Refreshed and more energetic on our second day in Copenhagen, we continued our exploration of the areas west of our hotel by visiting the Meatpacking District and Carlsberg City. We then made our second attempt to tour Frederiksberg Havn, the large park and castle dedicated to King Frederik IV, after being too tired to get there on the day that we landed.
Located in the Vesterbro area, the
Meat Packing District was formed in the 19th century as a centralized location for slaughtering cattle and pork along with marketplaces for selling meats. The oldest section dates back to 1879. Since the 1990s, the area has been designated a protected industrial heritage site and transformed into a trendy dining and nightclub hub while maintaining homages to its heritage. Most notably, the former
Flæskehallen building (“the Pork Hall”), was a space for slaughtering of pigs with areas for cooling, storage, and distribution of pork. Ironically, the building is topped with a large bas-relief of a bull, which is more of a tribute to the meatpacking industry in general. This building is found within a main square called “
Flæsketorvet” (“Pork Square”) which is full of chic cocktail bars, lively breweries and restaurants focusing on meats and seafood, and art galleries.
There are still a few meat shops in the square but the abattoirs have all moved away. We first visited the Meatpacking District around lunchtime on a rainy Wednesday and the area was mostly deserted. That was just as well since we were able to waltz into our restaurant of choice without a reservation. When we returned on a sunny Friday evening a few days later, we saw how busy it can get here. All the outdoor picnic tables were packed with people enjoying the start of the weekend with long lineups out the door for some establishments.
On our first visit, we randomly chose to eat at
Kodbyen Fiskebar, a contemporary seafood restaurant and bar specializing in sustainably sourced wild Nordic fish and shellfish with all the butchering and processing done in-house. The restaurant is set in an “industrial-chic” space harkening back to its meatpacking history with concrete ceilings and floors, white tiled walls and beams, and recycled doors. The aesthetic is softened by warm lighting, designer furniture and a lit-up central aquarium where lively fish swim in circles. We did not realize it until after the fact but Kodbyen Fiskebar was named in the
Michelin Bib-Gourmand Guide, awarded to restaurants that serve very good food at moderate prices. While we can attest to the innovativeness and deliciousness of the food, we dispute the “moderate prices” since this was easily our most expensive meal of the trip.
We started with freshly made sourdough bread served with a whipped seaweed butter made with sea lettuce and the powder of a dense blue-green algae that gave it an aquamarine colour. This was followed by a crab donut topped with crème fraiche, Danish cheese and caviar.
Continuing on with our seafood feast, we ordered fish and chips which in this case consisted of lightly smoked Danish cod fish with fried potatoes and remoulade sauce. This is the first time we have had smoked fish and chips and the flavour was quite unique. We also tried scallops from Norway with courgette (zucchini) in a buttermilk, sorrel and pistachio sauce. Our final two courses included chunks of sea bass from the English Channel with a bell pepper drizzle sitting in a sweet corn sauce and langoustine (small, lobster-like shellfish), topped with white asparagus from Holland that is covered in a tarragon sauce which was poured over the dish at the table.
During our first day in the Meatpacking District, we also passed by
Superbon, a hip Asian-fusion restaurant whose Asian-influenced interior starkly contrasts the façade of the space that it resides in. The building was once an old
Bosch service facility that was the showroom, workshop and sales office for Bosch electronic automotive components. The 1918-19 neon Bosch sign and a graphic depiction of a sparking ignition part remain on top of the building and light up at night. The original raw industrial interior of the old workshop has been layered with bold colours and patterns in the walls and furniture, with artificial flowers, plush velour sofa-like chairs, banquettes and bar stools, and the iconic red laminate flooring often found in Chinese restaurants. The back room leading to restrooms feature arcade-style video games. Along the ledges facing the exterior windows are blue and white Asian styled vases filled with artificial orchids and other flowers.
