I just got a new small camera yesterday, an IXUS 950. The other one wasn’t good enough for dark places in the evening, which shows at the dessert images at my MR dinner. I’m excited to see how well it will perform next time I’m dining gourmet – or anything good food.

If I were you, I’d ask my girlfriend to carry the small camera in her bag just in case. I would be dreadful to regret not having the opportunity to immortalize the beautiful food. Well, maybe that’s just me.

Good luck anyway!

By the way, I really look forward to a post on your blog about noma – when are you dining there?

Tyven’s closed and Kasper Rune Sørensen from Kommandanten will open a new restaurant there called Nouveau in August?

Can’t find a website…?!

Well, we all know that it closed, but now I’ve found the chef and also where to get his good food.

Kasper Rune Sørensen has taken over the little place in Magstræde with the funny name Tyvenkokkenhanskoneoghendeselsker. He plans to redecorate a bit and in early August open after the summer holidays under a new name Nouveau.

Good luck Kasper, you deserve it!

No unfortunately, I didn’t know about La Caravelle, it looks fabulous and very French.

I loved Marseilles and especially Aix, maybe because both of them reminded me of Italy, going there in three weeks and I just can’t wait.

Did you have coffee aux deax Garcons? I didn’t find it strong enough for an espresso. The coffee they made at Le Clos was much better.

I had (having) one of the best days of my life today. I took the TGV from Marseilles to Aix en Provence, which reminds me very much of the Volterra in Tuscany, but bigger (the style of houses, narrow and with the shutters), strolled around for a little while, warm and sunny and blue sky, the markets full of people and of food and other stuff, dropped in for (not the best) cup of coffee at the Les Deux Garcons, got lost, got help from a French woman from out of town, who guided me back to the Cours Maribeau, so that I could afterwards find my way to the most divine lunch spot of Aix. I didn’t want to leave it, in the end. (More later about this, of course). A marvellous and peaceful place.

All these fantastic restaurants are really keeping me busy, and I’m already so much behind now.

Anyways, I wanted to tell you also that, when was it, oh yes Thursday evening, I had dinner at the Des Mets de Provence, which is a classical Provencal style spot with not two identical glasses or plates on the tables, overwhelming colourful, a fireplace in the middle of the room, overdecorated walls with photos, paintings, pots and pans, and flowers. This place is a gem, and very nice food. I had carrots soup with some lovely olive oil and pepper and goat’s cheese (which I didn’t eat, because I’m not so keen on this), various delectable appetizers, a fresh, moist and tender sea bass with crispy and tasty skin followed by the dessert with pear, ice cream and caramel. The coffee was good too – strong the way I like it. The restaurant is on the left side of the Quai of the Vieux Port when you face the Chateaux d’If. Good food. I have uploaded the photos to my site http://picasaweb.google.com/verygoodfood. It was very dark that evening so the photos didn’t come out that well.

I better stop for now and pop out and enjoy the last sunbeam and my last Marseillaise evening, unfortunately.

About the -s, well aren’t you the expect here?

cheers
Trine

I just discovered a mention of Luns restaurant on Joe Belmaati’s wine forum (www.belmaati.com). Most people who post there seem to be Danes: some of you Danes drink some great wines!

The link is http://www.belmaati.com/post-97741.html#97741

So apparently the guy who runs Luns used to run a restaurant called Ensemble which had some michelin stars. Luns is not the sort of place that would get Michelin stars: it’s too informal and there are no tablecloths. But I think it is ‘hygge’, to use my favourite danish word (sadly, one of the few I know, but it is a very useful one).

To answer your question, the service was like the restaurant: friendly, informal, and well done. There is a short wine list but everything we tried on it was brilliant. They also have some millionaires’ wines (Domaine de la Romanée Conti, or ‘DRC’ for the nerds). But I’ll leave those for the millionaires.

I love Rhone wines. The two we had at Luns were from the southern Rhone: one by a maker called Gramenon, a 100% grenache called ‘…Cepe centenaires’ (2004) — can’t quite remember the name because I was a little jolly when I wrote it down. But Gramenon is the name to remember. The appellation was just Cotes du Rhone but it was an incredibly perfumed and delicate wine. Fantastic. Then we had a chateauneuf du pape, Clos des Mont Olivet 1998. That was really good too, more earthy and complex maybe than the Gramenon. But great.

I agree with you that foam can be a good addition to a dish (my favourite ‘foamy’ restaurant in London: Pied a Terre, Charlotte St, W1; they have a set lunch for £27, it is worth it!). But sometimes restaurants aim too high and cover their inadequacies with foam!

I’ll stop rambling now.

Look forward to your news about Marseilles.
Tim
PS There is this very odd thing that in English, the French cities of Marseille and Lyon are spelled ‘Marseilles’ and ‘Lyons’. Why???

My Tuesday evening dinner was an experience that I would like to post a review of, but I’m still working on it. Would prefer not to reveal the name of this sense exciting restaurant prior to posting. I hope that’s OK. Hope you’ll stay tuned (and patient).

Yup, the list’s no. 1+2 are on my wishing list, but one need to plan far in advance. In January I checked El Bulli and it’s fully booked for 2007! I wonder if that applies for the Fat Duck as well.

