Restaurant of the week: "Paula"

Once home to Copenhagen’s famed brewery and now a lively hub of residences, restaurants and bars, the redeveloped Carlsberg Byen district offers an impressive array of culinary destinations. Among the latest is Paula, a restaurant that offers casual dining at the highest level. The successor of the acclaimed Studio, ownership remains the same, but the new concept marks a deliberate departure from the fine dining model. Gone are the lengthy tasting menus; instead, Paula operates as a bistro—both in price and approach. Yet the standard remains strikingly high.

Head Chef Stefan Hansen, whose past stints include Michelin-starred kitchens such as Kong Hans and Frederiksminde, brings precision and polish to every plate. Guests can tailor their evening as they wish, with both à la carte dishes and flexible tasting options such as a three-course menu for DKK 495, or a five-course version for DKK 995. For walk-ins, a single dish and a glass of wine are perfectly acceptable.

Hansen’s style takes its cues from the classical Franco-Danish repertoire, elevated with the freshness and purity of New Nordic cuisine and interspersed with Japanese flavors like yuzu, sesame, miso and dashi. Their forcemeat of white fish on bread croutons exemplifies this marriage of craft and clarity.

Paula’s ethos is equally defined by sustainability: The kitchen sources vegetables from small, ambitious growers and eschews meat from farms, relying primarily on wild game from North Zealand. All seafood is caught sustainably. The result is thoughtful, flavor-driven cuisine at a fair price— a restaurant that offers the finesse of fine dining without the formality.