The Samuel

“I cannot go back to yesterday, because I was a different person back then.” So reads one very famous line from Alice In Wonderland, but it might as well have been a quote from the life story of Danish star chef Jonathan Berntsen. Less than six months ago, his new restaurant, The Samuel, emerged like a magnificent phoenix from the ashes of his former Michelin-starred restaurant experience CLOU that shut down two years ago. And it took only four short months for his newest restaurant adventure to achieve a star of its own.

A unique, historic setting

Located in a beautiful hundred year old former villa in Hellerup, the 24 seat restaurant with its original parquet floors and stucco ceilings still intact, offers a time capsule view into classic  luxury and interior decoration - beautifully and respectfully restored and transformed into a modern fine dining setting.

From the imposingly massive, custom-built 400 kilo cheese cabinet that greets you at the entrance, over the lavishly decorated dining room and even the two-seat banquet room bearing the name of Jonathan’s daughter Josephine, everything about The Samuel screams luxury, class and a certain amount of excess. 

Read also: Jonathan Berntsen - Achieving a Michelin Star at the speed of light

The Samuel, at its core, seems designed with one simple goal: to create the most overwhelming and most memorable fine dining experience money can buy. Nothing is spared and nothing is left to coincidence. The Samuel is Berntsen’s trademark mix of Southern European flavors, Nordic finesse and exotic twang that won him a star and cult following with CLOU - elevated to completely new levels in beautiful new surroundings using the finest ingredients and wines that money can buy.

Luxury that knows no bounds

Indeed, the experience seems deliberately designed as an all-out assault on the senses. An intentional effort to leave you breathless. The word moderation seems temporarily deleted from Jonathan Berntsen’s personal dictionary during a night at The Samuel as a slur of expensive ingredients dance across the table, all seasoned to the edge of the extreme in terms of umami, salinity and acidity. 

Delivered as a series of uncompromising and old-school flavor explosions, the expressions may seem nearly overpowering to some, but will surely please fans of classic French-inspired fine dining and lovers of the hearty flavors of Spain, Italy and other Southern European countries. 

The menu is not decidedly French, Italian or anything else nor is it at all as laid back as you would generally expect from a Nordic Michelin experience. It is, instead, an epicures wet dream of a trip across Continental Europe:

From the opening salutes of oysters with passion fruit foam and floral caviar on toast, the flavor sensations are deliberate bombs of salinity, pungently acidic, deceptively complex but also deep and intense as is, for example, the case of foie gras served disguised as cherries.

Featuring such elements as squid stuffed with nuts, squid ink,and a sauce thickened with pig’s blood plus mock tentacles made from tapioca, the menu is somewhere between completely classical and, at times, provocatively innovative.  Something that could also be said for the neo-classic Italian serving of gorgeous and perfect ravioli stuffed with hazelnuts, chestnuts and buttery sage respectfully - served in this culinary wonderland with a healthy topping of Caviar. It is classic, and really not. It may be provocative to purists. But it is a statement dish and it sure as hell is over the top in the best possible way.

Indeed, luxury ingredients like ethical foie gras and caviar are used in a seemingly abundance along with healthy helpings of butter and cream, while the main course of Grade 9.5 Japanese Wagyu beef, complete with name and pedigree takes, served with a caviar pressé and creamy quail egg takes the throne as the perhaps most decadent dish on any Copenhagen tasting menu.

These majestic highlights serve to elevate but not outshine a 10+ serving wholesomeness of a menu that is in its entirety the absolute best, Chef Berntsen and his team have to offer. It includes, furthermore, anything from an abundance of perfectly baked bread options, over at least ten different cheeses and even an award-winning dessert: A banana and praline ice cream that won the 2019 Copa Jerez. And many more decadent, little surprises - that are best kept just that. Surprises.

Out of this world wine pairings

One thing that is definitely not best kept a surprise is the tale of The Samuel’s magnificent wine pairings. At DKK 1700, the 9 glass wine pairing is by no means Copenhagen’s cheapest wine option, but it is, arguably, the absolute best. 

Consisting entirely of wines by the glass from very old vintages, the menu kicks off with an amazingly balanced 1998 vintage Champagne before skating through the likes of 1986 Gewürztraminer, 30+ year old Madeira, 1996 Aloxe-Corton and a stunning array of sweet wines, culminating with a 1976(!) Riesling Auslese from Mosel.

These are wine pairings unlike anything seen anywhere else, and unlike those of many other similar establishments, the wine pairings do not play second fiddle to anything. Jonathan Berntsen is a Chef, a Father but also a Sommelier and to him, all meals begin with wine.

At The Samuel, wines are sourced several years in advance, tempered, and aged in a cellar that contains several years’ supply of old vintages. And only when they reach their absolute zenith, will new dishes be created for the menu - with the sole purpose of matching these majestic wines and doing them justice.

In this way, the full experience at The Samuel, rather uniquely, begins with wine and ends in a perfect storm: An experience where absolutely nothing is spared to deliver the perfect, classic ingredients to match perfect, classic wines in a perfect. classic setting. 

It seems an almost rare treat in today’s modern fine dining food scape where emphasis is so often on molecular techniques, theatrical elements or even show. The Samuel offers neither, but instead offers classic perfection with very few flaws at a price that, while premium, seems absolutely justified.