The restaurant space is huge and given our initial impression of the Meatpacking District, we did not think we would need reservations to get a table. We wandered up on what we later realized was Friday evening to find that every table was spoken for. Disappointed, we were about to leave when the host threw us a bone. He said that he had one table left where the people who reserved had not shown up yet and had not confirmed. He would phone one more time and if he didn’t get an answer, we could have the table. Luck was with us and we ended up with that table!
We started off with fruity cocktails including a “Saigon Spritz” (Yuzu sake, limoncello, grapefruit juice and crémant sparkling wine) for Rich and a “Golden Hour” (non-alcoholic grapefruit and soda drink) for me. We then proceeded to share a bunch of dishes including tuna carpaccio with ponzu, lime leaf, and aromatic oil; watermelon salad with chili, mint, puffed rice, thai basil, and sesame; soft shell crab with papaya, and lemongrass; duck bao with hoisin sauce, pickled daikon, ginger, and spring onions; tempura fried eggplant with yellow curry sauce, sweet corn, sugar snap peas, and herbs; grilled ribeye steak with chimichurri sauce; and coconut jasmine rice. Because of the luscious décor and the fun, eclectic menu, this was my favourite meal of our trip.
After dinner, we ventured back into the main Flæsketorvet square to get ice cream for dessert. We initially were headed for the acclaimed
Ismageriet for their freshly made Italian gelato but the lineup was ridiculously long and not moving. Instead, we went to the neighbouring
Kødbyen Is, a small producer of handmade popsicles and ice cream bars in a large variety of flavours. We selected a chocolate hazelnut and a chocolate coffee bar which made for a nice end to our meal.
In addition to its eateries, the Meatpacking District is known for its
art galleries. We visited two of them on our first day in the area.
Poulsen Gallery focuses on contemporary, figurative paintings, drawings, photography, sculpture, and printmaking with eclectic work on display from a large number of Danish and International artists. The main exhibition space featured a solo exhibition titled “Greener Grasses” by American artist
Landon Bailey Higgins who is known for his depictions of
gummy bears. In addition to being a pop cultural icon as well as his favourite childhood candy, Higgins uses the gummy bear as a “visual metaphor for his closeted experience and self-identification”. For this show, blue and red translucent gummy bears are depicted in door frames, windows and through keyholes with idyllic scenes behind them, asking the stereotypical question of whether the “grass is greener on the other side”.
There were many interesting pieces but I especially liked Chinese-American artist
Jiannan Wu’s sculptural relief titled
Explosion (2022), made from acrylic on resin, wood and metal. Wu is known for capturing a snapshot of urban narratives through his dioramas. Explosion depicts a moment of impact or crisis with billowing smoke, blazing fire and people in gas masks. Rich was drawn to a pair of oil paintings in circular frames by
Carl Dobsky titled “
Portrait of a Young Man /Young Woman in Prayer”. Dobsky is a figurative narrative painter who places allegorical imagery into contemporary contexts. Look closely and you see that the man and woman seemingly with their hands clasped in prayer are actually holding cell phones and the backgrounds are modern urban skylines.
Another contemporary art gallery in the Meatpacking District that we visited was the
V1 Gallery, which represents a curated group of established and emerging artists across multiple media. There seemed to be only one exhibit on when we visited and it was the solo works of Danish artist
Kaspar Oppen Samuelsen who creates very unique compositions that are
painting-based collages that feel almost patchwork-like. He starts by drawing on canvas, then breaks the drawing, paints the individual linen pieces then reassembles them to create an image. His latest show is titled “
Grey Cataract, White Cat” with works created after a cataract surgery in one eye caused it to see hyper-vivid pinks and magentas while the other eye saw dim greyish colours. The resulting images, some circus-like, some of humans, animals or landscape, have a dreamlike, surrealistic feel.
