How Danish gastronomy reached dizzying heights

How Danish gastronomy reached dizzying heights

It’s home to the top two eateries in the world and a cornucopia of Michelin stars: Denmark’s haute cuisine, non-existent 20 years ago, is making Copenhagen a top destination for gourmands. Noma and its star chef Rene Redzepi, and Geranium headed by Rasmus Kofoed, clinched the top two spots in the 50 Best Restaurant awards recently published by British magazine Restaurant.

“They were nobody 20 years ago when Rene Redzepi started to reinvent the Nordic cuisine, focusing on local, ethical food,” says Szilvia Gyimothy, a marketing professor at Copenhagen Business School. “It was quite unique and now he is an agenda-setter.” With cold winters and sandy fields battered by winds from the North Sea and Baltic, Denmark is worlds away from the sun-drenched orchards of France, Italy and Spain, whose bountiful crops have served up gastronomic feasts for centuries.

Paradoxically, Denmark’s culinary successes have been partly attributed to the country having no gastronomic traditions to speak of, leaving the field wide open to innovation and creativity. There are “many restaurants in the world where the chefs … rest on their laurels (and) are not so creative. Rene Redzepi and Rasmus Kofoed are never satisfied with what they’ve achieved,” says Bent Christensen, founder