![\"Claus](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2_local-flavour.tif-50abadb55d996.jpg\")
Claus Meyer<\/p>\nClaus Meyer arrives hot foot from Sweden, where he has been scouting for peas to turn into vinegar, and bursts into the drawing room of his grand villa in a leafy side street of Frederiksberg, which he shares with his wife and four children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI first moved here 22 years ago,\u201d he says as we head out onto Gammel Kongevej, the area\u2019s main shopping street. \u201cBack then it was very conservative. It\u2019s a lot more vibrant now.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a quick scone at the Rein van Hauen organic bakers we head for the nearby Meyers Deli which, when it opened five years ago, paved the way for many other coffee shops, restaurants, chocolatiers and bakeries to set up. Meyer enthuses about his apple and pear juices from old Danish varieties grown on the island of Lille\u00f8. \u201cThe EU won\u2019t let us sell the apples because they are too small so we cold press them at the very mature stage, nice and ripe, and sell them unfiltered.\u201d Also from Lille\u00f8 is Arwen, a startlingly good Riesling-style wine. Meyer also sells various organic grains and dried wild berries from Sweden.<\/p>\n
Claus Meyer<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/4_local-flavour.tif-50abadd8ce3f3.jpg\")
Little girl at Meyers Deli<\/p>\n
![\"Interior](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/3_local-flavour.tif-50abadc282ac8.jpg\")
Egefeld organic market<\/p>\n
![\"Vesterhavsost](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9_local-flavour.tif-50abae4aef92c.jpg\")
Vesterhavsost North Sea cheese) from Helges Ost<\/p>\n
![\"Street](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/5_local-flavour.tif-50abadec04a0a.jpg\")
The Frederiksberg neighbourhood<\/p>\n
![\"Onglet](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6_local-flavour.tif-50abadfd0d03a.jpg\")
M\u00eal\u00e9e\u2019s onglet<\/p>\n
![\"Summerbird](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/7_local-flavour.tif-50abae0c19469.jpg\")
Summerbird chocolaterie<\/p>\n
![\"Diners](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/8_local-flavour.tif-50abae1daf57d.jpg\")
M\u00eal\u00e9e French bistro<\/p>\n
![\"Interior](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/10_local-flavour.tif-50abae59d25b2.jpg\")
Helges Ost cheese counter<\/p>\n
Before Meyer became the leading evangelist for Nordic cuisine (the now famous Manifesto for New Nordic Cuisine, which he helped compose, was published in 2004), his passions were chocolate and coffee. He is part owner of Copenhagen Roaster, which imports single estate green beans from source, and roasts them close by in Valby. The roasting house is open to the public every Wednesday afternoon. Meyer recommends its Costa Rica La Minita.<\/p>\n
On V\u00e6rnedamsvej, known as Copenhagen\u2019s \u201cfood street\u201d, we stop by Summerbird chocolaterie, owned by Michael Gr\u00f8nlykke, with whom Meyer was the first importer of Valrhona chocolate to Denmark. \u201cWe had to beg them to let us buy some,\u201d Meyer recalls. \u201cIt was like trying to seduce a difficult woman! Eventually they grudgingly let us have 10kg. I love the licorice almonds here, and the fl\u00f8deboller [Italian meringues, dipped in chocolate with a marzipan base].\u201cA few steps away is Helges Ost. \u201cI always buy a piece of R\u00f8d Christian, a biodynamic cheese from Christiansminde. They also have some great cheeses from a Danish dairy called Thiese in Jutland.\u201d Owner Allan Hendricksen has 130 varieties and we taste Vesterhavsost, a new Thiese cheese which won this year\u2019s best cheese in Denmark.<\/p>\n
