Where to Eat on Your First Copenhagen Trip: 14 Stops for 2026

At a smørrebrød counter, the first question is how many. One piece looks like lunch until the plates beside it start to fill up. Aamanns in Østerbro suggests three per person. The rye bread is the thread through the meal, and the toppings make each piece its own course.

It is tempting to book a big dinner before you even pack. Leave room for lunch as well. Sit down for smørrebrød, save the counters and carts for the stretch between sights, then pick one evening meal you would be sorry to miss. The city makes more sense eaten in that order.

Where should you eat on your first trip to Copenhagen?

Eat one Danish lunch sitting down, keep the hours between sights for food you can hold, and book one dinner. That covers the three things a first visit should taste: rye bread and herring, the counter and street food Copenhagen eats on a weekday, and one long evening at a table.

The fourteen stops run from lunch to the last booking, with one early-morning alternative. In the table, Gasoline Grill comes first and Slurp second; the other twelve keep the order of the day.

Why should a first Copenhagen plan start with lunch?

Because lunch is the meal where Copenhagen cooks food you cannot find at home. Smørrebrød is food for sitting down with: rye, fish, something pickled, something warm. Give it an hour at a table when you can, and on the days a sight comes first, make the lunch you carry a good one.

1. Aamanns Østerbro Deli: three pieces, eaten slowly

Adam Aamann opened in 2006 to give smørrebrød renewed care, at a time when the classic lunch kitchen had, in his restaurant's words, lived "a rather sad existence". The deli on Øster Farimagsgade is where it started 20 years ago, which makes it a good place to learn how the format works. Sourdough rye is the foundation; the toppings are built for flavour and texture rather than height.

Order across the counter rather than three of the same. The potato piece brings pickled onions, crisp potato and herbs; the old-style matured herring comes with curry salad, apple, spring onion and toasted buckwheat; the warm butter-fried plaice comes with root-vegetable remoulade and pickled red onion. That gives you a vegetable, a cold fish and a warm one, all on that rye, which the menu describes as a malt rye baked with rye from Østagergaard and mash from Herslev Bryghus. If a sit-down lunch would cost you a sight, the deli also does takeaway from 10:30, and the neighbourhood's green spaces are close by.

2. Ma Poule: lunch inside the market halls

If your morning is in the centre rather than Østerbro, Torvehallerne puts lunch inside the market halls, with more to look at. Ma Poule, founded in 2011, brings a French delicatessen and wine-shop approach to the halls. Three pallets of hams, sausages, cheeses and pâtés arrive directly from France every week, from small local producers the stall hand-picks.

The order is the duck-confit sandwich, which some people call the best in Copenhagen: rich confit duck, sharp mustard and peppery rocket in bread. It turns a browse through the stalls into lunch, and the 150-plus cheeses and charcuterie around it can wait for another visit.

3. Abrikos: when lunch has to travel

Some days the sight comes first and lunch has to fit around it. Abrikos opened its Nørregade shop in 2023 because its founders loved sandwiches and missed one made from scratch with good, fresh ingredients. Every sandwich comes on its own soft potato-sourdough bread, and in 2025 it won Berlingske's first Byens Bedste Sandwich.

Spicy Cucumber layers homemade cream cheese and plenty of fresh cucumber with fermented green chilli, basil, lemon zest and olive oil, for DKK 90. Ham & Cheese goes the familiar way at DKK 110: rosemary ham made in-house from pork neck, mustard mayo, pickled gherkins, Thise Vesterhavsost, tomato and romaine. Abrikos keeps daytime hours and closes on Mondays, so check pickup times before you plan around it.

4. GRØD: the early-start alternative

If the day starts early, a warm bowl carries you to lunch better than a pastry. GRØD started on Jægersborggade in September 2011, when Lasse Skjønning Andersen turned a fascination with porridge into a restaurant, and savoury dishes such as risotto, daal and congee took the idea beyond breakfast.

