The personal blog of Trine Lai – foodie, epicure and excellent eats enthusiast blogging about great places to dine
Nouveau exists for a fact, and the website is available at www.restaurantnouveau.dk. The owner is Kasper Rune Sørensen, who in the past has been working at the Kong Hans Kælder and the Kommandanten. On 1st April 2007, he took over the TyvenKokkenHansKoneogHendesElsker and has now teamed up with Tim Funder, also from Kommandanten, who is the new chief of Nouveau.
I had lovely dinner at Kasper’s place in July. Read my review.
Source: iByen (Danish)
NB! This restaurant is closed down and doesn’t exsist anymore.
My baby brother and I had talked for a long time about visiting El Gustazo together. We wanted to do it for months but didn’t carry it into effect until Friday 7 September.
Before I go on, I need to state a disclaimer. My brother knows the owner and I guess that I would probably never have gone here if that wasn’t the case.
The owners are Daniel Egea Olivencia and his father Pedro, and there is a sweet story attached to Daniel’s buy-out and the making of this Spanish restaurant. Daniel’s father dreamed during the ninety nineties of transforming this house’ famous restaurant of Espergærde, Le Port, into his own Spanish place, which never happened. But his son made the dream come true and opened El Gustazo in early 2007.
Situated on the northern coast of Copenhagen the restaurant’s balcony has a beautiful view of the Espergærde harbour and on a clear day even a sight to the Swedish coast. El Gustazo is a family-style place with a warm atmosphere, an attentive service (not only for us). In a way it’s the Spanish counterpart to the Italian La Nave I’ve also described on good food.
Our menu comprised a nice large number of different tapas:
Jamon Iberico y Queso Manchego al plato
Iberian pork butcher’s of ham, sausages and sheep cheese
Cigalas a la Plancha
Fried Langoustines
Stuffed peppers with split cod
Gambas Al Ajillo
Prawns with garlic
Chuletitas de Cordero con Pimientos Rojos asados
Grilled lamb chops with oven cooked pebber
A dessert mixture of chocolate cake on vanilla ice cream and Crema Catalana
I have a love and hate relationship with the prawns in garlic. I love prawns and I love garlic but I really hate that this dish always makes my breath fug and destroy my gustatory sense for hours. But they were good, like the split cod in the peppers with the creamy and mild taste and the dessert, which really was a rude bomb of sweetness from the cream and the ice, and the full and slightly bitter flavour of the very, very rich piece of chocolate cake. The 24 months old manchego cheese and the tender and tasty lamb were great, and the Iberian sausages wonderful and cut in very thin slices just the way I prefer.
But the langoustines were my favourite. I got both a fork and a cracker so I could decipher it into pieces and suck out all the fantastic, sweet and delectable flavours of the juicy shell fish. Lovely.
We had a pre-dinner Cava and got a glass of Sherry with the sausages and they were both nice. A glass of Chardonnay, 2005 Castillo De Monjardin, Navarra D.O. came with the fish and had a nice nose and taste, but after a half hour, the finish was almost completely gone. Short. The red wine to accompany the lamb was a 2001 Muga, Rioja Riserva. It had good tannins that evolved a nice fruit and full taste after some time in the glass.
The food was delicious, fresh, with good taste and just right. I’m not an expert on the traditional Spanish cuisine, but have been to Spain a few times, Barcelona briefly, Malaga, Fuengirola. And Seville, which to this date is the most enthralling Spanish city I’ve ever been too. I love the very special sentiments there, the popping into a bar in the afternoon for a beer and a few patates braves cool inside away from the heat of the burning sun, the sudden sound of church bells from the Giralda, the horse and carriages in the squares, the sensitivity, the emotions and powerful forces expressed by the flamenco dance, the colourfulness of it, pink, yellow, blue, red, black dresses like at the corrida de toros, the bullfighting and the controversy of it, the characteristical and feminine masculinity of the performing, powerful matadors with their funny hats and arched backs when they circulate the red sheet that tickles the bull to fury, the stunning beauty of the Alcázar of Seville with beautiful historic buildings, flowers and fruits, a place I just couldn’t resist going back to a second time during my six days in the town. All these Spanish impressions from my first real meeting with the southern Spanish culture were suddenly very present in my mind, when I sat here eating tapas in chilly and windy Denmark.
El Gustazo made me discover what good food is all about. Good food is food worth coming back for. My goodness this is so simple and I have never though about it this clearly before. My opinion about El Gustazo is that I would love to come back for another Spanish night. Definitely, like with all the other restaurants mentioned on my blog.
Gracias!
With the fridge comprising nothing but some Parmasan and Präst cheese morsels, capers in salt and a glass of old olives a sudden improvised dinner in town at Restaurant Koefoed saw light on Thursday 6 September. I had phoned a couple of restaurants in vain for a booking and then came to think of this nice place, where I had lunch six months ago and always wanted to return for dinner.
