Local View Katrine Dumas' Copenhagen

Katrine Christensen Dumas lived for more than a decade in France and Thailand before her French husband got a new job in Copenhagen and drew her back to her native city. Katrine works as program coordinator with UNESCO in Paris, which explains why she is still to be seen half of the week in the French capital. Moving back to Copenhagen has been hard, fun and challenging, because the city she came back to was not all the city she left.

You moved back to Copenhagen after more than ten years abroad. Has the city changed?

Istedgade Photo: Lilla Blaa Bloggen

When I left Copenhagen, Vesterbro, in 1996 this part of the city was still known as the most dirty, worn and modest corner of Copenhagen where nobody wanted to live. When I returned in 2007, Vesterbro had turned into a trendy and very attractive place to live for all kind of people; families with small children, students, artists etc. Vesterbro has gone through a considerable urban renewal and a vast number of new cafés, restaurants and small shops have popped up in the old shops, earlier left closed and decayed for years. Now you can get a coffee latte or a chai latte (for which you can choose between cow milk or soya milk) on each corner, inside or outside under a woollen blanket and a heating lamp if it should be cold, or as a take away. A variety of restaurants have turned up and especially in the area around the old main shopping street Istedgade you find a nice mixture of Asian restaurants, including sushi restaurants, vegetarian restaurants, modern Danish cafés, bagel shops, an Argentine wine bar among a few remaining old Danish pubs, the traditional Turkish kebab and greengrocers. The quarter has become extremely lively.

Where do you go on a sunny day in Copenhagen?

Frederiksberg Have Photo: Malouette

On my bike with husband and kids, probably to the park Frederiksberg Have watching the elephants taking a bath in the new Norman Foster designed elephant house (in the zoo), or around Christianshavn and Islands Brygge with plenty of opportunities to enjoy an ice cream while watching the boats passing by or even taking a dive in the outside swimming pools, placed in the cleaned seawater of the canals.

Amager Strandpark Photo: Stig Nygaard

Not to forget Amager Strandpark if you dream of a white sandy beach only a 15 minutes bikeride from the centre. The newly renovated area around the canals going from behind Fisketorvet, the only shopping mall at Vesterbro, to Christianshavn along the water is a nice trip where you will meet no cars but a mixture of modern glassy office blocks and old city houses in different colours.

What’s your favourite local place that you wouldn’t necessarily recommend to visitors?

A local cafe called Pegasus where you can find a variety of international beers (draft and on bottle) and a comprehensive wine carte which you can enjoy in very cosy surroundings inside or outside (during the summertime). The service is very pleasant and you can make sure that the owner will remember exactly what kind of beer you prefer in the case you should turn up twice. As accompaniment they have, among others, a tapas carte, from which you can select between 11 different delicious titbits further to your hunger. All exquisite selected from Italian, Spanish and French producers and served with hot homemade bread.

Where do go shopping if you need a new dress, and you do not want to meet another woman in the same?

Værnedamsvej

Sommerlund is perfect if you need a nice dress and Rude have nice clothes as well. Gurlie Hurly has nice earrings and a cute present for the hostess, and at Hornecker, you can be sure to find the most trendy shoes (all shops are on Istedgade). In the area around Værnedamsvej and Gammel Kongevej you can also find a wide range of clothes shops for every taste.

What is the best meal you ever had in Copenhagen?

Prams in line outside Café Zakabona Photo: Lunddal

At Istedgade you have several nice cafes where you can get delicious food. I prefer Café Zakabona, if it is for brunch or lunch as you can get a variety of nice salads especially I like their French salad with fresh goat cheese, semi-dried tomatoes and tasty olives.

After several years in Paris and Bangkok, where you can find food from all over the world, with the real taste of India, Thailand or whatever, Copenhagen remains a little town. However my two favourite diner restaurants are a thai restaurant PornSak and an Indian restaurant, Deep, both have brought some of the outside world to Denmark. The latter doesn’t look of much from outside but has very delicious and tasty food.

If you were ever to leave the city again, what place would you miss the most?

Skydebaneparken

Absolutely Istedgade which is like a little village in the city, with the lively atmosphere and multi-national shops, top class sushi from Sticks’n sushi (don’t forget to make a reservation), Argentine quality wine from the bar Malbeck, the second-hand shops and fleamarket (during the summer) and the great coffee or hot chocolate with chilli from the tiny Riccos Kaffebar, which you can bring to the park Skydebaneparken and enjoy while watching life goes by.

And Værnedamsvej is only a few minutes away where you can breathe in the atmosphere of a real commercial street with a touch of Paris.

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