After noma we took a large taxi back into mid-town Copenhagen to experience MR – Mads Refslund’s fine restaurant.
MR (thanks to FoodSnob)
I had eaten there before is temporary closure in April 2009 and must admit that I enjoyed it very much, especially his burnt field dish where Mads shows that odour is an important part of the overall ‘tasting’ experience of a dish. In essence, Mads’ cuisine is very similar to noma as he was part of the first hour noma team after René and Claus started the project. After six months the friends did realize that they couldn’t work very well together and departed in friendship. In 2005, an investor offered Mads the chance to open his own venture MR. After this investor went bankrupt in the beginning of 2009, he had to close MR in April and reopened it as a seafood restaurant end of June 2009.
Oysters and sake (thanks Trine)
After an excellent oyster – this time with sake with provided a nice contrast of flavours Mads served us scallops with a smoked egg yolk, spinach and bone marrow – very green-ish, combining very good firm yet tender scallops with a creamy slightly smoked egg – very good. However, the notion of bone marrow in a seafood restaurant seems a bit strange, at least to that is. But Mads is not that strict in his approach: whereas he uses many Danish/Scandinavian products and wants to emphasize terroir he still uses Italian olive oil, for example. If that has a specific effect why not?
Smoked Eggs (thanks Trine)
Scallops (thanks Trine)
As his second dish Mads showed his interpretation of seaweed with an excellent monkfish (or langoustine) – somehow it is a coincidence that bot Trine and I cannot really remember this very well despite the fact that we liked it:-) It was too much food already and to many different impressions. Maybe we were still under the spell of the cod’s milt…
Monkfish
Off we went to take a long ride to Søllerod Kro in Holte just about 20 minutes outside of Copenhagen. Steve was already concerned that it would take too long and we persuaded him to come along just to get a dessert… To be continued…
Post scriptum: today, Mads Refslund announced that we will close his restaurant in Kultorvet and is looking for a new venue (at least that is what I understood with non-existing Danish from here) – good luck!