Copenhagen’s vibe and Jewish history are unmistakably hygge
Incredible food, lots of shopping, stunning castles and a fun theme park make for the perfect weekend
Louisa Walters is Features Editor at the Jewish News and specialises in food and travel writing
I felt it the minute I entered the arrivals hall at Copenhagen airport – the famous hygge*, wrapping itself around me like a hug. It was the floor that did it. In place of the stark, sterile white tiles that greet us at most airports was beautiful woodblock flooring – rich, warm and welcoming.
I felt it again when we arrived at our hotel, Grand Joanne, chosen for its location (five minutes’ walk from Tivoli Gardens), its price point (midway and manageable), its reviews (ranging from “very good” to “great” to “absolutely fabulous”) and for the décor which, like that flooring at the airport, radiated warmth – soft shades of peach, lots of wood, eclectic patterned fabrics – Soho House meets Firmdale. Even the gym equipment is made of Nordic wood.
And I felt that sense of contentment the whole time I was in Copenhagen. It’s an ‘easy’ city – gentle in its pace, everyone seems happy, you can get into all museums without booking in advance, the food is wonderful, and you can walk everywhere. Plus despite rumours of it being very expensive, we found it to be no more so than London
We had an eye out for Danish pastries and were wary of Danish bacon. It turns out that the pastries were invented in Austria, are mainly sought after in Jewish bakeries in north London, and are rarely spotted in Copenhagen. and we needn’t have worried about Danish bacon as it is is more of a 1970s British marketing slogan than a Danish staple. Having said that, it wouldn’t be spelt b-a-c-o-n, as that’s far too simple for a country where each item on a menu looks like a perfect word for a game of Scrabble. Our favourite game at mealtimes was calculating how much each dish would be worth with a triple-word score.
We ate at renowned fish restaurant Kødbyen Fiskebar which, counterintuitively for a seafood hotspot, is in the meatpackers’ district. It’s very Shoreditch, very minimalist, very lively and very very good.
Smørrebrød was a revelation—open-faced sandwiches so artfully presented that an ordinary sandwich will never again suffice. The best selection is at the Torvehallerne food hall, which has 60 indoor food stalls and an outdoor vegetable and flower market. At Aamans, a revered institution, we savoured our smørrebrød alongside a crisp glass of wine.
The Samuel, our choice for Michelin-starred indulgence, is housed in a stately townhouse in an elegant part of town. Dinner here was a litany of luxury. A memorable flourish was selecting our knives from an exquisite wooden box, and a tour of the wine cellar, home to such an extraordinary collection of Dom Pérignon that the master vintner himself had visited to autograph the labels. The meal began with individual brioche loaves, each large enough to feed a family of five. When we professed that one between us would do, the charming maitre d’, with a feigned air of Nordic gruffness, stated: “We are a Viking nation. We like a challenge.”
A claim to fame in København (as they spell it) is Stroget, the world’s longest pedestrianised street. My husband declared it “the longest shopping street where there’s nothing to buy.”
We spent a few hours with charming Jewish tour guide Ronen Thalmay, who took us on a journey through the city’s Jewish history. We learned that Denmark employed the greatest resistance to the Nazis in any of the occupied countries. When Germany invaded in 1940, the Prime Minister made a deal enabling Jews to live there peacefully and not wear the yellow star.
However, in September 1943 a tip-off that the Jews were to be sent to death camps spurred the Danish Resistance to smuggle all 7,800 of them to Sweden by boat in a single night. (We learned more about this at the Museum of Danish Resistance.) At the end of the war, 99 percent of Denmark’s Jews had survived. So too had the Torah scrolls, because the priest from the church opposite the shul had hidden them in the crypt.
Ronen took us to a Succot service in the synagogue (the only shul in Denmark for the 6,000 Jews who live there) which was built in 1833. A week beforehand, on the anniversary of October 7, all 1,100 seats were filled for a commemoration service attended by the Prime Minister. The huge number of bouquets left outside the building by supportive non-Jews was a moving display of solidarity.
We learned that Denmark’s literary treasure Hans Christian Andersen briefly attended a Jewish school and was close to many Jewish families. He wrote some of his fairytales in their homes, including a novel called The Jewish Girl. He claimed that “Jews are misunderstood outsiders like myself”.
We wandered along Nyhavn, famously lined with coloured houses, ending up at hippie commune Freetown Christiana, home to around 900 residents who live by their own set of rules, independent of Danish law.
Tivoli Gardens is the most astonishing thing I have ever seen in a city – an amusement park right in the centre. But unlike other amusement parks, and just like everything else in Copenhagen, it is civilised, calm and truly delightful. It was beautifully decorated for Halloween and transformed into a whimsical twinkling spectacle as night fell.
At Amalienborg Palace, the official residence of the Danish royal family, we joined the daily crowd gathered at noon for the changing of the guard. Opposite stands Frederik’s Church, known as the Marble Church, its grand dome an architectural masterpiece. We wandered through the gardens of Rosenborg Castle in the sunshine to admire the Danish crown jewels and a stunning collection of Venetian glass. We marched along the halls of the opulent Christiansborg Palace, to see the legendary Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica dinner service – reputedly the most expensive crockery ever crafted.
We left the best until last – Ny Carlsberg Glypotek. This beautiful museum houses a breathtaking collection of sculptures by, among others, Rodin and Carpeaux, which once belonged to the founder of Carlsberg, 19th-century brewing magnate Carl Jacobsen. To misquote the company’s long-running advertising campaign, these are “probably the best sculptures in the world”. Copenhagen is certainly one of the best cities in the world, and it is unmistakably hygge.
*Hygge means warmth, companionship and wellbeing
Rooms at Grand Joanne start from £115. grandjoanne.dk
Jewish walking tours can be booked at jewish-copenhagen.dk
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