At GRØD on Vesterbrogade, the largest of its restaurants and very blue, on the corner of Enghavevej, the porridge runs from early morning to late evening. The classic Oat Porridge 1 tops whole rolled oats, cooked with oat milk and water, with caramel sauce, fresh apple and roasted almonds for DKK 79. From 11:00 the savoury bowls sit beside it: the chicken congee brings hoisin chicken, kimchi-kale, crushed peanuts and sesame oil for DKK 119. It opens at 8:00 on weekdays and 9:00 at weekends, and the menu moves with the seasons.

Whether lunch is an hour at a table or a sandwich on a bench, it anchors the middle of the day. The hours around it need food that asks for less.

What do you eat between the sights?

Something you can order in a minute and finish on a bench, at a counter or on your feet, so the afternoon stays yours. Copenhagen is good at this, and two of the best stops sit on the same pedestrian street.

5. DØP: a hot dog by the Round Tower

The hot dog stand is a Copenhagen habit, and DØP stands by the Round Tower on Købmagergade, with a second stand on Strøget by the Church of the Holy Ghost. It takes the habit seriously: its classic roasted pork sausage was Best in Test with the Danish Consumer Council in 2014, and the wholegrain bread, from slowly raised dough, is topped with linseeds.

Take the roasted hot dog the way the menu serves it, with ketchup, mustard, remoulade, fresh and fried onions and pickles, then eat it on the street and keep walking. The spicy beef sausage, seasoned with Merguez spices, can come with a mash of parsnips, potatoes and kohlrabi instead. It is street food, not a seated meal, and the stand lists daily hours of 11:00 to 19:00, so do not rely on it late in the day.

6. Gasoline Grill: a burger halfway down Købmagergade

Klaus Wittrup, who founded Gasoline Grill, knows what a first trip abroad tastes like. At 16 he stepped off a plane at Chicago's O'Hare, jetlagged, on the way to a host family in Indiana, and the car stopped for food on the road. He ordered his first American burger, and as he later told the photographer Cory Smith, he can still recall it vividly: "I wanted to have my own little piece of America here."

He opened the first Gasoline Grill in April 2016. After Bloomberg named it in 2017 among 27 burgers worldwide, the original became what he called "a tourist thing", and he worried about it, until a trip to Rome and a stop at Pizzarium Bonci changed his mind. "Being a tourist thing doesn't have to be bad," he told Smith. We still agree: visitors are welcome at the counter.

Two burgers show how we cook. Our Cheeseburger, The Benchmark, brings cheddar, fresh red onion, pickles and Gasoline Grill Sauce, for DKK 110 at Landgreven and at Købmagergade. The Butterburger is our "classic burger from the American heartland": red onion, pickles and a big schmear of salted butter instead of sauce, also DKK 110, and we suggest adding cheese. Both are cooked to order and eat well in one hand.

For a first-timer, two of our ten Copenhagen restaurants sit on the walk: Gasoline Grill Købmagergade, at number 23 on the Round Tower's pedestrian street, and Gasoline Grill Landgreven, the original, near Kongens Have. Landgreven is the restaurant in Klaus's tourist story. Købmagergade, open since April 2025, is the one with seats indoors.

7. Ved Stranden 10: the pause before the evening

By late afternoon you want a chair and a glass more than another meal. Ved Stranden 10 has been a wine shop and bar since 2009, and it works without a wine list: you talk, you taste, and together you find what suits the evening, usually a European wine from a cold climate. Its small kitchen offer keeps the wine company with cheese, charcuterie and what the bar calls "the inevitable Croque Monsieur".

Treat it as a pause, not a dinner, unless you land on the last Monday of the month, when the Monday Meal serves a dish to share from 18:00 for DKK 100; October's was boeuf bourguignon. It takes no reservations, opens at 15:00 on weekdays and 12:00 on Saturdays, and is closed on Sunday, so place it on the right day of a weekend visit.

From here the day turns into evening, and the evening is the one part of a first trip where a booking earns its keep.

Which dinners can you leave to chance, and which should you book?

Slurp takes no reservations, so you can leave a bowl of ramen unplanned. Check the chosen Hija de Sanchez branch before setting out, and use Jah’s booking route if it is the dinner you want. The other dinner rooms below reward a booking, and Absalon needs a ticket.

