Baltic Bliss

The hub of activity and the main dining areas are situated at and around Europe’s longest pedestrian street, called Stroget. The entrance to Stroget is approximately 30 minutes walk from the Langelinie Pier and one hour walk from the Freeport. Stroget runs from Kongens Nytorv square to Radhuspladsen (Town Hall Square), about one mile.

It’s futile to make specific recommendations for dining - there are so many good restaurants in Copenhagen. But we have a few favorites that we list below. Your room rate will likely include breakfast, so you will be off to a good start. For lunch or dinner, you can hardly go wrong. Ask for recommendations at your hotel or try one of our favorites.

Best Afternoon Snack
Konditori La Glace. Along Stroget, this bakery/confectionary opened in 1870, five years before the death of Hans Christian Andersen, Copenhagen’s master of fairy tales. “We can only assume that he visited here,” Marianne Kolos, the owner since 1987, tells us. During 2005, the bicentennial of Andersen’s birth, Kolos will introduce a series of special cakes and desserts designed to commemorate the fairy tale writer.

What to eat: A slice of the cake that La Glace has been famous for since 1891: Sportsmage (Sports Cake). It has nothing to do with fitness but was named after a play. It is heavy and filling, made with crushed nougat in whipped cream, macaroon bottom and eclairs dipped in caramel. Delicious with a cup of coffee.

Best Lunch And Museum Combination
If you’re visiting either the Karen Blixen Museum or the Louisiana Art Museum, just outside Copenhagen, stop for lunch at a century-and-a-half-old restaurant located in a 250-year-old thatched-roof home, Rungsted Kro, (just past the Shell Station heading north from the Karen Blixen Museum.)

For lunch, be sure to try the Scandinavian specialty, Smorrebrod, an open-faced sandwich of sorts. The Kroplatte, or The Innkeepers Platter (pictured), is a sampler platter that comes with the requisite herring in the center (the locals usually eat it first), a fried filet of fish, and six items on individual beds of lettuce to place on bread.

There are two types of bread, white bread and Rugbrod, dark bread with sunflower seeds served with the Kroplatte. But don’t dip your knife into the white buttery stuff if you want to keep your arteries clean. It’s lardlike, meant to be spread on your bread, but a little heavy and greasy for our tastes. The herring, on the other hand, will clean your arteries. It is prepared with capers, onions and tomatoes and is raw and marinated. You will find herring throughout Scandinavia, and you may even begin to like it. Cost of the meal with a glass of Carlsberg Pilsner was DKK 149 when we were there in 2003, about $22.50 (a glass of beer, on average, in Denmark is around $6).

Best Traditional Dinner
Every time we go to Copenhagen, we head for a traditional Danish dinner at either Peder Oxe or Bof & Ost. Sitting side-by-side, the two restaurants are situated on one of the city’s most beautiful squares, Grabrodretorv (Grey Friar’s Square), just off Stroget.

Peder Oxe serves traditional Danish fare, with a great salad bar and bottles of house wine marked with gradients that are measured so that you pay only for what you consume. Downstairs is a wine bar.

On my last visit in 2004, I had the salad bar with baked potato and a Carlsberg Special Draft for DKK 118, about $20.

Bof and Ost, a gourmet steak house, features wonderful outdoor seating. When I was there in October 2004, there was a chill in the air, but I sat outside, beneath a propane heater, under a series of umbrellas that form a tent over the few dozen tabletops. Out front logs burned in shallow buckets elevated on pedestals, an inviting symbol of warmth. Inside, logs crackled in a fireplace. The food and the setting are great.

Other recommendations:Saint Gertrud’s Kloster, situated in an old monastery that is lighted only by candles - 1,200 of them.

Best Place To People Watch And Bask In The Sun

Nyhavn with its many good restaurants, the “New Harbor” is a hive of activity in a gorgeous setting.