Danish Food Culture: What Sweden Didn’t Prepare Me For

I grew up in Malmö, which is twenty minutes from Copenhagen by train. The food cultures are close enough that I assumed I understood Danish eating. I was wrong in a number of specific ways.

The first: the Danes eat earlier than Swedes. Dinner at six is normal. Dinner at eight is late. I arrived thinking 7:30 was reasonable and discovered the kitchen was closing. This took about six months to recalibrate.

The second: the pastry. Danish pastry in Denmark — wienbrød — is categorically different from what Sweden or any other country calls Danish pastry. The lamination is more precise, the butter content is higher, and the range at a good bageri is extraordinary. Lagkagehuset (lagkagehuset.dk) is the chain that maintains the standard across the city. Hart Bageri (hartbageri.dk — Gammel Kongevej 109, Frederiksberg) is the independent one worth seeking out — the croissants are the best I have found outside Paris.

The third: the concept of hygge as a food practice. It is real and it is not a brand. Eating at someone’s home in Copenhagen has a specific quality of unhurriness — candles, good food, the meal as the main event rather than a preliminary to something else. When invited, the experience is the thing that finally made me understand why people want to live here.