Geranium

Lunch, Wednesday May 21, 2008

After our wonderful trip to Bordeaux two weeks before, we were again on the road with Guillaume by this sunny wednesday for another food trip : to Denmark this time, a 24h trip for 3 meals.

Thanks to Trine, we had a great opportunity to book a table at noma for dinner, and we took advantage of this to book 2 lunches : one at Geranium, the second at The Paul on thursday.

The timing today is tight : leaving Paris at 11:00 am, landing in Copenhagen at 13:00, we had 1h to reach our restaurant located in the city centre. But everything went perfecly well : we arrived at Geranium around 13:45 and were relieved to enter the place on time. We’ll be 3 for this lunch as Trine will join us a couple of minutes later, a pleasure to meet her again after our first meal at Pierre Gagnaire.

Immediately, Guillaume and myself are feeling impressed by the place and the atmosphere at Geranium : design furniture, luminous dining room, wonderful view of the park (the king’s garden) : peaceful and lovely place…

The table is nicely dressed and i’m flashing on the bread served on a small wood plate with a wood knife. Nice…

In order to enjoy and discover the food served here by a duo of chefs (getting their first Michelin star this year), we’ll go for a 4 courses menu.

Appetizer

This is a very delicate and fresh appetizer including small shrimps and green strawberries, matching perfectly well with a glass of champagne.

This gives already the tempo of what will be a terrific lunch.

Smoke, embers & ashes

2005, Riesling Spatlese, Lorcher Pfaffenwines, Graf von Kanitz, Rheingau

Wow, it’s just the second dish we get since we arrived in Denmark and it will be probably be one of the dish of the year to me.

Before the plate being served, the chef himself is bringing small pots with ashes inside,  then open them and this enables the smoke to parfume the table.

Then arrive the dish itself. Great tastes, the textures are just amazing : raddish, fish eggs, .. you can’t almost describe what’s in your plate. Surprising and very tasty dish, working well with the smoke parfume and completely disturbing you but in a positive way.

White asparagus, turbot, foamy browned butter, stonecrop & wild onions

1999, Entre Ciel et Terre, Francoise Bedel, Vallée de la Marne

Quite original and probably the first time that we received a glass of champagne in the middle of a wine menu (after dry wines i mean). When smelling it, i immediately announce it smells « asparagus »… i saw Guillaume and Trine a little bit confused… ok, i realized it was a little bit strange. But then arrive the dish with the asparagus inside… hmm, then we must admit that the wine smell was indeed about asparagus.

The turbot was perfectly cooked : fresh and tasty, it was a great pairing with both the asparagus and the champagne.

The Kings Herbgarden

2005, Anjou, Les Fourchardes, Domaine de la Sansonnière, Loire

This is again something fantastic. It’s not just about cooking, it’s also about art here. Visually, this is simply wonderful. And from a taste perspective, it’s just awesome.

Some herbs and vegetables are fresh and sweet, some others are stronger and crispy. The consommé topping the herbs is very well done too. Another excellent dish…

Happy Chicken, morrels & sweet woodruff and potatopeels

2001, Campo Quadro, Bararesco, Punset, Piedmonte

This main course is another wonderful picture. And the products are matching here again, even it’s less surprising then the previous dishes we had, but the tastes are again excellent, a smooth dish, with sweet and soft tastes, very pleasant.

The red italian wine was superb, kinda wine we like : rich, long, well balanced and with a fantastic nose.

Milk

2006, Riesling Auslese, « Pyramide » Weingut Rita & Rudolf Trossen, Mosel

What a great dessert ! Very creative again. But well done and hitting the target in the heart. Milk in different textures even in crispy leafs served by the waiter on top on a paco-jetted ice… Getting a great wine pairing was not obvious. But this Mosel wine was so good, one of the best i could drink with a dessert. 

After such a great meal, it was important for us to congratulate the chefs for the quality and creativity of the menu. We used to opportunity to introduce Guillaume’s friend Paco Jet to Trine and moved to the kitchen where we met Rasmus, one of the owner chef.

We have a nice chat with him while Trine again is shooting all what she can (it remember me something… :o). For the coffee/tea, we are moving to the terrasse in the park. The air is getting fresh but we enjoy the place and keep relaxing near the trees. In 3 hours now, we’ll have our dinner at noma. But too early for preparing it now, we want to enjoy our lunch.

Geranium is certainly the raising star of Copenhagen. A real must, as Noma, for any food addict wanting to discover danish gastronomy and progressive cuisine. The service is young but efficient and knowledgeable. The beautiful dining room is small but this gives easily all intimacy needed. The wine list is (as for most of top danish restaurant) just fantastic : for instance i saw they had Cedric Bouchard Blanc de Noir Roses de Jeanne champagne on their wine list… this is a good indicator.

And last but not least, the food is just fantastic, meeting our customer expectations when talking about contemporary cuisine while keeping a real and own identity.

Thanks to the Geranium team for this great lunch (and thanks again Trine for organizing it and sharing the kitchen pic :o).

Laurent V

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