The walk-in plan has limits, and this is where they show. A group of five or more, a Friday or Saturday night, or a trip built around one destination restaurant all change the order: book first, then fit the day around the table.

8. Slurp: a bowl worth the line

On an ordinary weekday evening on Nansensgade, a long line outside number 90 is nothing unusual, as the Copenhagen guide Mig og København put it, and it usually moves fairly quickly. That line is the reason Slurp belongs in a first-trip evening. It is the walk-in dinner done properly: no booking, and a full meal in one bowl after a day on your feet.

Slurp's two rooms are open every day for lunch and dinner. Nansensgade is the original, with 22 seats, tiny and loud; Borgergade, opened in January 2025, has 36 seats, the same ramen and a little more room. Slurp's own advice for a party is blunt: "Your best chance is to show up before we open and get in on the first seat, or get ready to be split up!" It also says the rooms are not well suited to big groups, so keep this one for a small party.

Order the Shio at DKK 185: a chicken, smoked-mackerel and seafood broth with chashu cut from pork neck, a tamago egg, spring onions, daikon, red peppercorns, rucola, basil and lemon thyme. The menu pairs it with a Sencha tea, and the chef's recommended extra is lime kosho. The noodles are rolled and cut in-house each morning, and the kitchen adjusts noodles, broth and tare every day for the season and the humidity.

9. Jah Izakaya: small plates, one long evening

Jah suits the night when nobody wants to race through a main course. It grew out of a family restaurant in 2016, when Ulla Inoue, Satoru and two friends took over after the older generation retired; Ulla's family ties to Osaka's izakayas shaped a room where small dishes, sake and a reggae soundtrack belong together.

Start with karaage of Hopballe Mølle chicken, agedashi tofu in the house dashi and five pork gyoza, then let the order grow. Jah suggests three to five dishes per person, all shared, and they arrive in no particular order. The seasonal list changes, and at the moment it includes oyster tempura with shiso, aubergine and clam dashi. Reserve if this is the dinner you have set your heart on.

10. Hija de Sanchez: tacos near wherever the evening ends

Rosio Sanchez opened the first Hija de Sanchez at Torvehallerne in 2015, after working as Noma's pastry chef. A second taqueria followed in the Meatpacking District in April 2016, known for its Taco al Pastor, and the group has since spread across distinct neighbourhoods, with a Mexican street-food meal at the centre of each. The tortillas are made fresh to order, from indigenous Mexican corn that the group imports and turns into masa in Copenhagen.

Choose the branch for where your evening already is. Kødbyen, Nordhavn, Carlsberg Byen and the market locations have different rooms and service arrangements. Kødbyen pairs its tacos with Margaritas, Nordhavn has a dining room on Hamborg Plads and churros worth saving room for, and Carlsberg Byen sits in Kedelhallen, the historic boiler hall, with fish tacos on the terrace or inside. Check the current fillings and set-up at the one you pick.

The next five are the evenings worth securing, either because the table is the meal or because everyone needs to sit together.

11. SURT: book the Carlsberg Byen pizza night

Giuseppe Oliva opened SURT in December 2019, after six years as a sea captain and a move to Copenhagen. His family's baking history goes back to his grandfather's mill, and he carried that interest in dough to Carlsberg Byen, which he calls "a historical fermentation site". The oven was built on the spot with Ernesto, an oven crafter.

The Margherita at DKK 175 pairs Siccagno tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella and basil with a sourdough made from ancient grain varieties; the Rianata swaps in anchovies, red onion, pecorino and oregano. SURT says it values acidity and works with lactic bacteria and yeasts on its sourdough. It is pizza, but it is a sit-down evening, so book when the night has a fixed shape; as a rule, the table is yours for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

12. Kødbyens Fiskebar: the seafood evening

Fiskebar opened in 2009 in the white-tiled buildings of the old meat market, with Anders Selmer and Bagge Algreen-Ussing behind it. Its first service came two months early, when the head chef cooked mussels on a single electric hob for the district's 75th anniversary with trolleys dressed with flowers serving as outdoor tables. Space Copenhagen shaped the room around the decay, leaving a burnt-out welding spot on the wall and panelling the open bar with old doors.

