Surt was one of the first to make the old brewery area Carlsberg Byen into a hot spot. People are known to cross half the city just to grab a pizza baked by Italian owner Giuseppe Oliva, who was also a key player in chef Christian Puglisi’s Baest, Copenhagen’s first upmarket Italian restaurant. Surt is ideal for lunch, when you can tuck into a Sur Pie baked in a tray, and equally good in the evening for the full experience: ancient grain-based sourdough pizzas loaded with a deep red sauce made from Sicilian siccagno tomatoes and topped with items like Hindsholm pork sausage and buffalo mozzarella. There’s also a great selection of wine from Italian producers, though if that’s not enough you can check out Surt’s sister wine bar, Lĭquo, nearby.

Local chefs and food writers keep coming back to this two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Gentofte, a 20-minute drive from the town center, and buckling down for the 18-course tasting. It’s only a matter of time before visitors catch onto chef Eric Kragh Vildgaard’s excellent cooking and freewheeling spirit. See, for example, the Nordic Japanese hybrid that is a dish of black currant “branches” paired with miso and caviar.

Mathias Silberbauer’s French bistro, decked out with red-checked tablecloths, is a go-to for beef onglet with pepper sauce, mussels topped with generous dollops of aioli, classic escargot with loads of garlic and herb butter, and pissaladière (an onion tart that’s a must-order if it’s on the menu). The chef used to run his own restaurant in Nice, and he’s a veteran of Relæ, Bæst, as well as Manfreds, the iconic restaurant that Silberbauers replaced. There’s an extensive wine list and knowledgeable staff to unlock its potential.

Jonathan Tam’s background at Relae and Noma certainly shaped him as a chef, but he’s managed to show off a unique cooking style at his own first restaurant. The tasting menu focuses on Nordic ingredients, like sea urchins or scallops from legendary diver Roddie Sloan in Norway, and Danish ones in particular, like pork (served char siu-style) from Hindsholm farm. Jatak works closely with 15-plus different suppliers to fill the kitchen shelves each week, while the sommeliers pour bottles from small winemakers that you hardly see elsewhere. Sit and dine at the counter to see everything in the open kitchen. It’s no surprise that Jatak (meaning “Yes, please” in Danish) got awarded a Michelin star within its first months.

After a few rounds at the bar, it’s time for one last meal before bedtime. That’s when you find the nearest Kebabistan. The mini-chain serves chicken, lamb, or mixed shawarma with fries, which all benefit from the addition of the stand’s homemade chile oil.

Pompette is a tiny wine bar and shop offering a great selection of natural wine at affordable prices; there’s always a red, white, and orange on offer for roughly the same price as a pint of beer. The owners also operate Poulette next door, which sells a spicy fried chicken sandwich worth traveling for, along with an equally tasty tofu version.

Copenhagen is home to some of the best coffee bars in Europe. Prolog, opened by Jonas Gehl and Sebastian Quistorff back in 2016, has two shops in the city, both hubs for the most devoted coffee nerds. Opt for the one in Kødbyen to enjoy pastries from Juno bakery and a nice cup of java. Prolog works directly with around 30 different farmers, mainly from Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Ethiopia, and Kenya. You can also stock up on beans and all kinds of coffee equipment.

This energetic and indispensable restaurant in the Meatpacking District serves seafood dishes from chef Jamie Lee and wines chosen by Anders Selmer every day of the week. The vibe, killer snacks, and a la carte format make Fiskebar equally suited for a full meal or a quick glass of wine with some fish and chips. In the warmer months, the team arranges beach chairs in the lot out front where you can post up with a bottle of wine as the day winds down.

Since opening its doors back in 2017, Slurp has launched a ramen trend that spread all over the Nordic countries. Founder Philipp Inreiter, a protégé of Noma, traveled Japan and came back with a passion for broth and noodles. The ramen is Tokyo-style and Inreiter doesn’t hold back on the spice, making a bowl perfect on a cold winter’s day. There are two locations in the city: The original accepts only walk-ins, while the second shares space with sister restaurant Kōnā, which serves up Japanese-inspired dishes.

Executive chef Brett Lavender has a background in classic fine dining across the globe. At Ark he focuses that experience on a fully vegan tasting menu, which earned the restaurant a green star from the Michelin Guide. Selections follow the seasons, but the fluffy brioche, made without eggs, milk, or butter, is a constant signature. It’s served up with a fake foie gras made of lion’s mane mushrooms grown on owner Jason Renwick’s urban farm, Funga, which also supplies several other restaurants in the city. Ex-Noma head sommelier Pontus Elofsson consults on the wine program.