The district in Copenhagen now known as
Carlsberg City District (Carlsberg Byen) was redeveloped throughout the 2010s, turning it into a mixed-use residential/commercial district after the historic
Carlsberg Breweries ceased production in the area in 2008. The plan was to convert the former breweries into a walkable neighbourhood with housing, offices, schools, cultural venues and public spaces while retaining key heritage structures. Many factories were repurposed into hotels, cultural and commercial spaces while adding modern rental apartments and condominiums. This resulted in an interesting juxtaposition where old brewery buildings with smokestacks or giant storage vats are found beside new mid-rise buildings with avantgarde designs.
Commercial spaces are integrated at the base of both the new apartments and the refurbished factory buildings. Restaurants, retail stores selling clothing and furniture, and a slew of coffee shops and bakeries are spread throughout Carlsberg Byen, although there is not a designated shopping or dining street so it is a bit of a hunt and peck to find them. We were particularly interested in the baked goods sold by
Hart Bakery since they have a unique spin on the traditional Danish specialty of the cardamon bun which I was not that fond of when we tried one from Torvehallerne Food Hall. Instead, Hart makes a
cardamon croissant that is to die for! It was perfectly flakey, crunchy and sticky with just the right amount of sweetness and cardamon flavour. These croissants were so good that we went to another Hart Bakery later on in the trip to get another batch!
The two original Carlsberg Breweries that once resided in present day Carlsberg Byen have a fascinating history. The initial
Carlsberg Brewery was founded by
Jacob Christian (J.C.) Jacobsen in 1847, specializing in the brewing of Bavarian-styled lagers. He selected a location on a hill in Vesterbro that took advantage of access to clean water and proximity to railways. He named his company Carlsberg, meaning “Carl’s Hill” in honour of his
son Carl, who he hoped to pass on the business to one day. J.C. did not just build a factory but created a self-contained “city within a city” that included housing for his workers, stables, research laboratories and infrastructure.
After Carl returned from studies abroad, his father gave him a subsidiary brewery to run with the instructions to only brew ales and porters, so as not to be in competition with the main company. But Carl had his own ideas for innovation in brewing techniques and market expansion and went in direct competition with his father. This resulted in a years-long feud between the two that led Carl Jacobsen to form his own brewery in the 1880s on land immediately north-east of his father’s brewery. Carl named his brewery “Ny Carlsberg” (New Carlsberg) while J.C.renamed his company “Gamle Carlsberg” (Old Carlsberg). Since Carl favoured supporting the arts while J.C. was a man of science, these passions are reflected in the architectural styles of the historic artifacts left over from each of their breweries. In 1886, father and son reconciled shortly before J.C.’s death. The two breweries were merged in 1906 and Carl became the first managing director under the newly formed Carlsberg Foundation.
J.C.Jacobsen’s Brewery buildings are functional and relatively austere compared to those erected by his son Carl. Large brick brew houses and factories labeled with the name Gamle Carlsberg are now used as offices, event spaces and visitor centres. The old stables also still survive and still house a few horses. You can wander around to see the exterior facades of these buildings but an entrance fee is required to visit the interiors. The
Home of Carlsberg is a museum that provides guided tours of the historic brewing halls and dark bottling cellars along with beer tastings and interactive exhibits detailing the history of the Jacobsen family, Carlsberg’s scientific breakthroughs and brand history. Jacobsen House Brewery is still situated in Carlsberg City and produces specialized beers on site, acting as a reminder of the area’s heritage and the Carlsberg brand.
The historic “
Star Gate” was the entrance to the old Carlsberg Brewery when it opened in 1847. It is topped by a
12-point star that was J.C.Jacobsen’s original Carlsberg Brewery trademark. In 1883, the
Chalk/Limestone Tower was added to the entrance, with a lighthouse mounted above a guardhouse. It was one of the first locations to have electric lighting which was projected over the city as a symbol of the Brewery’s technological modernity. It is possibly the most ornate structures in this brewery but pales in comparison to the monolithic pieces found in the Ny Carlsberg side. J.C.’s own
family villa was located in the middle of his brewery and included a main building plus two conservatories and a landscaped garden. In 1875, J.C. opened a scientific research centre called
Carlsberg Research Laboratory where techniques for malting, brewing, and fermentation were developed as well as non-brewing related biochemical and biotechnology research. Breakthroughs made at this laboratory included methods for yeast purification, pH scale for measuring acidity and protein/enzyme research. In 1882 after basically disinheriting Carl, J.C. bequeathed his Carlsberg Brewery and his private home to science. The villa was turned into the
Carlsberg Academy, a venue for scientific conferences and was also offered as temporary residence for noted scientists including Niels Bohr.
