Vesterbro: Walking the Streets by Stephen Emms
Featured Hotel in Copenhagen
Hotel d'Angleterre
See all hotels in Copenhagen >
Half-a-dozen young ladies in hot pants and knee-high boots, probably not natural blondes, are chain-smoking round a lamp post.
“They used to stand right outside,” says Peter, the manager at new organic diner Bio Mio, where we sit by the window straining, rather shamefully, for a better view, “but their clients didn’t like being seen, so now they’ve moved further down the street.”
Of course, Copenhagen is famed for its liberality (current slogan: Copen “Open” Hagen), and we are in Vesterbro, the red light-cum-hipster district, but such blatant solicitation is still a little eyebrow-raising. And it’s a subject the locals don’t stop talking about, either. As we check in to the Bertrams Hotel, I point to trendy Istedgarde on the map, asking if we should head there first.
“It’s full of hookers at that end,” says the man, covering half the street with a sausagey finger. “And there’s a quite a few down there too.”
The more locals we meet, the more I start to realize that they’re proud of the area’s ruggedness -- its diversity: “it’s fancy but not fancy; rich people don’t come here, and that’s fine by us,” says student Heidi, at original Vesterbro style bar Bang & Jenson, before dragging us, shell-shocked by our first £6 pints, over to hear unrepeatable stories about the district’s rougher corners:
“If you’re wearing flip flops,” she says, with a laugh, “you might be lucky and step on a needle.”
And, as we later discover, even the official audio walking guide (available to hire from the Museum on Vesterbrogarde) features tales narrated by poet Claus Handberg Christenson of prostitutes and the inebriated down-and-out (unimaginable, surely, in an official guide to London!)
So the undercurrent is still there, pulling at Vesterbro’s gathering gentrification, but that itself is no new thing, traceable to Copenhagen’s year as City Of Culture in 1996, when cattle market Oksnehallen was converted into an exhibition hall. Most locals agree, however, that the real catalyst was a year later, when Bang & Jenson opened on former ‘meat street’ Istedgarde.
“It was bad in Vesterbro back then,” says bespectacled owner Morten Bang, who grew up here. “We had to do something, having connections to artists and musicians, and when an old pharmacy went bankrupt we knew we could make it an instant success.”
More surprising was that owners of neighbouring sex bars offered support: “A big tattooed man came in just after we opened with a bunch of roses and said: ‘I am from Spunk Bar. I hope you survive.”
The sleazier side to Vesterbro stops abruptly at the junction between Istedgarde and Gasvaerksvej: thereafter, the street and its surrounds (particularly the funky Oehlenschlaagersgade) bustle with boutiques, home-stores, galleries, bars and cafés. Spearheaded by the Cofoco team, who now own four restaurants, the area’s dining scene has been evolving too, and we particularly rated foodie street Vaernedamsvej, with its clutch of eateries including the candle-lit Falernum (where you can try a plate of Danish tapas, such as black risotto with tiger prawns, beefsteak and cabbage and herring in breadcrumbs).
The newest places, however, maximize an obsession with all things organic: at the 200-seater Bio Mio, converted from a 1920s Bosch warehouse on Halmtorvet, you sit at a sharing table, order food at the counter (we enjoy tenderloin pork with beetroot, red cabbage and butternut squash) and watch your own chef cooking it in five minutes. Not that relaxing, perhaps, but it’ll immerse you in the neighbourhood buzz.
Most significant to Vesterbro’s rising fortunes are the developments in the “white” section of Kodbyen, the hard-to-find meat-packing district. It’s unseasonably sunny as, the following day, we walk past Bio Mio (itself bearing just an illuminated Bosch sign) and turn left by a faded old Chicky Grill bodega, past piles of crates and wooden boxes, into a huge car park. Lorries are lined up like an old port, and the peripheral white-and-blue listed buildings suggest a Deco ocean liner.
On the far right we spy two brand new galleries, Hans Alf and DASK, which both make creative use of their former refrigeration units, but the regeneration’s heart is on the left, where we visit Bo Bjerggaard, the first gallery to move here from the city 18 months ago, whose spacious white rooms host diverse international exhibitions – about 10 a year.
Next to the Hoxton-esque dive bar Jolene’s (busiest at midnight) is gallery/restaurant/bar Karriere, an inspiring space created by siblings Jeppe and Laerke Hein. The spring sun feels Mediterranean in its intensity as customers lounge outside. Inside, over simple food and cocktails that combine Nordic herbs and flavours – verbena, liquorice paste, aquavit – Laerke explains that the whole venue is an artwork: the bar moves slowly from side to side, the lights, all UFO-meets-abattoir chic, are by Olafur Eliasson (most famous for “The Weather Project” at Tate Modern), and, if nature calls, don’t expect an easy ride.
“There are twenty-five doors but only five toilets,” she says. “Some people wait patiently outside one that will never open. It’s about losing a bit of control.”
On our final morning, we hire bikes and tour the boundary of the neighbourhood. We pedal over railway tracks to the waterfront, dominated by the Fisketorvet shopping mall and thousands of half-built apartments. Against the roar of the motorway, cranes poise motionless under alpine clouds, and the old city’s distant medieval spires are reflected in glass and chrome. Sunday morning bells toll in the distance, and the wind runs its fingers through the omnipresent wire fencing.
Through empty streets we continue, catching quiet neighbourhood details: cyclists leading dogs, gulls circling above parks, a café owner wiping down a metallic table in a glimpse of sun. And bikes are everywhere, a secret population: lined in neat rows, slumped in doorways like drunks, leaning politely against walls; on the floor, abandoned.
At the “Heart of Vesterbro”, a graffiti sculpture by artist “Finn the Yellow Hand” on Viktoriagarde, we pause: if you’re lucky, locals say, you may see a flame burning at its tip. But, alas, there’s not even a flicker, and so we pedal on.
Address Book Secrets
Dyrehaven (corner of Sonder Boulevard and Valdemarsgade)
Formerly a rotten bodega (boozer) (nickname: “Acid Haven”), Dyrehaven is the latest bar in Vesterbro and the only christened by scene godfather Morten Bang as the new Bang & Jenson. Mis-matched furniture, value food and beer.
Designer Zoo, 137 Vesterbrogarde
A collective of eight designers with studios in a converted sausage factory sell enviable furniture, jewellery, glass, ceramics, and knitwear.
Sorte Hest, 135 Vesterbrogarde
The simple light spaces of the ‘Black Horse’ (another former bodega) host new Vesterbro cooking at its best. We loved scallops and cauliflower, cod, mushrooms, and brandade and a tasty chocolate mouse with orange, olives & liquorice.
Axel, 7-11 Helgolandsgade Bertrams, Vesterbrogarde 107
Don’t be put off by its location in the heart of red-light Vesterbro: the Axel part of the tiny Guldsmenden group (which includes the older Bertrams), is an elegant palace of Danish chic with blond parquet floors, wicker chairs, supremely comfortable beds, friendly staff, a loungey heated, decked courtyard garden and labyrinthine spa.
Art Rebels (Flæsketorvet 17-19)
Blink and you might miss this tiny outlet for young Copenhagen-based designers’ clothing, art, and music.
spiration on places to stay, check out TI's listings for luxury hotels in Copenhagen.