Smørrebrød: Open-Faced Danish Sandwiches

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While in Copenhagen, we decided to try to local cuisine. I had naively thought that danishes were common in Denmark, but apparently that isn’t the case. Instead, it was all about smørrebrød, which is kinda hard to pronounce so I joking renamed it smo-bro. If any Danes read this site, I sincerely hope you find humor in this. So what is Smørrebrød? Smørrebrød is an open-faced sandwich, served with a wide variety of toppings.

We tried smørrebrød at a waterside restaurant near our hotel called Gasten & Gallo (it;s the first yellow building in the photo above), but it is available at most restaurants. Charles tried a sampling of three different smørrebrøds: beef, fried fish, and eel. I had the chicken salad with bacon smørrebrød. While chicken salad is common in the US and Denmark, it clearly isn’t common in most of Europe. We watched our waiter trying to explain to other guests that the chicken salad on the menu wasn’t green salad with chicken on top.

The funny thing about smørrebrød is that they aren’t easy to eat since the toppings are so generously layered on top of the bread. We found that eating the smørrebrød with a fork and knife was the best way to go. The fried fish and prawn smørrebrød had so many topping you can barely see the triangle of bread under the fish! My smørrebrød was easier to eat since I assembled it.

Smørrebrød are a nice hearty lunch. They are very similar to the sandwiches we eat in America, just without the second slice of bread. I must say that the second slice of bread, that makes a sandwich a sandwich, is very helpful. I suppose smørrebrød have a more elegant look, but I prefer the convenience of sandwiches with two slices of bread. If you ever make your way to Copenhagen – and you should certainly try to, make sure you eat some smørrebrød (or smo-bro as I call them).