I get the idea that Aaman’s is something of an institution in Copenhagen.  It is credited with having the best smørrebrød in our guidebook, we were talking to a local at the Torvehellerne and she mentioned it was the place to go for simple yet modern smørrebrød.   It has even crossed the atlantic with an outlet in New York.  Where better to stop for lunch!

The café is surprisingly small with seating for only 20 customers.  The walls are a calm pale green, furniture a mix of comfortable bench seating with grey upholstery and attractively sleek wooden armchairs all tied together with soft piped jazz music.  It’s counter service, but we were served at the table which actually feels more appropriate.

The smørrebrød themselves pretty much all sounded great for lunch.  We were slightly hampered by having to try pregnancy friendly options so I couldn’t have the cheese, raw meat or fish options (which sounded great).  We decided to go for warm fish, pork and avocado.

Katie spotted the availability of home-flavoured snaps on the menu and I thought it would be rude not to.  A snaps is just some kind of alcoholic drink taken with food and in Denmark the base is usually akvavit, other coutries are less picky and are willing to use vodka and other spirits.  Aaman’s use a basic neutrally flavoured clear akvavit and add their own fruit/spices/herbs to create unique flavoured options.  I had the choice of plum, tarragon and fennel, blackberry or the intriguing rye bread; I went for fennel and tarragon.  The flavouring process seemed to have mellowed the akvavit because it seemed to have lost some of it’s harshness, gained a subtle taste and a big nose.  Presumably this is a result of sugar release from whatever is doing the infusing.

I really enjoyed sipping it along with my lunch and it is something we will certainly be investigating/experimenting with in the future.   I purchased Aaman’s book on the process so I had better start brushing up on my Danish, or more realistically download the google translate app.

*Edit

We have started infusing our own snaps at Norse, you can check out a blog post about it on the Norse website.