26 Best Restaurants in Copenhagen, Denmark

One of Copenhagen’s most charming cafés isn’t just located by the water but directly on it. This combined café, restaurant, and bar is floating on Christianshavn Kanal, giving it one of the best locations in the city. Stop by for coffee, light lunch, or dinner, or just a glass of wine. It’s closed in the fall and spring but usually open in December, when the enterprising owner adds a roof, walls, and a wood-burning stove to the platform.

This modern northern European kitchen is giving acclaimed Noma a run for its money. Chefs Rasmus Kofoed and Søren Ledet put a modern touch on classic Scandinavian cooking by using molecular gastronomy and sourcing vegetarian products from biodynamic farmers; it made headlines when the restaurant removed all meat from the menu in 2021. Book months in advance, and set aside a minimum of three hours (and a sizeable portion of your net worth) for the adventurous, ambitious tasting menu.

It looks like an American diner, but the menu at this local favorite reads more like that of a French café. Stop by for coffee and croissants in the morning, a croque madame for lunch, or just to have a drink and people-watch.

This combined cafeteria, bar, and venue in an old carrier hall is one of the best places to go for a cheap but delicious breakfast, a glass of wine with a friend, an organic cup of coffee, or a light lunch or bigger dinner. The service is casual and friendly, and the dishes are creative and inexpensive despite their outstanding quality. After dinner the place becomes a popular bar.

"Yes, please" is the translation of this restaurant's name, and that was the reaction diners had when the restaurant opened. Critics, dining guides, and locals all love the restaurant for its tucked-away location, the combination of Scandinavian produce and Cantonese flavors (the chef, Jonathan Tam, has Chinese roots), and the friendly atmosphere.

This wine bar and restaurant is known for its tasty dinners and natural wines as well as for its sauna and bathing jetties, which are impossibly popular with Copenhageners on summer days. The restaurant looks a bit like a boat shed, and dinner is cooked in a small kitchen outdoors. From October to April the restaurant moves indoors and scales up the culinary ambitions with a tasting menu.

The velvet curtains, comfy couches, and cherry pie at this café and bar, which is heavily inspired by Twin Peaks, provides the perfect living room setting. Sink into a couch, order a coffee (or something stronger), and stay for a while.

An Italophile Danish couple have created a small empire of Italian restaurants and bars in the neighborhood of Vesterbro, and Mangia is the best, drawing a stylish crowd with its festive atmosphere and classic Italian cooking. If the restaurant is fully booked—it often is—try to get a table at one of the team's other nearby restaurants: Tuscan-inspired Circolo or the festive Bar La Una.

You could spend an entire day at this all-day café and restaurant, which seamlessly transforms from a cozy breakfast spot in the morning to a busy café at lunch and a bustling neo-brasserie at night. 

When Noma opened a pop-up burger shack in its restaurant during the pandemic, people stood in line for hours, and guests and reviewers were quick to call it the world's best burger. Have a taste for yourself at this new, permanent burger restaurant, located on an iconic corner on a quay. 

Only a few years old, this restaurant has a beautiful location. The creative menu of open-faced sandwiches and excellent service have already made it a classic on Copenhagen's lunch scene. The crew, which ran the popular lunch spot Palægade (until it was forced to close because of a fire), draw in hordes of loyal locals. By night, the restaurant transforms into a French brasserie. 

This excellent café, located on a busy street in the heart of the historic center, serves tasty sandwiches, strong coffee, green juices, and home-baked goods to an ever-growing crowd of Copenhageners. Everything's organic, and it's hard to find a better breakfast in Indre By.

Dark oak tables, wooden floors, and chairs with lamb-fur accents are a rustic interpretation of Nordic luxury that's appropriate to the setting—a former warehouse on the waterfront. This restaurant is at the vanguard of new Nordic cuisine and Denmark's most highly acclaimed. Chef Rene Redzepi and his innovative team pair the best local ingredients like berries, mushrooms, vegetables, and herbs with game, Jutland marsh lamb, Greenlandic musk ox, and Faroe Islands scallops. Dishes from the 20-course tasting menu can be served with wine pairings or a juice menu for an additional charge. Service is irreproachable. Given the hype, it's nearly impossible to book a table—reservations are taken a full three months in advance. So plan well ahead, and be prepared to settle for lunch instead of dinner. The chef plans to close noma after New Year's Eve 2016 and reopen it in 2017 as an urban farm-to-table restaurant in a new location.

