of stroke and a 17 percent greater risk of dying from ischemic heart disease compared with a 35-to-40-hour week. Long working hours contributed to an estimated 745,000 deaths in 2016, according to the WHO<\/a>.<\/p>\n Curtin and Hansen also see rest as a way to protect the restaurant\u2019s investment in its cooks, bartenders and service professionals. Training takes time. The accumulated knowledge disappears when exhaustion drives people away.<\/p>\n Alouette has not released retention figures or margins that would allow direct comparison with conventional fine-dining restaurants. Curtin is candid about the financial pressure. Among the restaurant\u2019s principles of purpose, people, planet and profit, he says profit has been the hardest to protect in recent years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been a healthy business for eight years,\u201d he says. \u201cIt isn\u2019t easy, but it is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n The Economic Test For Danish Terroir<\/p>\n