All activities / Culinary / Cooking / Copenhagen
Culinary / Cooking in Copenhagen
Denmark's capital, a compact, design-forward city on the Oresund known for its cycling culture, New Nordic food scene, major art museums, and a calendar of music, film and fashion events through the year.
Why here
Copenhagen is where New Nordic cuisine was written down and put into practice, and it is one of the best cities anywhere to learn to cook it. The movement's 2004 manifesto and the rise of noma turned foraging, fermentation, rye and seasonal Nordic produce into a whole culinary language, and the city's cooking schools now teach it hands-on to visitors. At Meyers Madhus, the school founded by manifesto co-author and noma co-founder Claus Meyer, you work through Nordic menus, fish cookery and sourdough baking in a bright teaching kitchen. Smaller classes run in English at studios like Copenhagen Cooking Class, where a New Nordic dinner or a smorrebrod session ends with everyone eating what they made together. It is a chance to take the ideas behind Copenhagen's restaurant scene home in your hands, not just on a plate.
Best months
Classes run year-round and indoors, so any season works. The produce shifts with the calendar, which is part of the point: berries and herbs in summer, root vegetables, game and preserving in the colder months. Sessions are usually two to four hours and taught in English at the visitor-facing schools. Book ahead, as popular evening classes fill early, especially in summer and around the December holidays.
Getting there & around
Both schools are in the central city, Meyers Madhus in Norrebro and Copenhagen Cooking Class near the harbour, each a short bike ride or Metro hop from the centre. Classes are booked online in advance; confirm the language of the session, as some are Danish-only. Come hungry, since most classes finish by sitting down to eat the food you have cooked.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate
Schools & guides (2)
Copenhagen Cooking Class
SchoolA small hands-on cooking school on Herluf Trolles Gade in central Copenhagen, teaching every class in English with the group cooking together and then eating what they have made. The programme leans local and seasonal, with a New Nordic dinner class built around classic Danish ingredients and foraged elements, plus smorrebrod, Danish pastry and baking sessions. Classes are kept small so everyone works at the stove.
Meyers Madhus
SchoolThe cooking school founded by Claus Meyer, co-author of the New Nordic Cuisine manifesto and a co-founder of noma, in the Norrebro district of Copenhagen. With close to twenty years of teaching behind it, the school runs hands-on courses built around Nordic ingredients and technique, from seasonal Nordic menus and fish cookery to sourdough baking and chocolate work, alongside team events in its bright open kitchens.