Come for oysters, fish and shellfish, and expect the menu to change: the published menus are only examples. The kitchen names its suppliers, including Venø Seafood for Limfjorden oysters, line-grown Limfjorden mussels that stay free of sand, and scallops hand-dived off northern Norway. Food is served from 11:30 to 14:30 and from 17:30 to 23:00, with oysters and drinks all day. Book a table, or walk in and ask for a seat at the bar.

13. Silberbauers Bistro: one room on Jægersborggade

Mathias Silberbauer developed the idea while cooking in Nice, where he spent his time off in neighbourhood bistros. He brought that approach in May 2021 to Jægersborggade, the street where GRØD began, with fish, shellfish and unforced hospitality. The Michelin Guide describes whitewashed walls, small tables and menus chalked on blackboards, with seafood and Provençal recipes in the lead and room for saucisse de Toulouse and crêpes suzette.

The bistro's stated values are plain: food cooked perfectly, the best seasonal ingredients, fair prices and guests allowed to mind their own business. It is open for walk-ins, but booking ahead is recommended, especially if you are more than two.

14. Absalon: a ticket instead of a booking

Absalon opened in August 2015 as a community house on Vesterbro, with shared activities at its heart and usually more than 100 events a week. Dinner is part of that everyday life: everyone eats together at 18:00, every evening, at long tables, from a menu that changes daily. The menu for the first week of November 2026 lists pumpkin soup with coconut milk, ginger and herb cream on Wednesday, and spiced potato soup with beluga lentils on Thursday, followed by pumpkin cake with a cinnamon swirl.

Buy tickets online until 16:00 on the day, or try the door from 17:00, and arrive before 17:45 or your seats may go to someone waiting. Dinner costs DKK 75 from Sunday to Wednesday and DKK 100 from Thursday to Saturday, when the chef adds a dessert. If you buy for a group, buy together so you sit together.

What does a first food day in Copenhagen cost in 2026?

About DKK 660 per person in food, if you book one dinner and eat the rest without a booking. Take a first-timer on a Thursday, their second day in the city, with one booking made for SURT and everything else left to the street. Prices are per person, before breakfast, coffee or wine.

Lunch is three pieces at Aamanns Østerbro: potato smørrebrød at DKK 75, herring at DKK 80 and warm plaice with root-vegetable remoulade at DKK 145, so DKK 300. Mid-afternoon at Gasoline Grill Landgreven, a Cheeseburger at DKK 110, regular fries at DKK 40 and our homemade elderflower lemonade at DKK 35 come to DKK 185. Dinner is SURT's Margherita at DKK 175. The day's food costs DKK 660.

Now change one decision. Swap the pizza for Absalon's Thursday dinner at DKK 100 and the same day costs DKK 585, dessert included. Keep that DKK 585 day and take the Gasoline Grill combo, which starts at DKK 155, instead of ordering separately: the total falls to DKK 555 or a little more, depending on your choices. A Shio at Slurp in place of either dinner costs DKK 185. The lesson is the same as at the smørrebrød counter: price the whole order, not the headline item.

Which Gasoline Grill should you visit on your first trip to Copenhagen?

Choose Gasoline Grill Købmagergade if you want a seat indoors or an early start: it serves breakfast from 7:30 and burgers from 11:00, with seating inside and out. Choose Gasoline Grill Landgreven, the original, for an outdoor meal from 11:00. Neither takes reservations, and every restaurant closes when it sells out.

One more suits a first trip for a different reason. Gasoline Grill Niels Hemmingsens Gade, open since June 2017 beside the former Copenhagen Jazzhouse, opens every day from 11:00 and has no seating at all: order the same DKK 110 Cheeseburger or Butterburger, take the bag and eat on the move.

For a walk-up burger on this trip, try Gasoline Grill Købmagergade, Landgreven or Niels Hemmingsens Gade.

