The recent flurry of social media activity surrounding Mikkeller’s annual Beer Celebration Copenhagen (MBCC) has inspired me to belatedly finish off my travel posts from our 2016 winter trip to the Danish capital. For continuity’s sake, start with my Day 1 writeup here and I’ll see you back here in a couple of minutes.
All done? Great. Day 2 started as any decent day should, with coffee and brunch surrounded by beautiful people. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many attractive people dressed in monochrome comfort clothes as I did at Mad og Kaffe in Vesterbro. It’s a stylish spot for a candlelit hipster brunch, where you create your own breakfast spread by ticking various boxes on a multiple choice menu.
From there, we walked over to Værnedamsvej, a cosy shopping street with a French vibe that’s also home to Rist Kaffébar, Granola (brunch), Falernum (wine) and more. If I had limitless funds, I’d buy pretty much everything in Playtype and Anne Black down the road. Those Danes know how to design crockery. After a lot of browsing, we pushed on to Frederiksberg Garden which is a fairly bleak park in winter, with an ice rink out front and an impressive palace and zoo within the grounds.
To justify eating more food, we marched over to Nørrebro, an increasingly trendy area of Copenhagen with fantastic food and drink spots, unique shops, and the peaceful Assistens Cemetery where Hans Christian Andersen is buried. A good place to start is Jægersborggade which reminded me of London’s Seven Dials but without the people – the dream. Here you’ll find Michelin-starred Relae, micro-roastery The Coffee Collective, underground wine bar Terroiristen, liquid nitrogen ice cream at Istid, and a whole host of boutique shops to spend your hard earned krone in.
Opposite Relae is sister joint Manfreds, a brilliant natural wine bar and restaurant where we had my favourite meal of the trip. The 5-course weekday chef’s choice lunch menu is great value. The food is predominantly veggie, but you should always add in a plate of their signature steak tartare with cress and rye crumb. Hover over the photos below for more details, and be sure to check out their other Norrebro spots, Baest and Mirabelle.
The rest of the day was a bit of a Mikkeller fest (there’s that word again). We started at Mikkeller & Friends, one of the world’s best beer bars with an obscene range of beer (40 taps & 200 bottles) and eye-catching interior details, carpentry and lighting. If you mange to tear yourself away, you can crawl into the adjoining Koelschip bar without surfacing on to the street. It’s a wonderful hommage to Belgium, with a superior selection of bottled lambics and spontaneously fermented beers from Cantillon to Bokkereyder, and four carefully curated taps. Both are essential stops for beer geeks.
At this point, three more friends arrived to join the party, so we whizzed back to Vesterbro to show them around Kødbyen (which featured heavily on Day 1). After a second visit to Fermentoren, and some sustenance at Tommi’s Burger Joint (an Icelandic import which has sites in London too), we settled down at Warpigs, a large and loud brewpub & BBQ collaboration between Mikkeller and Indiana-based Three Floyds. There are 22 taps here, plus rare bottles, beer cocktails and solid Texas barbecue fare. N.B. Copenhagen institution John’s Hotdog Deli have just opened up a site next door since our trip.
That’s all for Day 2. Stay tuned for Day 3 highlights which includes, you guessed it, more Mikkeller, plus tacos, tables, wine, water, warehouses and a bit of tourism thrown in for good measure.
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Matt The Tips – Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you are planning a trip to Copenhagen and have any questions, or if you have some suggestions for places I should check out next time! Email me at matt@mattthelist.com
Plan your own adventure with Map The List : Copenhagen
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MATT THE TRIPS | COPENHAGEN
A selection of travel posts from the Danish capital