For meat, Meyer shops in Copenhagen\u2019s butcher\u2019s quarter, K\u00f8dbyen. In recent years K\u00f8dbyen has become one of the city\u2019s key nightlife and art gallery destinations, but a couple of its original inhabitants remain, the best of which, Meyer says, is Anker & Genz: \u201cThey dry age their beef for a month. I buy it on the bone.\u201d<\/p>\n
If he feels like eating out, he\u2019ll go to the recently opened French bistro Restaurant M\u00eal\u00e9e. Rare for Denmark, it serves onglet, or \u201changer steak,\u201d a flavoursome cut. \u201cI\u2019ve never started a new business to make money,\u201d says Meyer at our final stop for the day, the all-organic grocers Egefeld, where he shops for biodynamic, single farm Naturm\u00e6lk and Urtekram bran flakes. \u201cI do it to make an earthquake of some kind. Usually I see a market that\u2019s being served with shit, show how to do it great, and others somehow follow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are starting with the school kids,\u201d he continues, turning to his long-term initiative. \u201cThe project is led by one of the world\u2019s leading nutritionists, Professor Arne Astrup, and we are working with the best Danish chefs and the Ministry of Health to create the new Nordic diet. The idea is to roll it out across schools to begin to tackle childhood obesity, diabetes and other serious health issues.\u201d And with that, he is off home to cook dinner for his kids.<\/p>\n
Neighbourhood<\/p>\n
Frederiksberg is a separate municipality from Copenhagen. It\u2019s traditionally thought of as more aloof than its neighbours, Vesterbro and N\u00f8rrebro, but in recent years it has shaken off its stuffy image thanks to an influx of specialist food shops, restaurants and art galleries. The large 19th-century apartments tend to be popular with families and older people. Outsiders like to come to picnic in Frederiksberg Have, a leafy park overlooked by an 18th-century royal palace, built by the king after whom the quarter was named, Frederik IV.<\/p>\n
![\"Ppura](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/11_local-flavour.tif-50abac42de116.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Wheat your apetite
Puglia, Italy<\/p>\n
Since its launch last October, artisanal Swiss-owned but Italian-made pasta brand Ppura has been satisfying the appetites of pasta purists. Set up by two childhood friends who wanted to recreate the steaming pasta pots their Italian mothers used to cook, the firm\u2019s small production factory in Puglia uses methods from the 19th century.<\/p>\n
Founders Cemal Cattaneo and Maurizio Floccari spent more than 15 months scouring Italy for ingredients. The duo sourced the perfect durum wheat from the bread-making region of Altamura, which gives Ppura its unique nutty taste. The range of six types of pasta includes the sculptural capricci, fettucce and farfalle. Serve with Ppura\u2019s three types of pesto, including the sweet, spiky Pomodori Salentini that was chosen after the founders tasted over 100 tomato varieties. Stockists<\/p>\n Jelmol\u00ed Gourmet Factory, Switzerland Feinkost K\u00e4fer, Germany Julius Meinl am Graben, Austria Eataly Torino, Italy La Grande Epicerie, France Address book<\/p>\n Restaurant M\u00eal\u00e9e Egefeld Summerbird chocolaterie Copenhagen Roaster Rein van Hauen
ppura.ch<\/a><\/p>\n
Seidengasse 1, Z\u00fcrich
jelmoli.ch<\/a><\/p>\n
Prinzregentenstrasse 73, Munich
feinkost-kaefer.de<\/a><\/p>\n
Am Graben 19, Vienna
meinl.com<\/a><\/p>\n
Via Nizza 230, Turin
eataly.it<\/a><\/p>\n
Rue de S\u00e8vres 38, Paris
lagrandeepicerie.fr<\/a><\/p>\n
Martensens All\u00e9 16, 1828 Frederiksberg
+ 45 35 13 11 34
melee.dk<\/a><\/p>\n
Gammel Kongevej 113, 1850 Frederiksberg C
+ 45 33 28 20 20
egefeld.dk<\/a><\/p>\n
V\u00e6rnedamsvej 9, 1819 Frederiksberg C
+ 45 33 25 25 50
summerbird.dk<\/a><\/p>\n
Dronning Olgas Vej 30, 2000 Frederiksberg
+ 45 38 11 12 80
cphroaster.dk<\/a><\/p>\n
Gammel Kongevej 177, 1850 Frederiksberg C
+ 45 33 21 25 03
rvh.dk<\/a><\/p>\n