The man behind this nice basement spot is Timo Hoffmann, a Copenhagener, and very passionate about the rocky Baltic sea island of Bornholm. So much that he has dedicated his restaurant to celebrate it by using all the products he can get food and interior-wise from Bornholm. A beautiful thought.
Shortly after we had given our orders, a little amuse bouche arrived with smoked and salt-cured ham with figs, salted almonds, frissée salad and a bread stick, which was oily but crispy and slightly salt. The fragrance of this little ham dish is still very present in my memory. I have a thing for scents, like with wines, I enjoy the flavours even more when my olfactory sense is being prodded before I lead the fork into my mouth. It’s like a warning, or a hope, a prelude and a promise of something nice and intriguing to come. An allure. Makes me excited.
The ham slice was thin as paper, hugely aromatic and almost melted on my tongue. I liked too the sweet figs and salty bread stick.
Fried scallops with caramelized cauliflower puré, pepper bacon and jammed courgette followed. The scallops, oh I love, love scallops, the fresh and nutty taste, and the smell of them welcomed me when the kind waiter palaced the plate in front of me. They were perfectly cooked with a crust and still a bit raw on the inside. The puré was delicious and I wouldn’t have guessed it was cauliflower, if I didn’t know. The bitterness of the vegetable was turned into a fullness of aroma, very interesting, and nicely matched with the courgettes. The pepper bacon was also good, could have been a little more crispy to my taste. I didn’t notice the pepper of it.
My scallops were accompanied by a Riesling from Waipara, Stratum, New Zealand which was nice and with notes of sweet fruit, perhaps because of the temperature of it, but went well with the scallops and courgettes.
The bread could be something they had baked themselves, so good. A remarkable malt flavour with the sliced one, and the muffin formed one was almost like a cake, somewhat sweet and salted on top, spiced with rosemary. It was filled with oil but I enjoyed it, perhaps a little too much, as I had to go and wash my hands bore gripping my food tools again afterwards.
Before the main course came I got a palate cleaner of apples granite with vanilla, which was very fresh and amazed me with it’s great rinse capability. A delight intermezzo.
The main course was a generous portion of fried mullet and mashed potatoes, smoked cheese and late summer vegetables. I didn’t know that a Mullet could be this big. This piece resembled mackerel fish in size and in texture, actually a little bit in taste too but more fine and delicate. The boiled vegetables of carrot, broccoli, onions and cauliflower were very firm and had a nice taste. Again lovely fragrances, and the course was so good that I couldn’t stop eating until the plate was clean.
By the way, I tried to look-up the Mullet fish in my new North Atlantic Seafood book, by Alan Davidson, couldn’t find it, but maybe he didn’t cover the island of Bornholm.
To go with the Mullet I got a North American Chardonnay, from the Sebastiani producer, Sonoma. It was opened at my table and was cold, but not too much. Very fruity and voluminous both in the nose and the palate and balanced with tannin. I liked this one more than the first one I had.
As for the service it was as friendly and accurate as my first time here.
So, conclusion. What’s the conclusion? Well, go to Restaurant Kofoed! Taste the traditional Danish cuisine with a new touch, high-quality products, sense the passion and the carefulness for the food, discover Bornholm and be glad!
A little appetizer
Copenhagen is great when it comes to eating out. Well, that said by a Dane, of course. What I mean is, although I dine out very often, there are still great places that I haven’t been too, yet, and where I want to go. Copenhagen has such variety someone once said. It’s true.
With so many temptations why did I pick The Paul, run by Paul Cunningham, for this lunch then, you might ask. Good question! Well. First of all, not many fancy restaurant are open for lunch on Saturdays, so that eliminated quite a few (and indeed my favourite one). Second, I had dinner at Paul’s a year ago and liked it a lot, but it wasn’t the dinner of my life. And I guess that was what I expected. So, I would like to see what Paul could bring this time, 13 months later.
For my birthday I had got “Madjournal” by Paul Cunningham with delicious and easy to make food with a fun and loving greeting from him with a little now dry purple flower, the devil’s horns drawn on the picture of his head and a note saying ‘your parents rock’. Paul is very creative.
The atmosphere at The Paul is very special and very unique. So, in that sense the name of the restaurant is perfect. It’s like stepping into Paul’s own house, his living room. Even when he is not at ‘the office’, you sense his appearance everywhere. This place is the most personal fancy restaurant I have ever been too. I love that about it. The loo is pretty and nicely decorated in a feminine way with flowers and very old photographs on the wall of, I don’t know naturally but with this place in mind, I would say old family pictures. Toothbrushes. A bright idea.
We began with a snack and a drink in the lounge. My friend wanted kir. I fancy neither kir nor kir royal and asked for Champagne. But the waiter misunderstood and thought I wanted the royal thing. Like my white skirt that day was royal in the sense that there’s a picture on it of HRH Queen Magrethe II at her new year’s speech one or two decades ago. Kir and kir royal is a bit too sweet as pre-dinner for me, but this kir royal was actually nice, maybe because of the early time of the day.
