Danish Cuisine
Considering that restaurants in Denmark— and more broadly, Scandinavia— have gained significant international attention, attracting food tourism to the region, it’ s somewhat surprising that New Nordic Cuisine hasn’ t become more prominent in Washington.
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Mikko Nordic Fine Food in the city’ s Dupont Circle neighborhood( 1636 R St. NW) is one place you can dine on smørrebrød, the traditional Danish open-face sandwiches. Varieties include salmon gravlax, shrimp skagen, and herring. The tiny( three tables and a four-stool bar) is run by Mikko Kosonen, former chef at the Finnish embassy. It’ s a popular brunch spot with specialties like Lingonberry bread pudding served French toast style. The bar menu gets creative, offering pickled Viking martinis and Nordic mimosas. Among specialty desserts: salty licorice ice cream.
If you’ re lucky enough to get an invite to the Danish embassy, you’ ll feast like a Dane. Weeks before Thanksgiving, embassy chef Lasse Fredrik Jensen was finalizing details for the annual Christmas party, which attracts 800 guests. On the menu: shrimp and cod from Greenland, along with fresh and smoked salmon from the Faroe Islands.( Both are part of the Kingdom of Denmark.) But the highlight of every Danish Christmas feast is the pork roast.
Success is all about the skin, which must be roasted to crispy, crackling perfection.
“ That’ s how you’ ll be judged( on the meal),” quipped Oliver Skov, the embassy’ s communications chief.“ If it’ s just a little off, Christmas will be ruined.”
“ We like to say there are more pigs than people in Denmark,” he continued. Most of it is exported, so that prosciutto you assumed was Italian or the serrano ham you took for Spanish might well be from Denmark.
Sourcing ingredients for truly traditional meals can be a challenge, said Jensen.( He pre-orders the holiday pork roasts from Denmark, but Danish pork is sometimes available at high-end groceries like Whole Foods and Wegmans.)
The so-called New Nordic Cuisine movement was initiated by a“ manifesto” written in 2004 by food activist Claus Meyer with input from other Scandinavian chefs. They included Rene Redzepi, former head chef of Noma, the three-Michelin-starred Copenhagen restaurant and five-time World’ s Best Restaurant winner.( A pop-up version is set to open in Los Angeles in 2026.)
The purpose of the manifesto was to promote local, seasonal ingredients and prepare them using both traditional and modern methods.
“ It was a reaction to hard strawberries in January and orange tomatoes from Spain,” Jensen said.“ They wanted to go back to basics.”
Among restaurants, Noma was a leader in New Nordic Cuisine, which expanded as former employees started their own eateries, including many bakeries.
Which brings us back to the topic of wienerbrød, or, to English speakers, Danish. As Jensen related, in the 1800s, Denmark experienced a shortage of bakers. So, Austrian bakers were recruited, which explains why they call the pastry Vienna bread.
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