Geranium in Copenhagen by chef Rasmus Kofoed has held 3 Michelin stars since 2016 and is ranked 6th on the World’s 50 best restaurants. A perfect location to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.

The restaurant is located on the top floor of Copenhagen’s soccer stadium and offers wonderful sunset views.

There is a set menu of 18 courses for DKK 3200. The wine pairing is offered at four price points: DKK 2000, 4000, 6000, or a whopping 18,000. We opted for the DKK 4000 pairing.

It is very difficult to get a reservation, as the number of tables is limited. Online reservations for a specific day open up approximately 90 days in advance at midnight, and are all booked within seconds. It helps to ‘practice’ in advance, also to know when reservations for your desired date open up (as for me it was not exactly 90 days) and to create a user account on the reservation site beforehand. There is a waiting list and that is how I got the reservation in the end.

Salted herring in crispy algae with dill stems and aquavit. The chef is a master at creating dishes where the components become one new whole, and that starts with the first course and continues all the way to the last.

Lightly smoked bleak roe, with a milk custard, kale and apple.

Here you can look inside to see the layers. There was crispy dashi on top. Kale is usually a bold flavor, but here it became part of the whole.

Cucumber stuffed with oysters, spring shoots, and snail eggs. The presentation of all the dishes is very precise and finicky. There are five small pieces of cucumber, all of exactly the same size, hollowed out, and stuffed with oyster. The wonder is that it doesn’t taste like just cucumber and oyster, but becomes one integrated flavor and texture combination.

The first wine is a Grosses Gewachs Riesling from Nahe in Germany. A rich mineral style with low acidity for a Riesling.

It was a good pairing for the raw baby vegetables with crispy scallops and a trout roe emulsion. The ‘mayo’ serves as ‘glue’ to get the crispy scallops to stick to the vegetables. There was fennel, green asparagus, snow peas, carrot, radish, and beetroot.

Beetroot with dried blueberries and a horseradish vinaigrette. The beetroot was very thinly sliced and beautifully arranged — I would not enjoy working in the kitchen here! Another good pairing with the Riesling.

The next wine was an oaked Sauvignon Blanc from Napa Valley, that reminded me of a white Pessac-Leognan from Bordeaux. It was excellent with beautiful aromas.

The caviar for the next dish was mixed by the table with fermented cream…

…which was then spooned over Danish smoked cheese wrapped in a thin sheet of celeriac. It was a delicious dish and a great pairing with the wine. Outstanding.

The following wine was a Meursault-Blagny 1er Cru. A classic rich (but not too buttery) and mineral Meursault.

This was paired very well with new potatoes, fermented cabbage, lovage, and mustard seeds. The potatoes were at the bottom as a puree and had great flavor.

The next dish was introduced by showing the ingredients: green asparagus and wild herbs.

The dish itself looked even more pretty. The chef really likes ‘stencils’, which appear in many of the dishes. The sauce was made from aged Danish cheese and brought everything together. Another very good pairing with the Meursault.

The wine for the next course was a vintage champagne, aged for 11 years on the lees. A very nice aged champagne with beautiful aromas of toasted bread.

This was paired very well with what was announced as the “bread course”: a crispy bread pancake made with buttermilk, with ramson and winter truffle.

The sommelier liked to give a show and opened up bottles of wine by removing the top of the bottle using heated tongs.

This is a useful technique for bottles of more than 20 years old when it is impossible to get the cork out in the normal way. Here it was done with a 2017 bottle and therefore just for show, with applause (started by the kitchen staff).

The Volnay Santenots 1er Cru was excellent, with great depth and crunchy fruit. I had heard this term before to describe a wine, but this time it was appropriate.

The Volnay was paired with turbot covered with langoustine…

…served with morels and mushrooms. The turbot with langoustines became like one new sea creature that was absolutely delicious. The combination with the mushrooms and wine was wonderful.

The next course was a buttery soup with grilled white asparagus, pickled elderberries, truffle, and coffee. It was a nice dish, but the pairing with the red wine was awful. We pointed this out to the staff, who asked what we would like instead. I thought the Meursault would work, and it was wonderful with the dish. According to the staff they had already mentioned to the chef that this dish should be earlier in the menu to be paired with the Meursault, but they said the chef was very stubborn about this.

The palate cleanser included aroma of hackberry, wood sorrel, and frozen ymer.

The first dessert wine was an Auslese Riesling from Mosel, nicely sweet but balanced and very aromatic.

It was a good pairing with the pearls of yogurt with rhubarb and frozen black currant leaf tea.

Next with the same wine two pearls: one with a sunchoke reduction and one with dark chocolate. Surprisingly, the Riesling worked with the dark chocolate.

The final wine was a “6 puttonyos” Tokaji Aszú from Hungary. Very nicely balanced.

This was paired very well with sea buckthorn, carrot, pumpkin seeds, and white chocolate.

The frozen raspberry juice and mild liquorice was another example of a wonderful presentation that was also delicious.

The red currant, strawberry, and chocolate cake came with another stencil.

With coffee (espresso hand-pressed at the table) or tea came a warm potato cake with nutmeg and tykmælk (thick soured milk)…

…and milk chocolate with pickled rose hip.

This was one of the best, and one of the most expensive, meals we’ve ever had. The food is outstanding and the chef has a very clear original style. He doesn’t use many contrasts (as seems to have been fashionable for a while now) but instead creates a harmony that is complex and balanced and seems to belong together naturally. There was no meat at all, but we did not miss it. A lot of vegetables and some seafood. The wines were amazing, which they should be considering the hefty price tag. The service was outstanding, very friendly and not at all formal. The serving staff was very attentive and took the time to interact with the guests. Something strange is that, except for the chef, there are no Danes working at the restaurant. More than half is Italian, but also Dutch, Belgian, Polish, Lithuanian, and probably some more. Luckily all Danes speak English, because the staff wouldn’t be able to serve Danish clientele in their own language.

This was amazing, we’ll be back!