Charlote Kruse Madsen a graduate École Hotelière de Lausanne in Switzerland who trained at Ida Davidsen’s in Copenhagen, s founded the contract catering company Madsen Food in 2006, with the aim of bringing the Scandinavian food experience to London and a year ago Madsen Restaurant opened it's doors serving modern Danish food.
Once you enter the restaurant you you are transported to a typical modern Scandinavian environment of simple clean lines light woods and friendly and efficient staff. It reminded me of visiting the offices of Scandinavian Broadcaster SBC in Hounslow, where as soon as you enter you could be in Oslo , Stockholm or Copenhagen !
Lunch features Smushi , a smaller version of the traditional Danish open sandwich called ”Smørrebrød”. They are beautifully decorated on either dark rye or white sour dough bread with healthy fish, meat and vegetarian options. Warm dishes that include daily specials are avaialbe as well and range from Frikadelle , Danish meatballs with red cabbage and new potatoes to Braised pork shank on a bed of caramelised cabbage, pearl onion and mustard to Pan-fried, breaded filet of Irish plaice served with broccoli tossed in oyster remoulade. There are plenty of vegetarian options and gluten free bread is available on request.
Last night my companions and I had a wonderful dinner that kicked of with shots of Akvavit followed by the excellent value set dinner.
Salad of baked pumpkin and salted seeds with little gem lettuce and honey vinaigrette and extra hot smoked Scottish salmon. This was a delightful simple perfectly balanced and well executed starter.
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The main course was the daily special of Frikadeller” -Danish Pork Meatballs with red cabbage , gravy and mashed potatoes. The meatballs were light and perfectly cooked servers with al dente red cabbage , thick gravy and excellent mashed potatoes in a side bowl. We drank a Gavi ‘La Zerba’ 2007 which complimented all our food.
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We finished with a truly delicious "Rødgrød med fløde” the famous Danish red berry pudding served cold with cream .
I look forward to returning soon to work through the rest of the menu !
9 comments:
My first scandinavian food experience and I loved it! The starter was light and tasty, the meatballs not too heavy with a delicious sauce and the pudding was well-balanced with the cream and the red berry pudding. Thanks for this brilliant idea!
Goodness, those meatballs look inviting! I've only ever had IKEA ones, which are delicious when I'm in the mood for them, but a bit embarrassing to admit...
Mathilde Helen I cannot resist a good meatball and both the Scandinavians and countries where the Ottomans ruled have amazing meatballs !
God, I miss Lundums. Your meal sounded superb - and my brother works nearby, so I'll have to drag him over there to Madsen so we can try to replicate what used to be our annual Christmas South Ken Scandiwegian drunk-getting.
Liz yes I miss Lundums too but think Madsen is actually better with more variety - you can only eat so much salmon :-)
Did you ever go to Anna's Place up in north London when she was there ?
I ate at Madsen as a diner at Sigs "Meatball Fest" last Thursday, and had a lot of the same dishes. Paticuarly good I thought was a starter called 'Toast Skagen' prawns in dill mayonnaise on toast with lumpfish roe...Two types of meatballs - (Danish and Norwegian) and the Danish red berry pudding which you also had, which was delicious.
I didn't! Rats. Scandiwegian restaurants in the UK seem to come and go so quickly that I feel I've missed several. Any other recommendations you've got will be very, very gratefully received!
I've wanted to visit Madsen for a while now, after finding it when I was searching for a Scandinavian place when I came up with Denmark in the Eating Eurovison event. We ended up in 'The Danish Club' near Green Park where i struggled to finish a huge platter of smoked fish washed down with aquavit. It was enormous. I do love Scandinavian food though and I really want to give this place a try.
Dan good to hear you enjoyed the food.
Liz there is a place on Golden Square that does amazing open sandwiches called Nordic Bakery need to check if it's still open as have not been for a year.
Helen I think Madsen is worth the detour and the staff are all delightful too !
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