Copenhagen, En Gang Til?

Hi dear reader, hope you are well.

Today my offering is a mix of history, food and pickiness!

There's a new restaurant in town and it's called Copenhagen.



It's at Hotel de Havelet, which has great views over castle, Havelet Bay and the neighbouring islands.

See for yourself!



I couldn't wait to go there.  Copenhagen, Danish cuisine in Guernsey!

The restaurant has been beautifully re-vamped from its old "ye olde pub" style into something sleek, modern and quirky.

It's an unrecognisable version of its former self and totally lovely.

Now a bit of history for you peeps.  The Duke of Wellington used to visit his mistress here.  Allegedly.  Back in the day when the building was a private residence. 

I know this now, as I was more than a tad disappointed to discover that the restaurant is in fact not named after Denmark's capital but is, in fact, named after Wellington's favourite mount, his horse Copenhagen who saw him safely mounted through many battles including Waterloo.

The menu is International, not Danish.  It gives a token nod to Danish cuisine in the shape of a burger and a sausage which are purportedly "Danish" but neither of which I dared try for fear that they were nothing more than local burgers and pork sausage.

Sneaked into the restaurant's daytime menu is another attempt at fooling me that the cuisine is Danish - open sandwiches.  But this foolery fails abysmally as instead of calling the trio of open sandwiches "smoerrebroed", it is named "smorgaasbord", i.e. Swedish.  So it loses the Copenhagen/Denmark link once again.

Oh, I'm sounding so picky!!!  Let's move on.  Quickly.  Hurtig.

The House Sauvignon Blanc was pretty superb.

Warning: readers of a dieting disposition should now scroll through the next three pics.

We shared a starter called Crab Melt.  You can see it was good.  It was demolished before I realised I hadn't taken a shot of it!

My dining mate lucked out with chunky piece of turbot served with a nicoise vegetable mix.

And not wishing to harp on with my pickiness, I struggled a little to find something I really wanted from the menu.  So I had to go off-piste a bit.  I had the scallops and king prawns on a scallion mash ... but without the scallops.  Very nice but maybe a bit prawny!

The garlic butter dip was just as it should be in my book - unctuous!
But, "Waiter!  I don't have enough calories on my plate!"

I felt it called for some serious bread dipping, so I asked for bread - the platter included a yummy walnut bread.

I longed to hear "velbekomme" but instead bon appetit or buen provecho would have been more fitting as our main dishes were essentially French and Spanish in style. 



(Spot the photographer!)

We were tempted to have an after-dinner espresso over on the nearby squashy sofas, but decided instead to take a slow walk back through our pretty town to the taxi rank, here.

Veuve soap dispenser!  The basins are like mini water troughs.  Subtly clever, carrying through the horse theme to the loos?  Or just coincidence?

So after the pit-stop we headed out,

leaving Copenhagen in our rear-view mirror.

Now please don't get me wrong.  My post may portray me as being a tad disappointed, and I was, but it was all good.  Location, décor, service, food. 

What left me feeling a little short-changed was the lack of Danish identity to the food and a weak menu.

I feel that the hotel has missed a golden opportunity.  Danish cuisine is right up there.  It's top-ranked in the world.  

So leverage on the Copenhagen, don't damp squib it!

Here's the test I applied in order to form my opinion.

How many people in Guernsey know that Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark?  

How many know that Copenhagen was the name of Wellington's favourite battle horse?

Thus, dear reader, my point is that if Ms Guernsey goes to a place called Copenhagen, her expectation is that superb Danish cuisine will be offered and not a table mat with saddle and stirrups motif.

And Ms Guernsey was a tad disappointed with Copenhagen.

And on that critical note,

vi ses, venner.



A la perchoine.