It might actually be illegal to leave the Danish capital without having smørrebrød. Selma doesn’t prepare them according to traditional style; instead, chef-owner Magnus Pettersson treats his sandwiches like proper dishes worthy of modern expressions. The toppings are often seasonal and beautifully presented, like the dark red beetroot and horseradish herring smørrebrød adorned with tiny boat-shaped onion slivers, or another topped with a breathtaking tower of shrimp and flowers. Alongside, there’s a wide selection of craft beers and house-infused akvavit (“snaps” in Danish).

There are a lot of accolades that justify a visit to Geranium. Chef Rasmus Kofoed is the only competitor to have won bronze, silver, and gold medals at the Bocuse d’Or cooking contest in Lyon, France. The restaurant holds three Michelin stars and was crowned No. 1 by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2022. Even after the kitchen took all red meat off the tasting menu, stirring a storm in local media, the country’s most feared restaurant reviewer, Søren Frank at Berlingske, gave the restaurant the paper’s top grade, six stars. Don’t be fooled by the restaurant’s location in the same building as the city’s soccer stadium; this top-tier kitchen doesn’t play around.

This is the ultimate lunch spot for smørrebrød, best paired with a local beer. Both the interior and the smørrebrød are old-school, yet the vibe is fun, with servers cracking jokes and guests singing as they down shots of snaps. Come hungry because portions are generous in dishes like the classic fried plaice filets with remoulade or the impressive tower of Greenland shrimp with red and white mayonnaise. Other popular options include chicken salad, tartare, and roast beef. The restaurant is immensely popular so don’t forget to book ahead.

Home to some of the best cinnamon buns in the Nordics, Juno is run by Swede Emil Glaser, a veteran of Noma. The tiny bakery in Østerbro is a year-round winner, from semlor (cream-filled buns) on Shrove Tuesday in February to lussekatter (saffron buns) in December, and it’s always worth any wait for a chance to try the black cardamom buns and croissants. When you finally reach the front of the queue, pair your prizes with a cup from Koppi, the Swedish company that has played a vital role in advancing Scandinavia’s coffee scene.

The dining room at restaurateur Christian Nedergaard’s Admiralgade 26 feels like the Copenhagen apartment of your dreams, while the menu seamlessly incorporates influences from Italy, Spain, and Japan, including Japanese choushoku breakfast on Saturdays served with rice and miso soup. Make your leisurely visit even longer with a stop at Nedergaard’s neighboring wine bar, Ved Stranden 10, where servers will set you up with an excellent glass before sending you out to sit along the canal, if the weather agrees.

This fine dining restaurant is an institution, and many young talented chefs have kicked off careers in the kitchen. It was the first restaurant in Copenhagen to ever receive a Michelin star in 1983 and it got its second one in 2021 with Mark Lundgaard as the head chef. The dining rooms are located underground, in the cellar of the oldest building in Copenhagen, an auspicious site for the restaurant’s classic cooking rooted in French gastronomy, like turbot cooked in a salt crust, whole roasted duck, and an impressive cheese cart. The cellar is a gem for wine nerds into old-school wines, and the tasting menu comes with several exclusive pairings on offer.

One of the city’s best burgers emerges from a working gas station. Owner Klaus Wittrup was one of the first in Copenhagen to make quality burgers from freshly ground beef cooked to order. Since the burger hype started in 2016, he’s opened several shops around the city, including a location at the airport. Organic meat (or fungi for vegetarians) sits on a fluffy potato bun with pickles and some greens, and you can add truffle salt or vinegar to your fries. Note: The restaurant is open until sold out.

Barabba just vibrates. The vibe has much to do with its Italian owner Riccardo Marcon’s personal approach to service. With a background in fine dining (he was opening beverage director of the now-closed Noma sister restaurant 108), Marcon has created a restaurant that delivers at a high level but stripped of all the fancy details. The food is Italian, though the kitchen seems more concerned with pleasure than tradition when creating dishes; the much-talked-about spaghetti with butter, colatura, and caviar, for instance, is beloved by influencers on Instagram. You can order a la carte, but there’s also a set tasting menu on offer for those who’d like the whole shebang. The wine list carries a great selection from the natural wine world, and the Negroni, with a dash of absinthe, is said to be one of the best in the city.

After leading the kitchen at Michelin-starred Marchal, the exclusive restaurant in the grand Hotel D’Angleterre, chef Andreas Bagh moved just across the street to open Esmée, inside the premises that used to be chef celebrity Bo Bech’s Geist. The cooking at the new restaurant isn’t about chasing after the French gastro bible, but it still reflects a fondness for the finer things: fluffy little gougéres filled with Comté and truffle, blinis with Danish lumpfish roe (that can be upgraded to caviar), spectacular grilled whole turbot. Save space for the soft serve.

