Magny had opened only weeks before we came, and Copenhagen had already made up its mind.
The influencers had been there, the pictures were out, and the praise had started.
The chef, Jonas Mikkelsen, arrived from Hotel Frederiksminde in Præstø, where the restaurant won its Michelin star in 2016 under his leadership. But a star does not travel with the chef. It stays with the property. So here he is, in Copenhagen, starting again from zero.
The idea is a U-shaped counter with 16 seats, omakase in spirit, with the final touches done in front of you. Only this is not Japanese food. It is modern Nordic cuisine. On paper, it is a good idea.
Did it work? Not quite.
The biggest problems were the room, the comfort and the way the evening was handled. The bar stools were punishing. The air in the room was thick and still. I remember stepping outside afterwards and taking a deep breath, as if I could finally breathe again.
The snacks were fine, but not especially memorable, apart from the beef tartare, or rather the bread beneath it. The tartare itself felt too cold for the flavour of the beef to come through, but the bread beneath it I still think about.
The charred white asparagus was unevenly cooked. One piece was tough and stringy, resisting every bite. Another had gone too far. A few were fine. With white asparagus, the margin is narrow. This one missed it. The sauce could not save it.
The langoustine was better. It arrived with carrot purée and a foam with a real kick of cognac, perhaps a little too much. It tipped just past the point of balance. The langoustine was perfectly cooked, and the foam carried real flavour.
The carrot purée, though, left us wondering what it was there for.
Dish by dish, there were things to admire. But they never spoke to each other.
A chef at this level should be able to put something together on the fly.
Beside me sat two ladies. The one next to me said, the moment she sat down, that she did not eat meat. The restaurant told her they could not offer an alternative for the meat courses.
Fair enough, perhaps. The lesson, as always, is to tell the restaurant beforehand. Though I suspect she had not chosen the place herself. She said simply that she would skip those dishes.
Then came the beef tartare snack, placed in front of her. She repeated that she did not eat meat. The plate stayed where it was. So there she sat, looking at a dish she had twice declined.
By the pork neck course they seemed to have understood it. This time she received nothing at all, except the bread from earlier.
A chef at this level should be able to put something together on the fly. Not a full replacement menu. Just something. A gesture. At this level, that matters.
We ordered a bottle of Vega Sicilia Valbuena 5º, 2003. A wonderful wine, but it was not handled with the care a 23-year-old bottle deserves.
No decanting. The bottle stayed on the wine counter and was poured from there, glass by glass. With a wine of that age, sediment matters.
I should have said something.
I did not.
We left after the pork dish, skipping dessert. By then, we had reached our limit.
We walked back to d’Angleterre, where we were staying, and ended the night in the bar with a last glass of wine.
Back at Magny, you could feel the ambition for a Michelin star in every corner.
But it is a new restaurant, and these things take time to settle.
Hopefully they do.
Not this time.
Not for now.