When international foodies visit Copenhagen, AOC is high on the list of restaurants to visit. The restaurant, which has two Michelin stars, offers one tasting menu with a strong focus on sensory pleasure, Nordic produce, and imaginative cooking.

Located on one of Christianshavn’s quiet backstreets, this café serves traditional Danish food, with plenty of aquavit to go with it. It’s been doing so for more than 150 years, and the beautiful setting perfectly matches the food.

If the stunning decor in this light-filled restaurant with great views of Vesterbrogade doesn't transport you to the Mediterranean, the food surely will. Grilled Halloumi and seafood, sumptuous hummus, watermelon-and-feta salads, and a sorbet made from Greek yogurt with olive oil and sea salt are some of the highlights on the menu, which is served family style at night. 

The name stands for "basic formula," but this French-Danish restaurant is anything but basic. The chefs Rune Jochumsen and Kristian Moeller serve classic French cuisine based on seasonal Danish ingredients in an interior of leather, glass, marble, and steel. The wine list includes around 400 varieties; the majority are classic French, with an impressive selection from Burgundy.

This small izakaya (informal Japanese pub with grub) and sake bar is the best place in Denmark to get an authentic taste of Japan. The dining room is simple and beautiful, with its light, wooden furniture. Small dishes range from sashimi to a seasonal seaweed salad or charcoal-grilled lamb tenderloin with tempura veggies.

At this trendy and inventive Asian Michelin-starred restaurant, the fragrances may well whet your appetite for such typical Thai street snacks as lotus-flower chips, satay, and fish cakes. Gilded Buddhas grace the walls, hand-woven wicker chairs made from water hyacinth beckon, and cream-color bamboo lamps illuminate the space. Kiin Kiin's famous Table 9, in a discreet corner, offers snug seclusion for romantics.

Five centuries ago this was a vineyard; now it's the site of one of Scandinavia's finest restaurants, and the oldest Michelin restaurant in Denmark. Chef Mark Lundgaard's French- and Danish-inspired dishes employ local ingredients and are served in a medieval subterranean space with whitewashed walls and vaulted ceilings.

Offering a menu of French classics including snails from Burgundy, foie gras, steak au poivre, sole meunière, and crème brûlée, Maison is decked out with a zinc bar, marble countertops, and French bistro chairs. Frankly, it's a dream of a brasserie, one of the best in Copenhagen.

Among the dozens of restaurants and cafés lining Nyhavn, Nyhavns Færgekro is one of the most atmospheric, with moderately priced Danish treats served in a cozy dining room. Its windows date back to the building's early incarnation as a home to the shipping company White Star Line, which ominously sold tickets for the Titanic.

Given its location in the middle of the Latin Quarter, surrounded by century-old university buildings, it makes sense that this combined café and bookstore is always packed with students and professors as well as other book lovers. The café serves good coffee and affordable, honest food. You can order everything from a roll with cheese to a blue-cheese burger; and the bookstore sells a good selection of old and new books.

This lively eatery, which looks exactly like your favorite bistro in Paris, is the place to go for French favorites. Its accomplished chef and owner, Mikkel Egelund, satisfies with classics like entrecôte with béarnaise and crispy fries, mussels steamed in white wine and herbs, or salade niçoise. Enjoy a pre-dinner drink at the brass bar or have after-dinner coffee or Cognac on the patio.

The Danish-American couple behind this restaurant met when Camilla Hansen walked into Nick Curtin’s restaurant in New York to go on a blind date with another man, and the rest is history. The restaurant, which serves French-inspired menus in a former band room in Islands Brygge, quickly got its first Michelin star. The five-course menu changes based on the seasons, available produce, and the creative ideas of the chefs. 

Noma’s former dessert chef has been drawing a crowd since she opened a street-food stall at Torvehallerne (still going strong), where she serves the best tacos in Copenhagen. Now she’s opened a full-service restaurant, too, on hip Istedgade, where the tacos are just as good.