Geranium - Copenhagen
Lunch with a view
Rating: 17/20
Where: Copenhagen, Denmark
When: Lunch for 2 on 8 August 2025
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 4200 DKK ($650), Wine pairing 2300-20000 DKK ($360-$3120)
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars, #1 on World's 50 Best Restaurants list (2022)
Why: Modern pescatarian Scandinavian cuisine, dishes often focus on single ingredients
Copenhagen's “Geranium” was one of the first Scandinavian restaurants to receive three Michelin stars (even ahead of Noma, maybe the most famous restaurant in the region). Its location is unusual - it sits on the top floor of a soccer stadium, which can make for an interesting arrival or departure if a game is taking place at the same time. The view from the dining room is (unfortunately?) only towards a park next to the stadium, allowing guests to “see the change of the seasons” as trees turn green, golden or lose their leaves entirely. Only the prep kitchen has a view of the soccer field itself.
Tables in the main dining room were (for the most part) arranged to face the open kitchen. Two tables for single diners were placed right next to the kitchen with an excellent view - a nice gesture for guests who clearly had come only for the food. The interior design was modern Scandinavian, with simple but comfortable furniture, a color scheme tending towards white and no table cloths. At a first glance, not much had changed since our last visit in 2016. But it was a different season, and the menu had become fully pescatarian after the pandemic. Definitely worth a revisit then.
Geranium served just a single tasting menu with an optional caviar course. We were definitely in Denmark: the basic menu cost 4200 DKK (about $650) and the caviar course was 950 DKK ($150). Four wine pairings ranged from 2300 DKK to a whopping 20000 DKK ($350 to $3120). Prices like these might make Paris look like a bargain, but were actually not unusual for a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in this area. I went with the base-line 2300 DKK pairing, and the wines were not just enjoyable, but even included a few superb ones. Definitely much better than the basic pairing at most restaurants, but then again, the pairing’s price was not exactly “basic”...
Our lunch started with a few small bites before the wine pairing commenced, so ordering an aperitif was not a terrible idea. First, a cracker filled with an oyster, cucumbers, pickled elderflowers, dill, aquavit and decorated with a sunchoke crisp that had been blackened with charcoal. The cracker was extremely light, the predominant taste and texture came from the crunchy cucumber, enhanced by dill. The oyster, on the other hand, was barely noticeable. A lovely, fresh, summery bite 18.
Next, we received a little flat bowl, filled with (from the bottom) a kale/apple/parsnip juice, a “silky milk”, smoked bleak roe (“bleak” here is not an adjective, but the name of a fish) and crispy dashi. The latter added a noticeable flavor kick to a dish that otherwise would have been on the lighter side. There was some nice interplay of textures: the very fine roe, the crispy dashi crumbles, the creamy milk and the fresh juice 18.
Slices of mackerel were served with a smoked charcoal oil, a baked tomato broth and thyme flowers. The fish was smoky, fishy (in a good way) and very, very tender - excellent. The tomatoes added a hint of fruitiness to the dish. I'm usually a big fan of tomatoes in all shapes and forms, but these actually went better with the fish than by themselves 19.
We ordered one serving of the optional caviar course to share, and it was served at this point, amidst the appetizers. It arrived on three plates: one had Imperial golden ossetra caviar, another sour cream seasoned with pickled walnut leaves, and the third a thin potato waffle. I liked the caviar by itself: it was salty and of good quality. The rest of the presentation though? Not entirely my thing. The sour cream was airy and lightly acidic, the waffle very thin and crispy with hardly any taste by itself. Rather than enhancing the caviar's wonderful flavor, the other components almost overpowered it. An ok dish, but not really worth the surcharge 15.
Our last appetizer was paired with the first glass of the wine pairing. It was a collection of fresh vegetables and herbs, selected in the morning from the available produce: fennel, cucumber, a grilled potato and zucchinis, seasoned with pickled pine and paired with a smoked cream cheese topped with parsley oil. The vegetables were all quite nice (clearly this was a good time of year to visit the restaurant) and the sauce was wonderfully flavorful 17.
The first “real” course was only marginally larger than the preceding appetizers, and looked a bit like a sun. Its “rays” were alternating strips of pickled kohlrabi and raw apples. In the middle was a sauce made from mussel stock, caviar, chopped pumpkin seeds and pumpkin seed oil. The kohlrabi was crunchy, and together with the apples made for a fresh taste. The sauce was a bit more subdued: nutty and creamy with a bit of texture from the pumpkin seeds. Not terribly strong flavors, but a nice combination 18.