As much as J.C. supported science, Carl was equally passionate about the arts. Carl wanted an impressive, monolithic gateway to mark the entrance to his brewery from the
Valby district to the west. He commissioned what is now known as the “
Elephant Gate” which was completed in 1901. The gate consists of a central brick tower topped a green onion dome, supported at its base by four gigantic granite elephant statues, two facing into the brewery and two facing out from it. Each elephant bears the latin motto “Laboremus pro Patria” meaning “Let us work for the fatherland” and a swastika symbol, which was adopted by Carlsberg in the 19th century as a sign of good fortune but abandoned after the Nazis co-opted the image. The elephants were chosen as symbols of strength and faithfulness with each elephant dedicated to one of his four surviving children, whose initials appear on the elephant’s blanket. In addition to being a beautiful art piece, the building was used as a water and wort tower, cooling and routing beer on its way from brewhouse to yeast cellars. The side of the tower leading into the brewery bears the names of
Carl Jacobsen and his wife Ottilia while the other side features sculptures of them sitting in a balcony below the dome.
Prior to the construction of the Elephant Gate, the
Dipylon Gate was erected in 1892 providing access to Ny Carlsberg from the
Vesterbro neighbourhood to the east. The tower at this gate housed malt chambers and had a clock tower which was integrated into production and timekeeping for brewery operations. Named after the ancient gate in Athens, Greece, Dipylon Gate has a pair of double-barreled arches. On the back of the gate above the arches are a set of nine tiled figures including Carl, Otillia, their son Alf, Vilhelm Dahlerup who designed the gate and other brewery buildings, and various managers of the brewery.
As exemplified by the Elephant and Dipylon Gates, Carl Jacobsen’s goal was to integrate artistic beauty into functional infrastructure such as tanks, towers and passageways. You continue to see this in his beautiful and lavish brewery factories designed with decorative brick colours and patterns, and artworks including friezes and sculptures. Prominent sculptures included
The Bell Strikers at the top of the Dipylon Gates,
Thor’s battle against the jötnar atop the Carlsberg Brewhouse, and a copper and zinc statue of
Atlas carrying the heavens on his shoulders which sits atop the old Maskincentralen Power Plant. Another significant example of mixing art with function is the “
Winding (Twisted) Chimney”, a 56-metre ornate brick and granite chimney that rises from an octagonal platform and spirals or winds around its own axis in an intricate pattern. There are gargoyles mid way up the chimney that are modeled after Notre Dame de Paris and the top section is decorated with Egyptian lotus motifs. Completed in 1900 by architect Vilhelm Dahlerupl, Carl wanted to show that a functional chimney could be turned into a work of art.
Hotel Ottilia is a boutique hotel that was created by combining and refurbishing historic brewery buildings including the
Maltmagasinet, which dates back to 1881. Opened in 2019, the hotel is named after Carl Jacobsen’s wife Ottilia. The distinctive gold discs on the façade of the hotel symbolize horizontal beer tanks and have narrow slits cut beside them to let in more light. Hotel Ottilia features many tributes to Carl and Ottilia including
busts mounted on the walls and a large
copper statue of Carl. There is also a bust honoring Carlsberg founder J.C.Jacobsen. These works from the late 19th century were moved from another building that was demolished.
