It may sound like a rather desperate marketing stunt from the national tourist board: \u201cA product placement caf\u00e9 where everything is Danish!\u201d But instead of being a clich\u00e9, The Royal Cafe in Copenhagen has been a huge success since its inauguration in May this year and launched a culinary phenomenon in the process. A homage to Danishness, in 2008 it will expand with franchise branches in Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul and take its \u201csmushi\u201d global.<\/p>\n
The concept is created by \u201cgastronaut\u201d Rud Christiansen and his designer-stylist girlfriend Lo \u00d8stergaard \u2013 and is made possible due to several big Danish brands\u2019 awareness of the power and possibilities of co-branding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to show the best of Danish design \u2013 Royal Copenhagen, Georg Jensen, Bang & Olufsen, Kvadrat, Holmegaard and Fritz Hansen \u2013 but we do it in our own way. It\u2019s been important for us to create an anti-Starbucks experience. All caf\u00e9s look the same today, we wanted to create something unique,\u201d says Christiansen, 62.<\/p>\n
And Christiansen has achieved his aim. It probably has something to do with the sparkle of madness you\u2019ll find in his eyes. He\u2019s got money \u2013 as you do when you held the Danish licences for De Cecco pasta, Lavazza coffee and Lindt chocolate during the gastro boom of the 1990s. But more importantly, he\u2019s got imagination and loves to play and tease.<\/p>\n
Anyone can make a classy caf\u00e9 with the products of Denmark\u2019s design houses, but Christiansen enjoys subtle provocation, placing an insanely expensive Flora Danica cup bottom-up on the head of the Little Mermaid \u2013 now one of Royal Copenhagen\u2019s bestselling porcelain figures \u2013 and dressing the company\u2019s emblematic polar bear statue in a little kitsch sweater. Sounds tacky? Maybe, but it\u2019s fun too.<\/p>\n
You can buy almost everything you see in The Royal Cafe \u2013 cups, plates, cutlery, glass and a wide variety of delicacies \u2013 except the interior\u2019s more peculiar parts. These include a national costume-clad mannequin lent by the Danish National Museum and the reproductions of Rosenborg Castle\u2019s famous paintings, with only tiny details revealing them as fakes \u2013 a Royal Copenhagen porcelain cup next to an ancient Danish king.<\/p>\n
Several pieces have been made especially for The Royal Cafe but will soon find a place in the different companies\u2019 production lines: Bang & Olufsen\u2019s discrete wall mounts for its long tall speakers, Christiansen\/\u00d8stergaard\u2019s new take on a chandelier made for them by Holmegaard, and Fritz Hansen\u2019s taller version of Arne Jacobsen\u2019s bestselling chair, The Ant. The Royal Cafe version is still lower than a traditional barstool but tall enough to bring the food close to your attention \u2013 which it deserves.<\/p>\n
Having reinvented a few Danish icons, Christiansen might have also come up with a new way of selling his country. The Royal Cafe has created \u201csmushi\u201d \u2013 the word is a contraction of sushi and sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d, Denmark\u2019s only true contribution to the global gastronomic canon. Smushi is the fuel driving a dining and retail concept that has Asia\u2019s retail groups lining up to get a piece of the action.<\/p>\n
In many ways Christiansen has created a bijou Danish embassy that makes, rather than spends, money and his first outpost is due to open on Singapore\u2019s Orchard Road in February. Christiansen\u2019s concept is a winning one.<\/p>\n
Less is sm\u00f8rre<\/p>\n
New-wave sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d<\/p>\n
This restaurant close to the Danish National Gallery is less than a year old, but cook and owner Adam Aamann-Christensen has already earned a reputation as the King of New Sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d in Copenhagen. Where traditional sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d can be a quite heavy and greasy affair, Aamann\u2019s versions are adjusted for modern taste buds. They are lighter \u2013 more bread, less butter \u2013 but still delicious. Old-fashioned sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d<\/p>\n If you want Danish sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d the old-fashioned way, Slotsk\u00e6lderen hos Gitte Kik is the place to go and have your slice of rye bread with cold cut of roast pork and red cabbage accompanied by a cold Carlsberg and an even colder schnapps. The lunch restaurant is located in an old cellar in central Copenhagen and dates back to 1797. For decades it\u2019s been a favourite haunt for Danish politicians.
Aamanns, 10 \u00d8ster Farimagsgade, 2100 Copenhagen \u00d8; + 45 35 55 33 44, aamanns.dk<\/a><\/p>\n
Slotsk\u00e6lderen hos Gitte Kik, 4 Fortunstr\u00e6de, 1065 Copenhagen K; + 45 33 11 15 37<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It may sound like a rather desperate marketing stunt from the national tourist board: \u201cA product placement caf\u00e9…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[108,14756,74172],"class_list":["post-158308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-copenhagen","tag-copenhagen","tag-danish-design","tag-smushi"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117205740026977184","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}