Brown mushrooms from southern Copenhagen had been cooked with brown butter and were served with an egg yolk cream, a sauerkraut foam and a mushroom reduction. In practice, this tasted like mushrooms cooked in butter until they were slightly reduced. Not bad, but I couldn’t taste either the egg yolk or the sauerkraut, making me feel that I was missing something here 17.
The following bread course came in several parts. First, a “fried pancake” topped with dried mushrooms, caramelized onions, Vesterhavsost cheese and edible flowers. The cheese was not particularly warm, and the whole bite tasted mostly of mushrooms. Next, there were seeded sourdough bread bites paired with a whipped butter that was topped with a cep and porcini mushroom essence. These bites were indeed very seedy, but the butter had only a light mushroom flavor. Finally, a cheese cracker colored with charcoal powder was very reminiscent of a Parmesan cracker. Due to its substantial size, this course reminded me a bit of the rice dishes in Asian cuisine - served at the end of a meal to fill up the diner. This early in the proceedings, though, it seemed a bit much. It would have been helpful if the server had made clear that the sourdough bread was actually meant to go with the entire rest of the savory courses 16.
A broth made from grilled vegetables was topped tableside with shaved winter truffles from Australia. This “soup” tasted of concentrated roasted vegetables with light notes of nutty truffles 17.
The following hand-dived scallop from Norway had been artfully cut into many connected slivers. It had been poached in brown butter before being sent to the yakitori grill. Also on the plate was a sauce made of the scallop's roe and pickled elderberries. The scallop was very fresh, only lightly cooked, sweet and very tender. The way it had been cut allowed it to take on more of the buttery sauce. An ostensibly simple dish, but very well done 17.
For the final savory course (and the only one paired with a red wine), we received a filet of hake, topped with a king crab farce, all wrapped in seaweed. The sauce for this dish came in a separate bowl, and was based on fish stock, horseradish juice and green peas. I'm not entirely sure why the sauce was served on the side - maybe so that one could try the fish by itself first? Adding the sauce in its entirety didn't seem to be a bad move, though. The fish was tender, the crab nicely creamy and the herbs full of flavor. The sauce was buttery, lightly sweet, but I couldn't really taste the horseradish. The al dente peas were quite good, but felt a bit too large to be part of a “sauce”. Maybe another indication that this really should have been served in a single dish 17.
Now it was time for the sweeter part of the meal. First, we were served a bowl filled with buttermilk, vanilla oil, green strawberries, a chamomile sorbet and a tree pattern made from crystallized pear juice. This dish was nicely straightforward: creamy, lightly sweet and with some crunch from the strawberries. The delicate shape made from pear juice was quite impressive 16.
Five different small bites might constituted the penultimate course. In the order we tried them: a spoon containing two pralines, a white one made with coffee grains (and a strong coffee flavor) 17, and a brown praline filled with a chocolate anglaise 15. Next, a flower-shaped chocolate mousse topped with caramel and prunes. The mousse was airy and light, the cold prunes added some fruitiness and cocoa nibs underneath the mousse provided some crunch 17. A chocolate-covered, sunchoke-reduction-flavored ice cream popsicle was decorated with thyme and a single salt flake. I'd file this under “interesting”, since it was a bit too savory for my taste, the thyme in particular felt odd for a dessert 15. Finally, a chocolate praline with a rosehip filling was ok, but its lightly flavored filling was overwhelmed by the amount of dark chocolate surrounding it 14.
The final dish of the day was a tart made with sunflower seeds and plums, topped with a fig leaf glaze. It came with a vanilla cream and some fresh berries. The cake was a bit sticky, the vanilla flavor light, and the berries sour. A nice, rustic combination 17.
Overall: Modern Scandinavian cuisine, where single ingredients shine in every dish. When this worked - as it did especially early on in the meal -, the results were terrific. Later, there were some cases where this focus on a single ingredient didn't quite work, resulting in either too straightforward seeming dishes (the mushrooms), or ones that didn't get the balance quite right, overwhelming the stars of the dish (e.g. the caviar course). As a whole experience, though, it was still a very enjoyable meal, with excellent service, a great wine pairing and a terrific view 17.
