“Høst” means harvest, to make it clear that this Nordic restaurant in Copenhagen bases its dishes on the best seasonal ingredients. It is part of Cofoco, the Copenhagen Food Collective. Reservations are accepted for two shifts: you can either start between 5:30pm and 6:30pm, or between 8:15 and 9:15pm. Høst offers a tasting menu of 3 or 5 courses (395 DKK or 495 DKK) with wine pairing (295 DKK or 400 DKK). We opted for 5 courses.

The tasting menu includes 3 ‘surprises’ in addition to the 5 courses. The first was this scallop with green herbs, cucumber with raw shrimp, unripe strawberry…

…and radish with a dip of young cheese with rye crumble. I really liked the rye crumble, which had a great smoky flavor. The unripe strawberry was just that, not very pleasant.

The first course was a lighly smoked scallop with cucumber and horseradish. The sauce was made with skyr and dill oil. It was paired adequately with a Mosel Riesling. The scallop had a very nice tender texture.

Next was brown crab with tomato and raspberries, paired with an orange wine from Garnacha Blanca from Penedès in Spain. The flavor combination of the crab with the tomato and raspberry was very nice, but there were a few bits of shell in the crab.

The next surprise was a creamy mussel soup infused with fresh thyme. The thyme made it very fragrant.

The third course was a ‘Nordic taco’ of a cabbage leaf with shrimp, gooseberries, and fresh herbs. This was very nice and paired with another orange wine, this one a Gewürztraminer from Burgenland in Austria. The pairing was ok, but to me most orange wines taste the same.

The main course of the tasting menu was lightly baked salmon with green peas and trout roe, paired with a Grüner Veltliner from Wachau in Austria. The creamy salmon and the sweet crunchy but tender peas were outstanding.

The final surprise was amazing: a pine cone pickled in honey for 6 months. This was absolutely delicious.

Dessert was strawberries with vanilla ice cream and white chocolate, paired with a fizzy sweet Brachetto from Piemonte in Italy.

The food at Høst is creative and tasty. The portions are small so we were still hungry after the main course and asked for more bread (only one slice of bread was provided at the beginning). The wine pairings were adequate but not great. The service was way too slow in the beginning. The first surprise was served at 8:40pm and then we had to wait until 9:10pm for the first course. Then 10pm for the second course. These were all small servings, so we were getting very hungry by then. The salmon was served at 10:45pm and dessert at 11:30pm. We are not in a rush, but it is much nicer to get the food a bit more quickly in the beginning and then slow down instead of the other way around.