During our trip to Copenhagen last month, I wanted to make sure that my wife Jun and I do not get overwhelmed by too much fine dining, so we split our four nights in the city between two fine dining (Noma and Alchemist which I will review next) and two casual restaurants. One restaurant from the latter that I wanted to try also happened to be located in the former Noma space before it moved. Even the chef Thorsten Schmidt honed his skills at Noma under the famed René Redzepi. Unlike the more high-octane tour de force from Noma, Barr’s direction is more approachable, inspired by and elevating comfort dishes from around the Northern Sea region, often quite successfully, as we had experienced for our dinner.

One essential quality that we learned from restaurants in Copenhagen was a kitchen’s relentless focus on the fresh ingredients. After taking a bite of raw langoustine at Barr, you will immediately notice it. We’ve had a fair share of lobster and langoustine dishes before, but the texture of Barr’s langoustine was quite something else, and it certainly helped that the kitchen decided to add preserved tomato and curdled milk to further enhance the texture. The other starter we ordered, mushroom bouillon, was also fantastic, with its aromatic broth and lightly grilled mushroom quite ideal for a chilly winter night in Copenhagen. When we were discussing what to order for main dish, we couldn’t help but notice that literally every table around us was ordering the gigantic fried porkchop for two so we jumped on the bandwagon. We were very glad we did, as the breaded aged pork was one of the best dishes we had eaten in Copenhagen; the meat’s texture was more or less perfect and the dill stewed potatoes on the side was a worthy sidekick. We finished our meal with a delightful but not overly sweet dessert of apple and quince accompanied by kefir ice cream and rosemary caramel.

The restaurant has a decent-sized dining room that was fairly packed during our meal; if you end up not getting a reservation in advance, you can also try the bar area on the right after the entrance. While Barr prides itself in having a great beer list, it also has a pretty extensive list of carefully sourced wines for wine drinkers like us, with bottles at different price points and emphasizing compatibility with the food. The aesthetics of quintessential Scandinavian minimalism oozes throughout the dining space with oak interiors. If you are in need of a more classic Danish dining experience in Copenhagen, it will be fairly hard to beat what Barr has to offer.    

Address: Strandgade 93, 1401 Copenhagen, Denmark

KenScale: 8.25/10 (Jun’s Score: 8.25/10)

Website: https://restaurantbarr.com/en/home/

Reservation via Website