The
Grey House originally housed one of Ny Carlsberg’s laboratories and was called
Kvalitetteknisk Laboratorium but more recently was given its nickname due to is grey façade. The pediment and frieze of the building are decorated with ornate sandstone relief carvings depicting cherubs and herons.
Carl Jacobsen’s Villa was built in 1892 along with his landscaped garden that was filled replicas of classical sculptures, a tree-lined path and a pavilion.
Carl Jacobsen loved art so much that he opened a major art and sculpture museum called
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (meaning sculpture collection) in 1897. The museum specialized in ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities as well as Danish and French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. There is a large indoor winter garden with palm trees, a fountain, a pond, and lots of natural light under a glass dome. We did not have time to visit this art gallery but walked by it multiple times since it is located in Central Copenhagen between our apartment hotel and many other tourist attractions.
Leaving Carlsberg City and continuing west into Frederiksberg, we first came across
Sondermarken, a large, semi-wild park that was created in 1699 as the natural, wooded portion of the royal grounds located south of the more manicured and landscaped Frederikberg Have (Gardens). A 1901 wooden
“Norwegian” house with a thatched roof and a bright red and yellow
Chinese pavilion are remnants of the 18th to 19th century fashion for having “exotic, foreign scenes and structures to be created within romantic parks. The
Kildengrotten is a small, artificial grotto built in 1787 around a natural spring to create a cave-like interior to provide shade for visitors. Access to the grotto has long been restricted but stone sculptures and a metal gate with a face on it were added in the 2010s, adding interest to the space.
Another romantic garden folly from the 18th century was the “
Hermit’s House”, supposedly inhabited by a Christian philosopher devoted to pious meditation who lived in this sparsely furnished structure in the wilderness. Also found in Sondermarken is a treetop climbing adventure park with routes of varying heights and difficulty levels including platforms reaching up to 9 metres high. An underground art space called the
Cisterne is located in Sodermarken. We would have visited because the space sounded very interesting, located in a former underground water reservoir with dark, damp, cavernous chambers. But the entrance fee was expensive and we were not interested in the current exhibition that was on display.
While we were walking through Sondermarken, we started running into young teenagers dressed in strange attire, often covered with what looked like shaving cream. By the time we reached the large open grassland at the northern edge of the park, we found where they had come from. We heard the roar of the crowd and the sounds of whistles and noise makers before we saw the huge congregation of joyously partying upper primary school kids, all dressed in costumes. We found out later that this was an annual organized celebration of the last day of school for students graduating from primary school involving water guns and shaving cream (and some illegal booze from the looks of it). This was a sanctioned supervised events since adults looking like teachers as well as a few policemen stood at the side to make sure things did not get out of hand.
Escaping the hubbub, we crossed over to the more serene
Frederiksberg Have (Park), created in the early 18th century by
King Frederik IV to surround his yellow Baroque palace,
Frederiksberg Slot. One of the largest in Copenhagen, the 31.1 hectares gardens were designed with a mix of Baroque formality and English romanticism. Open to the public since the early 19th century, there are winding tree-lined paths, large lawns, lakes and canals where small boats can be rented.
In addition to the natural beauty and the history of the palace, several points of interest can be found in Frederiksberg Have. A small neoclassical
Greek-inspired temple stands by the boundary of the Copenhagen Zoo. Designed around 1801, it is named “Apis Temple” because of the charging bull relief in the pediment. At one point, the temple acted as the entrance to the Zoo. On a small island in one of the lakes is a
Chinese-style pavilion created in 1799 as a
royal tea house. A
beautiful bridge leads to the island but unfortunately it was still closed for the season when we were there. Near the Chinese pavilion is a tree with its branches covered with
bags containing toddlers’ pacifiers. Parents hang these bags as part of a Danish tradition to mark the achievement of their children giving up their pacifiers.
This was the second day where we walked a very long distance while still slightly jetlagged. Rather than retrace the same steps as the first day to get back to the hotel, we found a bus that would bring us close to there and decided to take it despite the relatively high cost of the ride.