Pickling, preserving, and fermenting are themes at Kadeau, which holds two Michelin stars. The kitchen sources much of its produce from the fertile soil of Danish island Bornholm, also home to Kadeau’s sister restaurant of the same name. Don’t miss the signature twice-smoked salmon (first cold smoked, then hot), finished off at the table. Plates are stunning, sometimes carefully decorated with frames of edible flowers. If co-owner Rasmus Kofoed is on the floor, he might persuade you into trying some Danish wine.

Few chefs in the city are as serious about seafood as Australian native Beau Clugston, who works closely with local fishermen to source items for Iluka. The menu, which changes constantly, sees dishes like seafood tartare, octopus with oyster cream, and Danish sea snails. You can also opt for the set menu and let the kitchen make all the decisions. The wine program is devoted to organic and biodynamic winemakers, often showcasing smaller producers and lesser-known wine regions. The venue offers all the flexibility of a neighborhood restaurant: Book well in advance or swing by to grab seats at the bar.

Located around the corner from the perennially thronged row houses of Nyhavn, the understated wine bar Den Vandrette is something of an oasis. Owner Sune Rosforth is one of Copenhagen’s leading importers of biodynamic wines, and here his team serves a thoughtful selection of charcuterie and cheese that plays well with the formidable list. There are some exceptional orange wines on offer from Georgia, ideally paired with some Georgian khachapuri.

Other local chefs speak about Thorsten Schmidt with a bit of awe, in part because diners can come to Barr over and over and always receive the same high level of food and service. This harborfront eatery celebrates the flavors of the European beer belt with plenty of craft brews, a show-stopping schnitzel, and some very luxurious smørrebrød. The wine list carries some of the natural wine world’s most popular labels, like Frank Cornelissen and Tschida.

The fine dining chefs and fermentation experts of Noma started Popl during the pandemic, but the burger restaurant has set down permanent roots. The signature cheeseburger features beef sourced from some of Denmark’s most respected organic cattle farms, cooked in butter and glazed with beef garum. The veggie burgers are some of the best in the city too — made with urban-farmed lion’s mane mushrooms or fermented quinoa inoculated with tempeh spores — brushed with a glaze of yeast garum, fava bean shoyu, and smoked vegan butter. Don’t miss the pickles plate as a side. There’s craft beer and natural wine to drink alongside, and a bottle shop stacked with Noma sommeliers’ favorite producers.

Thanks to Mads Battefeld, Copenhagen finally boasts a world-class (and according to many, Michelin-worthy) sushi omakase. This eight-seat restaurant, one of the toughest to book in the city, distinguishes itself by serving sustainable seafood from the Nordic region. Nigiri preparations include aged wild trout from South Sjaelland, cross-hatch-cut herring with sesame and umeboshi, and a honey-infused tamago cooked over charcoal. Together with sake sommelier Henrik Ando Levinsen, Battefeld also runs sister restaurant Kappo Ando, which offers a more casual setting. 

When former Tartine head baker Richard Hart made his Copenhagen debut in 2018, the lines snaked around the block. By all accounts, he exceeded expectations with his super-seeded rye bread and signature “city loaf” sourdough. Hart now works in Mexico (though he remains a co-owner at Hart Bageri), so Talia Richard-Carvajal calls the shots as head baker. There are also two locations now: the original premises on Gammel Kongevej and a second in Holmen with a big outdoor seating area. Both shops are busy, and the latter sometimes runs out of pastries by the end of the day, so arrive early. The Basque cheesecake is killer, best messily scooped up with a spoon, according to Hart. 

With around 50 different food stalls spread across 65,000 square feet, this street food market is the largest of its kind in the Nordics. Set on the island Refshaleøen, the market encompasses food trucks offering Nepalese dishes, Moroccan food, Nordic hotdogs, and more. Take your pick, grab some drinks from the bar, and find a chair to lounge in the sun.

After 20 years of service, Noma needs little introduction. Come here for seasonal menus in the summer, fall, or winter, and you can have three completely different experiences, with the chance to try dishes that may end up going viral, like the celeriac shawarma from one summer. Even as the restaurant rockets towards its finale in 2024 — when co-owner René Redzepi says the dining room will close for regular service — the kitchen, led by head chef Kenneth Foong, can still deliver a stunning meal. Ali Sonko, the dishwasher turned co-owner, greets guests at the entrance, followed by drinks in the greenhouse. Head sommelier Ava Mees backs up the food with carefully selected drops from the natural wine world and an equally impressive nonalcoholic selection. Keep track of open bookings via the restaurant’s newsletter, and don’t rest on your opportunity to snag a table.