Dane Dream: falling for handsome Copenhagen

I love Copenhagen. Edinburgh, Bologna, New York, Amsterdam... all cities I like, but Copenhagen I have a proper, heart-pounding crush on. It was love at first sight. My first time, it was December and bitterly cold. The cobbled streets were dusted with frost and snow swirled over the million fairy lights in the Tivoli Gardens, a garish wonderland of roller coasters and Christmas stalls. We took freezing walks along buzzing shopping streets, and bought anti-kitsch Scandi decorations. We stopped for reviving glasses of gløgg — mulled wine — in tiny basement bars lit only by firelight and candles, where we sat at long wooden tables and made friends with our neighbours. We explored Christianshavn, with its canalside houses, and the half-country-half-town hippie enclave of Christiania.

At night we partied with the young and the beautiful (crikey the locals are beautiful), squeezed into scruffy bars and slick, minimalist nightclubs where the boys all wore blazers, before stumbling home via a hot-dog stand for a huge midnight snack. It was bliss. I was smitten. And as with all great love affairs, I longed for more.

I finally returned this summer, to be seduced all over again. I met up for dinner with a local friend at Geist, a terrifyingly hip restaurant, all polished concrete and glass, with a Noma-style menu of locally foraged food that included such treats as raw Norway lobster with sheep milk, raw ox and lumpfish roe, and ‘air in air in air tiramisu’. As I waxed lyrical about my previous visit to the city, he rolled his eyes, took out a pen and wrote me a list of places to go that make up the Copenhagen that locals know and love. No Tivoli Gardens this time.

First it was off to Vesterbro, the arty, slightly run-down area southwest of the city centre, to try the best cup of coffee in town at Sort Kaffe & Vinyl, a minuscule record store with just enough space to get past the racks of vinyl to order your drink and a croissant before retreating outside (no seats) to down them amid a shuffling parade of hipsters. And then brunch at Granola, a trendy café done up like a workers’ canteen, with industrial-style lights and utilitarian furniture. En route I passed the world’s smallest hotel, the Central Hotel and Café — just one 12 sq m bedroom, above a similarly tiny coffee bar.

Next I hopped a train at the Central Station up to Østerport, for a walk around the Kastellet, the city’s old citadel (complete with a picturesque windmill), where locals jog past the young army cadets who patrol the star-shaped ramparts. The Kastellet overlooks Copenhagen’s most famous monument, the Little Mermaid, and the docklands beyond. Wandering back along the waterfront, I was lured by the strains of a marching band to watch the changing of the guard (the guards in royal blue trousers and bearskin hats) at the Amalienborg Palace. Passing the impressive new Playhouse, I ended up in the ultimate Copenhagen cliché of Nyhavn, a pretty canal harbour full of traditional fishing boats and framed by 17th-century multicoloured houses, many now bars packed with tourists where the prices are, unsurprisingly, high.

I passed on, ordering an aperitif instead at Ruby, a hard-to-find (ignore the signs announcing the Bulgarian embassy at the door) and very cool, yet charming, cocktail bar tucked away behind Christiansborg, the parliament building. (Borgen! Oh, the excitement of sitting on the very fountain and walking along the very colonnades where Birgitte had stomped before me...) Then dinner at Fiat, a properly delicious Italian by the Royal Theatre with a pretty paved garden at the back, the perfect spot for a bowl of lobster ravioli or artichoke risotto.

But, secretly, I don’t always want to avoid being a tourist. The Royal Café, slap-bang in the city centre, does delectable snacks it calls ‘smushi’, sort of sushi/sandwich hybrids that are almost too pretty to eat and shouldn’t be missed. The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is a gallery/museum packed with wonders, from ancient Roman statues to Gauguin masterpieces. Then there’s the King’s Garden and the treasures of Rosenborg Castle — and, of course, the shopping. The narrow streets of central Copenhagen are packed with shops selling sleek Scandinavian design (I was particularly taken with one small interiors shop, Stilleben, and a little photography gallery, Naboløs). Whatever your fancy, something in Copenhagen will tug at your heartstrings. For me it’s an enduring love affair.

Where to stay

The Axel Hotel Guldsmeden is close to the Central Station and an easy walk from the city centre. The Balinese-styled, eco-friendly hotel serves organic food and has a small spa. Double rooms from DKK985, B&B, per night (00 45 33 31 32 66; hotelguldsmeden.dk)