At Landgreven and Niels Hemmingsens Gade you can pre-order through the Gasoline Grill app and collect your order. Menus and prices differ between restaurants, so check the branch's own menu before you go. The full list of our Copenhagen restaurants is on our locations page.

How much should you plan before you arrive?

Book one dinner and choose one lunch. Leave everything else open.

That gives the trip a fixed point in the evening and a proper meal in the middle of the day, without making every walk and museum fit a restaurant clock. The fourteen stops are options, not a route to complete; crossing the city for every meal leaves you with a list of addresses and little sense of the streets between them.

Two checks are worth making on the day. Look at the weather and the branch: an outdoor-only counter is a pleasure in sunshine and a poor choice in rain. And ask about the meal you actually intend to order if you have dietary needs: a vegetable dish is not automatically vegan, and a menu name tells you little about cross-contact with allergens.

Then go and eat. Three pieces of smørrebrød, something in your hand by the Round Tower, one good table at night: that is a first trip to Copenhagen done well.

Frequently asked questions

What food should you try on a first trip to Copenhagen?

Start with smørrebrød at a sit-down lunch, add a hot dog from a street stand, then vary the rest of the trip. The city's everyday eating includes noodles, tacos, burgers, pizza, seafood and simple counter meals, so you do not need every dinner to follow one idea of Danish food.

Do you need to book restaurants in Copenhagen?

Not every one. Slurp, Gasoline Grill and Ved Stranden 10 take no reservations, and many lunch stops are walk-in. Book the dinner you especially want, and book earlier for a group or a Friday or Saturday night.

How many pieces of smørrebrød should you order?

Aamanns recommends three pieces per person for lunch. At its Østerbro deli on 13 October 2026, a potato piece cost DKK 75 and warm plaice DKK 145, so three pieces came to about DKK 300 before a drink.

Can you eat well in Copenhagen on a budget?

Yes, if you compare complete meals rather than single dishes. Absalon's shared dinner costs DKK 75 to 100, a Gasoline Grill combo starts at DKK 155 and a bowl at Slurp is a full meal from DKK 175. Check current prices and whether sides are included before you decide.

Sources

1. Aamanns Østerbro deli and menu
2. Aamanns: about us
3. Ma Poule in Torvehallerne, VisitCopenhagen
4. Ma Poule Torvehallerne company profile
5. Abrikos
6. About GRØD
7. GRØD Vesterbro
8. DØP, VisitCopenhagen
9. Closed // Open with Klaus Wittrup, Cory Smith
10. Gasoline Grill Landgreven menu and prices
11. Gasoline Grill Landgreven
12. Gasoline Grill Købmagergade
13. Gasoline Grill Niels Hemmingsens Gade
14. Gasoline Grill locations
15. Ved Stranden 10
16. Slurp restaurants, hours and FAQ
17. Slurp menu
18. Slurp Ramen Joint opens on Borgergade, Mig og København
19. Jah Izakaya
20. Sanchez, VisitCopenhagen
21. Hija de Sanchez locations
22. SURT: nice to know
23. SURT dinner menu
24. Kødbyens Fiskebar: ten years
25. Kødbyens Fiskebar: food and wine
26. Silberbauers Bistro, VisitCopenhagen
27. About Absalon
28. Absalon dinner and tickets
29. Ma Poule, TorvehallerneKBH stall page
30. GRØD menu
31. DØP menu
32. About DØP and opening hours
33. Gasoline Grill menu
34. Gasoline Grill Købmagergade menu and prices
35. Ved Stranden 10: wine
36. Ved Stranden 10: Monday Meal
37. Hija de Sanchez Kødbyen: hours and info
38. Hija de Sanchez Nordhavn: hours and info
39. Hija de Sanchez Carlsberg Byen: hours and info
40. Silberbauers Bistro, Michelin Guide
41. Gasoline Grill Niels Hemmingsens Gade menu and prices
42. Hija de Sanchez: careers and company profile
43. SURT: need to know
44. Kødbyens Fiskebar: contact and booking