Costa Smeralda Gentofte

27/03/2025: Relaxed, nice atmosphere and wonderful food, we enjoyed it!

09/03/2025: Visited in March 2025. I'll start by saying that this may just have been my favourite restaurant visit so far. Not only did the food live up to my expectations, but the service was perfect for me - with just enough attention from the staff, yet without it being overwhelming. We got the tasting menu, which was interesting, and the food was generally very good. Many new Nordic restaurants take "boring" ingredients, such as cod or root vegetables, and make them taste good. The Samuel instead used very strong ingredients and somehow managed to harmonize them into well-balanced dishes, where the tastes complemented each other instead of being overpowering. I found this quite special and very pleasant. Perhaps the most noticeable example was the dish called All good times 3. That was one of my favourite dishes from the menu, together with the scallops and cheese platter. I was the least impressed with the desserts, but that's partly because I'm not a fan of saffron. Another thing I really liked about the food was the manitoba bread served with olive oil picked based on personal taste from a wide available selection. The drinks pairing were great. I'm not a fan of wine myself, so I got a cocktail/mocktail pairing instead, which I was generally very happy with. My favourites were the ginger mojito and the mandarin & bergamot craft soda. I know that The Samuel is known for good wine, but we almost didn't pick it because we were afraid I wouldn't have anything interesting to drink. I would very much recommend to include some more information about the availability of cocktails and especially mocktails on the restaurant's webpage. As I mentioned in the beginning, service was great. All the dishes and drinks were explained nicely and the level of attention from the staff was just perfect for me. The atmosphere was also nice, with cool art and low volume background music. Overall, I enjoyed my visit to The Samuel, and the 3.5 h we spent there just flew by. I can very much recommend the place for a high-end dinner.