A taste of the unique Danish tradition of communal dining

Every day at 5 pm, a line begins to form outside the small door of Folkehuset Absalon, a defunct church that is now a community centre on Sønder Boulevard in Copenhagen. People line up to participate in fællesspisning, Danish for communal eating pronounced as fellus-speez-ning. This experience can be best described as a family-style meal, but on a larger scale, often with a bunch of strangers. Several places in Copenhagen offer this concept to diners looking to make new friends, eat with locals or travellers or participate in a community activity as a group. Fællesspisning was especially in demand after Covid, when people wanted to socialise after long periods of isolation.

Community-style dining is a familiar concept considering restaurants world-over offer these. But what makes fællesspisning different is, it is not limited to restaurants. In cafés and restaurants community tables have limited seats, whereas fællesspisning tables seat anywhere between 60 (like a Kafa X, a vegan food club) and 200 (like at Absalon). The meals are wallet-friendly going from 20 Danish Kroners ( ₹250 approx) to 150 Danish Kroners ( ₹1800 approx) for two or three courses. All places expect you to serve yourself and your fellow diners. You can also come in early to help with the cooking, and stay back to do the cleaning up. In some cases, these can also earn you a free seat at the table.

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As the line progressed at Absalon, single diners, like me were guided to a yellow table set among others of blue, green and brown. Once the hall was filled to capacity, and people had a chance to purchase a drink from the bar, an organiser came on stage exactly at 6 pm to explain how the system worked. Two volunteers from each coloured table would have to step up to bring the day’s meal to their table. Those seated, help with distributing plates and cutlery and serving. Catherine, who was new to Copenhagen as an agricultural researcher at Aarhus University, and Gina, who was travelling on a professional sabbatical, both from America, volunteered to bring the meal to the yellow table. Ula, a Norwegian engineering consultant who attends fællesspisning events regularly across the city, helped with serving and a brother-sister duo, Yoko and Taro from Geneva in Switzerland, took on the task of clearing up.

The meal of the day (which you can see when booking) was a thick, sumptuous and sweet potato soup with cabbage, lentils, ginger, and coconut milk. A parsley salad with barley and baked tomatoes, along with freshly baked bread and bean dip, rounded it up. Chefs at the community centre prepare these meals. As everyone ate, the hall was abuzz with animated conversations, laughter and a general sense of camaraderie. At the yellow table, notes were being exchanged on places to visit, communities to become members of, and where to shop and eat. As the meal drew to a close, an announcement was made of a friendly table tennis match that would follow, and everyone was welcome to stay, participate, or cheer the players.

While Absalon exuded the energy of a lively community centre, fællesspisning at the 12-room boutique hotel Kanalhuset, set next to a canal in Christianshavn has more of a semi-formal ambience. The bar and dining room offer a view of the canal. Dinner is served everyday at 7 pm. Arrive early and you can order a wine, beer or soft drink and take it downstairs to the outdoor seating by the canal. No coloured tables here, diners are seated at long wooden tables of 12, as they walk in, till all 120 seats in the chandelier-lit hall are occupied. If you dine on Mondays, team members of the hotel join in. Here, it is the service team that brings the meal, on large sharing platters to the table. Mother and daughter, Jill and Charlotte based in Washington DC had just travelled to Copenhagen from Ireland, holidaying before Charlotte started grade 6. They volunteered to serve the table, while Danish friends Hena, a retired nurse, well into her 70s and Lispen were enjoying an evening out while being curious about all the things the much younger diners at the table were doing in their lives.

The meal of the day was baked Haddock with a white wine sauce and Ramson (a wild form of chives) oil to finish it off. New Danish potatoes were turned into a chunky salsa version of a mash with generous dollops of butter, shallots, garlic, and lovage (a popular herb in south European cuisine), topped with crispy sourdough bread. A large platter of grilled cabbage with cheese, pine nuts and chives was brought in along with freshly baked sourdough and a green salad with a mustard vinaigrette topped with a four-cheese spread and smoked paprika oil. Desserts are not part of the ticket but can be bought and you can savour delights like a ricotta mousse with choco-rum-caramel sauce, strawberries, or a two-cheese platter.

Fællesspisning is organised through the week at various places with different, interesting menus. Send Flere Kydderier (Send More Spices) is a community of immigrant women who cook up a range of dishes from their home countries like Somalia, Pakistan, Lebanon and more. These are served at canteens or venues across the city on different days of the week. Madglads Cafeteria with its cute blackboard menu in Eskildsgade, a street in Vesterbro district; and Ku.be, a cultural centre in the tony neighbourhood of Frederiksberg has these community meals every Monday. These experiences can be found easily via social media and bookings can be made online.

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Ruth Dsouza Prabhu is a features journalist based in Bengaluru.