New Nordic Design: Into the Past, Back to Future

For many years, “Danish cuisine” was globally synonymous with food so bad that it made the skin on the back of the international gourmet stand up straight. But in 2004 nothing short of a revolution occurred in the Scandinavian kitchens. The opening of Noma Restaurant in Copenhagen in November of that year launched “New Nordic” cuisine—the brainchild of chefs René Redzepi and Claus Meyer—into the culinary stratosphere. Since then, New Nordic, which draws inspiration from Danish and Nordic history and culture to inform its ingredients and presentation choices, has gained a well deserved place in the worldwide palatal pantheon.  Much of the success of the New Nordic movement has come from it’s compelling and careful cultivation of a contemporary Nordic identity, a development which many Scandinavians would say had been a long time coming. The spaces in which New Nordic is served and enjoyed, like the newly opened Höst Restaurant in Copenhagen, are perfect “test kitchens” if you will, for the aesthetic of that identity, using design and style to architect an emerging Scandinavian identity, fusing the old and new.

The entrance to Höst is a small door at the top of three steps. It opens directly onto the exposed wood maître-d’s desk; there is no place for the clientele to promenade. In an ode to Copenhagen’s typically casual fashion (most people walk the streets in sneakers) the waiters and waitresses are dressed in far more casual attire than a North American observer might expect for a restaurant of this caliber. They don black fabric button downs, gray pants and gray aprons (another reference to Copenhagen street fashion: many refer to black and pigment-devoid clothing as “a Copenhagener’s uniform”). The servers’ attire matches their casual and youthful style, both in terms of appearance and service. A young server with two French braids, two visible tattoos and six visible piercings leans easily against the wood wall as guests enter.

The restaurant’s interior is characterized by themes of exposed wood, white painted brick and white black and gray- the colors of the chairs. There are two very distinct sections of the restaurant, split over two floors. The first is called “The Garden” by the servers. It is located a few steps below a scattered section of tables next to the entrance in a lowered indoor veranda. The Garden has tall potted plants surrounding the tables. Both the tables and the ceilings are exposed wood- and still sport the inked stamps of lumber production companies on their purposely un-sanded surfaces. The walls are white-dusted brick. There are large windows on sides which look onto the bustle of the street and invite all the light the dreary Copenhagen sky has to offer. The space is hazily, and yet transparently Mediterranean, an ode to the culinary giants of the south, and reminiscent for the Danish diners, no doubt, of recent or hoped for vacations. Danes often travel to the South of Europe during the harsh and drawn out Scandinavian winters. Southern locales- Santorini, Mallorca, etc., are as much a part of the experience of many a modern Copenhagener as are the winding canals of their own city.

The top and bottom floors are connected loosely and yet triumphantly with the use of consistent chairs and tables, but the particular aesthetic they each evoke are begot of vastly different moments in Scandinavian history. The bottom floor has very few windows and uses the darkness to create the mise en scene of an archeological, old-world tableau. Walls of plain brick and mud with clay pottery resting on carved shelves, all illuminated by dispersed candles, work to transport the diner into antiquity.  Perhaps the most striking feature of the whole restaurant is found in the far corner of the bottom floor where a grand table consumes an entire room. The table is surrounded by high chairs covered with gray fur slips, unremittingly and undeniably evoking the scene of a Viking court of old. Directly above the table are classic Danish lightings, which can be pulled down over the table to make the Viking experience especially hygge— the Danish conception of warmth and cozy community.

As with all old countries, Denmark, and the Nordic nations have a long history to reconcile with their modern, largely urban experience. The ethos surrounding the New Nordic cuisine, and its braiding of the legacy of ancient Viking heritage and elements of a modern Nordic city, is a successful, and fascinating experiment in historically conscious futurism. Other countries struggling to incorporate their heritage into the future will no doubt take notice of this movement, fittingly born in a part of the world which is known for being on the cutting edge of... well just about everything.