Christoffer Hruskova's Denmark

The man responsible for bringing Scandinavian cuisine to London grew up in the bucolic folds of an agricultural Danish island – but finds much of his inspiration in the country’s future-thinking, ever-evolving capital

Words by Lucy Kehoe

Growing up on Funen, Denmark’s central island, Christoffer Hruskova was surrounded by great produce. ‘Fyn [the Danish name] is a farming island,’ he says. ‘It’s a bit like how they call Kent the Garden of England – the island is well known for its produce.’

In Denmark’s secret garden, orchards line country roads and the green aerials of asparagus stand to attention in flat fields along the coastline. It’s common to spot roadside stalls selling homegrown strawberries, potatoes, carrots, pumpkins, blueberries and peas. Farms and fairytales: those are Funen’s two promises, with seemingly as many dairy fields on the island as turreted castles (Egeskov Slot being the most famous). And its largest city, Odense, a historic, higgledy-piggledy settlement of half-timbered houses, proudly sells itself as the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen. ‘He’s the most famous son of Odense,’ Christoffer says, ‘and I must be a close second!’

The chef is joking, of course, but he’s also underplaying his impact on the UK food scene. When he opened Fig in Islington in 2006, followed in 2010 by North Road, Clerkenwell, he became part of a movement that brought Scandinavian cooking to the fore, launching a trend for hyper-local menus that transformed modern British restaurant culture. In 2010, Jay Rayner described his offering as ‘about as close as you’ll get to Redzepi’s [cooking] without buying a plane ticket’, referring to the mastermind behind the world-shaking Noma. Heady praise for an island boy.

Growing up, though, this kind of Danish cooking was far under Christoffer’s radar. ‘I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do [after school],’ the chef muses. At home, his father cooked traditional Danish fare – lots of pork and potatoes doused in parsley milk sauce. ‘The only thing I was sure of was I didn’t want any more school, so my parents suggested a cooking college. I fell in love with it – we did all kinds of food-related stuff, but it was the cheffing that grabbed my attention.’

After training, he remembers taking his CV to ‘about 100 places’ before landing a waiting role in Aarhus. Bit-part jobs followed, including a year at a boutique hotel in Alsace, France, then a Funen summer season, when an old friend contacted him: he was working as head chef at Kong Hans in Copenhagen and wanted Christoffer to join the team.

‘Back then in Denmark, it was mainly French and Italian cuisine. There wasn’t any “Nordic cuisine”,’ Christoffer laughs. To chart the chef’s career is to chart the transformation of said Nordic cuisine over the past 30 years. At Kong Hans – ‘the pinnacle of Danish gastronomy’ at the time – all eyes looked south.

‘It was super French,’ he says. ‘All our produce came from France.’ An alien concept in today’s Copenhagen, where the New Nordic cuisine introduced by the likes of René Redzepi now defines the city’s tastes, and the produce of Funen has never been in hotter demand. But when he’s back in the capital (if not scouting the city for inspiration he stays at the family beach house on Funen), Christoffer tends to seek out stripped-back Scandi flavours of a different kind.

‘You must have a Danish hot dog,’ he urges, when asked about his non-negotiable city experiences. ‘That’s the first thing I get – with ketchup, mustard, remoulade sauce, raw onions, fried onions, pickled cucumbers. We have pølsemand – literally, “wagon with sausages” – everywhere.’ Popular spots include John’s Hotdog Deli, beloved of chefs, outside Central Station.

Bakeries are high on the list too. ‘Juno is spectacular. They have the best cardamom buns in Copenhagen,’ he says. For those intent on seeking out top quality, but less buzzy, baked goods, he recommends a trip to the well-heeled suburb of Hellerup. ‘My bakery mentor [Per Brun] has an amazing Bread Station just by the train station,’ he says.

Another favourite harks back to the flavours of the Dane’s childhood. ‘I miss a really good open sandwich. I don’t think people get smørrebrød in the way we do in Denmark, where it’s a part of our tradition and culture. Rye bread with something on top was always in my lunch box.’ He recommends Palægade’s: ‘I like a good tartare on mine, or, fjord shrimps when in season.’

An obsession with simplicity done well and quality produce underscores Christoffer’s cooking ethos. ‘When I opened Fig, what really interested me was the wild herbs that were coming into the kitchens,’ he says. ‘I was introduced to them by a Swedish colleague and I got in touch with a couple of foragers, and that’s how it started rolling.’

At North Road, he only used foraged and wild ingredients, forgoing non-native products like tomatoes, garlic or olive oil. ‘We were early out,’ he says. ‘We really tried to work with our suppliers and pushed them to get what we wanted.’

You get the impression Christoffer is always one step ahead of the zeitgeist. Once he’d deposited Scandi cooking in London, he was off, considering pastures new, working in consultancy and helping with openings as far afield as Siberia. Then, in 2016, he returned to London to open The Bread Station, a bakery in London Fields that focused on breads raised without the use of commercial yeast. In other words, working on sourdough before it became a thing.

His latest projects, both on the cusp of launch, are all about produce. The first, Nordic Dairy, is a one-stop- shop for Scandinavian dairy products, selling virgin butter (churned with the buttermilk to make a light, sour-tasting product) alongside ‘the fattiest yoghurt in the world’ and Nordic cheeses, which, he says, are under-appreciated.

The other, Wilder, is a project that takes his early interest in wild foods into a new space: ice cream. ‘It’s an idea that’s been in my head for many years,’ he says. ‘At my second restaurant, we made a lot of very cool, fun ice-cream flavours – because we were already cooking with wild ingredients. What I’m always aiming for is to do something with quality in it,’ he says.

He’s thinking ahead when pinning down his Copenhagen recommendations too, keen to discuss places he hasn’t been to but has heard good things about: on the list are a|o|c, close to Nyhavn harbour, and Koan, a new Korean-inspiredrestaurant on the waterfront that recently won two Michelin stars. He loves the sound of Mirabelle, Christian Puglisi’s ‘super-cool little Italian place’, and wants to try Jatak, another Korean-influenced spot with Nordic inflections.

Indeed, the city’s interest in Asian flavours has captured his attention. ‘We’re seeing people add other cuisines to Nordic cuisine,’ he says. ‘There’s a good place called Jordnær – Eric Vildgaard is doing Japanese-Nordic, even though he’s apparently never been to Asia. What they make is crazy. Asian cuisine is very similar to New Nordic cuisine. It’s very delicate, very light but full of flavour too.’

Last time he was in the city, he skipped old haunts to stay on the fringes of Vesterbro. ‘It used to be the rough area – now it’s hip and smart, a bit like Shoreditch. He was particularly impressed with the transformation of Carlsberg Byen, the former brewing site of the beer company that has been redeveloped by the brand into a new neighbourhood with hotels, restaurants, bakeries and an outpost of his favourite coffee shop, Coffee Collective. Take note: where Christoffer heads, it does well to follow. It’s likely to be the next big thing.

This article was taken from the May 2024 issue of Food and Travel. To subscribe today, click here.