Crayfish ‘pil-pil’ olive oil, garlic & mild chilli – texture of tomato
Our first course, I loved the tomatoes. It’s very rare to get a dish in fine dining that focuses on tomatoes. Red tomato. Green tomato. Yellow tomato. Finely sliced as thin as truffle flakes. The piece on the edge of the plate turned on images in my head of an intense pasta sauce, which had been simmering for hours, sweet and delight because of the volatile-ness of it. The very delicate consommé was poured into the plate, and at first glance it looked like vinegar. The drops separated in the oily liquid already in the plate. The course comprised crayfish as well, but the tomatoes out done the taste of them.
Confit of pork cheek, vanilla seed – green apple & cocos blancs
Why is the meat closest to the bone always the best? This pork confit was tender and had a lovely gentle taste. The colour of the meat was dark rosa. The greaves, not exactly crispy like they never are, were so good with the pork contributing salt. On the top was a slice of green apple and vanilla foam. I perfectly understood the purpose of these – sour and sweetness, but somehow it was like this dish wasn’t complete. Too much vanilla? But less might diminutive to the point where I wouldn’t notice it, so I don’t think that was it. Wondering now, it could be the fact that the apple was raw, too much acidity to connect with the other ingredients. Perhaps the apple should have been cooked in some way. I’m still not sure, this dish puzzles me.
West coast turbot, roasted à la provençale. Artichoke, olive, tomato – herbes fines
A wonderful and intense sauce a bit more liquid in texture compared to what I usually get at nice restaurants. The grilled artichokes. Wow. I liked the firmness of the potato spiced up with saffron amongst others. To my taste though it wasn’t cooked enough. The fish was good too, fresh and firm and delicate in taste.
A little plate of cheese
I really couldn’t settle at this point, so I was very happy that my friend would like to share a plate of cheese (I wasn’t really hungry anymore at that point) and that the waiter would let us do that. Imagine me eating all the cheese on that plate, huh? Seven various ones mainly from France, brie, goat, Camenbert (a favourite), Parmesan, cheese with ashes and accompanied with a compote of onion and something else that I have forgot.
The wine menu didn’t attract me very much (my ignorance), and as most courses were light, to some extend, I believed a white burgundy could accompany the dishes and make my nose and palate happy. I have become very fond of Chardonnay from this part of the world. The 2002 Château-Fuissé Pouilly-Fuissé village was nice with character of minerals and rocks, creamy with restrained fruit, quite acidic. Some of the acidity disappeared with time, but not all. I prefer white Burgundy with less acidity than this one. The nose however was great with smoke, minerals and I really enjoyed sniffing it.
Melon charentais. Sorbetto of P.X. sherry. Wall St.Financier.
This dessert was nothing like I’ve had before. The sherry sorbetto was magnificent and very good with the tiny chocolate dots swimming around the melon soup. At the top and sprinkled about was baking powder noisily popping like it was a pot of boiling water, tickling and creating fireworks inside my mouth. I love this feeling, which also provides a new dimension to the sense perception. The thing that made the dish brilliant was the mint leaves.
A word on my thing about serviettes, I went to powder my nose a couple of times and each time my chair was pulled out for me and I found my serviette nicely folded on the table. You see that makes sense. I have a habit of throwing it on my seat. My serviette wasn’t changed during my meal and that was perfectly fine with me.
The petit fours were fantastic: Chocolate fondant, meringue burgers with toffee, corns filled with ice cream and role model delectable raspberries, nougatines, all were great and providing the kick of sweetness that the dessert hadn’t given me. A final perfect warm and strong espresso indicated, sadly, time to go.
The light of that place is really something and with the colours it’s bringing a warm and cosy and very friendly sentiment over the place. I didn’t want to leave. I felt like ‘hey, put on some quiet jazz music or a Puccini opera and please pull of my boots so I can stretch my legs on the sofa and hang out here for a while.’
To be perfectly honest, and I think I should, I very much enjoyed this lunch, but I had expected a bit more from Paul and his team, food wise. Have absolutely nothing to be unhappy with as to their service. The appetizer of pink raw scrimps, white baby scallops, red beetroot, orange carrot, white cabbage and green brownwort, I believe it was, was fantastic and a surprising highlight like the dessert. The tomato and crayfish, and the pork were not sharp enough.
Especially one of the waiters was very kind to us. When we were about to leave, he showed us round the restaurant and explained about Paul’s creativity, colourful scrape books, and the story behind the three huge paintings on the wall by Maria Dubin.
I took a last look at the giant and fascinating Helmut Newton’s photo book ‘Sumo’ and then stepped out in the Tivoli Gardens heading for a last ride in the daemon roller-coaster, where I sort of regretted wearing a skirt.
Thanks, Paul
for the kind note in my book (lovely potato recipe with olive oil and blue cheese) and an enjoyable lunch!
1 September 2007
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