This has got to be one of my favourite cities and I’ve tried to pitch several articles for the past year since my first trip there in January 2019 – that feels like a lifetime ago with Covid19 and the temporary halt on everyone’s lives.
Instead of buying more time for my next pitches in these strange times, I decided to put all my favourites from my Scandinavian trip together to share so that people could dream of future plans to travel again when all this is over.
Looking back at my schedule, I realised that I was travelling every month for the past couple of years for “bleisure” mostly tagging along on my husband’s business trips in between going home to Singapore and France a couple of times a year.
In 2020, the last trip I made was in February when I went home to Singapore for my regular oncology checkups. Things started to escalate and I declined another trip to France in March given that we spent the entire month of January in Europe. My husband went on his own and came back to self-quarantine at home mid-March.
Copenhagen is stunning in winter, and not as cold as I imagined. Last January, I went on a gastro trip with one of my best friends and covered some amazing restaurants from the now-closed ** Michelin Faviken to ** Michelin Noma and *** Michelin Geranium in Copenhagen.
Stay
The PR kindly agreed to offer a media rate for me to spend 3 nights at the Nobis Hotel in Copenhagen. I would go back in a heartbeat when all this is over. If we didn’t have a packed schedule of heading out to eat and discover, we could have spent all day in the hotel. There’s also a Turkish Hamman in-house.
The Nobis Copenhagen combines Scandinavian contemporary design interiors in the classical heritage building that has seen many iterations and function over the century. It was first an insurance building and the first concrete building in Copenhagen. It was later converted into a music conservatory (excellent acoustics) before it was refurbished to its current gorgeous form as a hotel.
Food
We covered a fair bit of ground eating lots of street food. Danish hot dogs, the famous Gasoline grill burgers and tacos. What surprised me was every place had a vegetarian and oftentimes also vegan options available. Fresh, local produce and everything made à la minute.
Gasoline grill burgers are known as one of the world’s best on many lists.
We had plenty of different variations of hotdogs from hotdog stands and checked out several places in the hip and trendy meatpacking district of Copenhagen.
Highly recommend the bistro wine bar Paté Paté with its hearty menu and industrial chic vibe, tacos from Hija de Sanchez and hotdogs from John’s hotdog Deli where you pile on your own conditions. It was so good we had two rounds.
And then Danish butter cookies. My childhood was filled with those tins of goodness. We went to the source in this century-old store. Their apple tart is also delish.
Design and architecture
As I was on a mission for some great Scandinavian design stories, we made a point to check out key institutions for design. The DAC (Danish Architecture Centre) and The Design Museum whose permanent exhibitions covers design from the 20th century, from avant-garde to functionalism to environmentalism and recycling, including the iconic “Danish Chair” and “Porcelain”. There’s also a massive permanent collection on the history of chairs and I highly recommend it.
Art
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art was a little adventure out North of Copenhagen, a 30mins train ride offering beautiful views of the coast of Denmark. If you’re a Giacometti fan, there’s a whole salon devoted to it. While you’re on your way out, spend some time in the brilliantly curated shop – from beautiful cushion covers to ceramic vases. It’s a gift/souvenir shopping paradise.
The other brilliant exhibition I saw was Alicja Kwade at Kunsthal Charlottenborg and recommend checking out what exhibitions they offer. It’s a pretty small and intimate space and located by a picaresque area with plenty of photos opportunities.
We didn’t make it out to the Instagram perfect skate park Superkilen Park and would love to next time.
Shop
I don’t like shopping so it’s never on my list when I travel. However, I couldn’t resist the knick-knack shop Flying Tiger. The museums also have beautiful and unique gifts to take home. My friend bought lots of silverware at homegrown brand Georg Jensen – lookout for post-Christmas sales if you’re travelling there in the winter.
Well, that’s all folks, Copenhagen is such a lovely city and I’m looking forward to visiting in the summer.
