Is it appropriate to close your eyes in delight over shellfish while a tired boy in Minecraft pajamas stares at you?
Or should you wait until his mother drags him away from the window with a shameful look?
Here at Grim on Ryesgade, you can sit and eat dazzling food by a large facade window and look directly across at an OK gas station at the bottom of an apartment block. You are very close to one another.
In the apartment block, there is also a Superbrugsen, where I saw people coming out with two kilos of carrots in a bag while I ate my first snack, which was a small carrot stump, three centimeters long.
An elderly man stopped on the sidewalk and stared in. I chewed a bit slower.
But the locals have been positive and curious, my waiter told me, which is why the opening offer of two courses for DKK 300 will become permanent on weekdays, so Grim can become a regular spot in the neighborhood.
»Do people from the apartment block eat here?«, I asked.
»Yes, definitely! I know several of them. I’m their caretaker. I live there myself.«
A cubist artwork
The carrot stump was an incredibly good little thing.
Pickled without major spells, it lay so precisely between raw and al dente that its molecular structure should be immortalized in cookbooks.
The brine’s strength was just a gentle boost to the carrot’s own character—rooted in Østergaard in Vendsyssel, where head chef Casper Nielsen was born.
His parents run a small farm that supplies Grim with produce and free-range meat.
I couldn’t taste ’Vendsyssel terroir’ in the carrot, but I could taste that it came from a place that knows how to bring out the best in it.
With a background at places like Alchemist and Villa Vest, Casper Nielsen has developed a keen eye for the potential of ingredients, which is why we need to linger on the carrot stump a bit longer.
It was covered in a rust-red layer of glaze, which was merely reduced brine with a rich, earthy, and spicy aroma that unfolded the carrot in several variations like a small Cubist artwork.
A wedge of pointed cabbage got the same pickle—tasting pure and intensely of itself—with a slice of lardo tucked among the lovely soft-and-chewy leaves for an umami lift.
The acidity and minerality of the Mosel Riesling (Hoffmann-Simon, 2024) created a synergy you feel straight away.
I had chosen the large menu ’Very Grim’ with snacks, six courses, and petit fours for DKK 850 and the small wine menu with three glasses for DKK 400, experiencing how the Mosel wine spoke fluently with several dishes.
In the kitchen stood a large Japanese yakitori grill—famous for blistering heat that turns all kinds of ingredients into delicacies with a super-juicy core and a crisp, charred shell striped with flavor.
Among them: a small piece of chicken thigh from the Danish Plymouth Rock breed, allowed to grow for at least four months before slaughter. It was insanely good—drippingly juicy, caramel-tender, and packed with the layered taste of a free-range bird.
Trout power
It got even better with a scallop dish, which ranks among the best I’ve had in a very long time.
Slices of raw, delicate scallop flavor were lightly salted, giving them a light frame to stand out between cubes of nashi pear, pickled noble fir, and a cherry oil that, as the waiter said, tasted like vanilla.
Poured over with a broth of apple, elderflower, and brine from the fir jar and sprinkled with fresh beach herbs, the dish shone green, fresh, and ethereal, while there was an aromatic insistence from each component.
It was dazzling but was almost surpassed by the following serving, where a piece of trout had been grilled on the yakitori on only one side with the intention of creating multiple layers in the same piece of meat.
From the crispy grilled side to the raw back piece, you got everything a trout could offer as grilled food, and it was with a power and so many nuances in the freshwater fish’s umami that the meat alone could have been a diverse dish in itself.
But it would be a shame to deprive anyone of experiencing the naturally farmed Faroese trout’s connection with an insanely delicious compote of fermented carrot and green beans in the same carrot reduction as from the snack and with a light beurre blanc mixed with carrot oil.
After an excellent vegetarian serving with grilled cabbage shoots, we were in cruise control towards a sure top rating.
But two deviations surprised me.
First, it was a piece of monkfish with a monkfish tail-simmered sauce and several versions of black currant. The harmony was overwhelming. But the meat was just a bit too dry. Darn.
The main course’s chicken breast had the same problem. Just a minute too long on the grill, but enough to make the meat not live up to the rest of the serving, where an umami-rich siphon sauce on the carcass and a vadouvan curry packed with morels had given the most beautiful setup in culinary history for a slam dunk.
It’s crazy what a few seconds can do.
But as I sat eating a killer of a rustic dessert with grilled banana, cognac caramel sauce, and ice cream on browned butter, I also thought that’s exactly it. Seconds.
It’s not something this excellent place can’t fine-tune once the opening period’s hectic pace is over.
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