Do you usually get people to cost your dinners? You seem to get your way around Copenhagen, if I may say so.

I love the lentils, but have them rarely and that’s a pity. No, never tried Luns. What’s your impression of the service there?

Are you a fan of Rhone wines? Please, yes details.

It’s so funny that you mention the foam, cause I was thinking yesterday that this seems to be the new trend. I confess that I’m a foam fan because of the combination of flavour intensity combined with lightness, which appears surprising to me in a way, when it’s good. At noma they really know how to do that.

Sorry for all my questions. (Well, actually I’m not. It’s just an attempt of appearing polite).

Trine

Your remarks about simplicity remind me of what Einstein said: we should make things as simple as possible, but not more simple than that. That should be a motto for restaurants!

I hope that we will be able to go to Noma, your descriptions of it make it sound wonderful.

Where did you eat in Marseilles? I need to have some recommendations for when I go there again.

I’m from London and my favourite restaurant there is St John (www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk) where the food is very simple but perfect. But it is not to everyone’s taste: large pieces of meat, or offal, grilled or stewed or braised, english cheese, French wine, wonderful bread. Have you ever been there? I think it is about no.35 on the list you mention on which Noma is no.15…

El Bulli (never been there) and the Fat Duck (ditto) are nos. 1 and 2 on that list. Have you been to these places? I am sceptical of chemistry and ‘foam’ in general, but I am willing to be persuaded! (especially if someone else is paying)

Tonight we went to Luns restaurant (øster farimagsgade 12). Do you know it? I loved it. We had charcuterie followed by braised veal with onions, with puy lentils; the wine (Rhone) was fabulous (will give more details if anyone is interested). Simplicity itself. Copenhagen has such variety.

best regards
Tim

Thank you very much for your sweet comment and compliment. It’s so kind of you.

You talk about the concept of the tasting menu (a worldwide, outworn trend?), assuming it would comprise a good number of dishes and thus many different ingredients, tastes. My opinion on it is, that the key to a good dinner of that kind is as you say simplicity. The kitchen has to keep each dish uncomplicated, and the eating experience should appear easy to comprehend and to digest. If every plate is a bomb of various flavours and odours, the mind cannot cope with no more, at some point. It gets blurry and your (my) senses get fed up. Such impression doesn’t leave you with a light feeling afterwards, I guess. I was quite stuffed myself after my evening at Famo 51.

To be simple not only goes for food, but for so many other things like photography for example, get closer to the object you’re shooting, in presentations, only a few and clear points, and elaborate on these. My question is: Can it ever get too simple? I’m not sure.

I actually I had a very delectable tasting meal last night – in Marseille, France. Most of it was kept very simple.

As for your question about the Kommandanten restaurant (where I never went unfortunately), it closed down about one or two months ago. The scene of excellent Copenhagen restaurants is changing rapidly at the moment, it seems. You say that you’re in the city for three weeks, if you get the change I really (really really) recommend you to go for lunch at noma. It’s so good, needless to say.

I have taken note of the Babbo (daddy) in NY, in case I get a second chance of going there. Can you recommend any other great or brilliant places, of this world, where the chef knows how to play it simple?

Sincerely
Trine

Visiting Copenhagen in this lovely spring weather for 3 weeks. The restaurants here are excellent. Last night my wife and I and a Danish friend went to Famo 51, which prompted me to write this comment. I thought it was great. I like the no-choice menu, and there were some highlights, like the grilled lamb cutlets with roast potatoes and red onions, and the homemade sausage. It was all very simple, not flashy show-off cuisine but that’s what I generally prefer. Flashy cuisine is only good if it is brilliant. For normal eating, I’d prefer simple food.

The service was very good, and charming in what I think of as a very Danish way — unpretentious and informal, polite, but a little bit humorous and almost cheeky. But just attentive enough.

My only reservation is the way the food was presented, as if it were a ‘tasting menu’ (why do I find that whole concept a bit annoying?). I didn’t see the need to have two primi, for example — it struck me as rather un-Italian. The only other time I had such a thing was at Mario Batali’s Lupa in New York. They kept bringing small dishes of pasta and ‘announcing’ them as if it were a temple of gastronomy.

Batali has one of the best Italian restaurants outside Italy, Babbo in NYC; they don’t do things like that there.

Oh yes, once I had such a meal in a rather indifferent restaurant in Pisa, so maybe it is not un-Italian.

But it seems to me that pasta, risotto and polenta etc. are wholesome hearty dishes that should not be presented in small morsels. I would rather have had one larger dish of pasta at Famo 51 than the two.

However, this is a quibble; it was a really good dinner.

A question about Copenhagen: what happened to Kommandanten? I went there a few years ago and had an amazing and memorable meal. (And an amazing bottle of JL Chave St Joseph 1999.) But it seems to have closed.

Keep up the good work on the blog!
best wishes
Tim

I would just like to say that the food there is just as delicious and original as at the FAMO 51. In particular the Parma ham, the bread, the olive oil, the tiramisu and the turkey stick with pancetta was remarkably good.

Again, I was welcome by Fabbio, one of the owners, who in fact remembered me from last time I ate FAMO food, and he said hello to me in the Italian way. All in all, a very nice evening.

Grazie Fabbio! A presto.

Again, thank you for a superior evening,
Bro