THE NEW BRACE: 2021 heralds a new chapter for Nordic-Italian restaurant BRACE in Copenhagen

BRACE has emerged from the lockdown stronger than ever with a complete renovation of the venue, food offering, wine list, service, and non-alcoholic drinks pairing.

BRACE has always been a restaurant built on the personality of Chef Patron Nicola Fanetti. It is a restaurant of enduring generosity and warmth, and their new show kitchen only accentuates this. Open to the dining room, this breaks down the barrier between kitchen and guest, allowing a more enhanced, inclusive and immersive experience enabling guests to see and feel the unique philosophy behind the restaurant.

Nicola prides himself on his strong ethos for sustainability, locality and hyper-seasonality, and menus have always comprised Nordic and Italian sensibilities. Combining modern techniques and local produce, Nicola and his team find ways to bring food history and culture to create a new culinary language.

At the new BRACE, this philosophy has not changed but has evolved further. Nicola notes, “Lockdown allowed time for reflection, but also progression. It focussed us in a way we hadn’t before. We have access to some of the best products in the world, and we have spent many months adapting and transforming our dishes even further into something incredible for our guests; we feel incredibly excited about BRACE’s next chapter.”

The new format will follow three simple menus: The Brace Experience (12 servings); the Taste of Brace (7 servings) and the Brace Lunch Menu (4 servings). The new menus include dishes such as White asparagus – Egg yolk – Parmesan 24 months aged, a delicate rose of steamed Danish white asparagus served with rich egg yolk and parmesan cream inspired by ‘Asparagus alla Milanese’, or Langoustine – Ramson – Nasturtium – Onion, Danish langoustines are served in ravioli with an intense onion broth, ramson oil and nasturtium and to finish Pistachio – Gooseberry – Baerii caviar, Baerii Caviar is unusually paired with Sicilian Bronte pistachio parfait and dried gooseberry powder.

The style of service remains refined and engaging. The room has been redesigned so that no table has an advantage over another; nine tables and 34 covers have equal views of the kitchen and the wine cellar, leaving guests truly immersed. New Scandinavian artisanal porcelain has been designed for specific dishes. The wine list is a collaboration between Nicola and his sommeliers, focussing on small producers and organic and biodynamic wines; the list leans towards more classical flavour profiles but with interesting selections with nearly 500 bottles of wine on show in the new cellar. The sommelier and kitchen team have joined forces to create a unique non-alcoholic pairing for the menus. To reduce food waste, surplus or imperfect herbs, fruits and vegetables are used to make drinks such as Saffron and Tagete juice and Sea Buckthorn Kombucha.

Nicola says, “The whole team at BRACE just feel so much positivity after such a difficult year and all our new changes. We’re so happy to be back doing what we do best.”