a|o|c, Copenhagen

TLDR: very cool space to dine in Copenhagen being located in a vaulted cellar, some of my best opening bites ever, more inconsistent on main dishes and desserts, breathtaking presentations, overall a memorable meal with several top tier moments that outshined the misses.

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Restaurant a|o|c is down the stairs of a historic mansion in Copenhagen where you dine in the vast and minimalistically designed vaulted cellar. The meal is basically structured in three separate acts – 6 snacks / 6 dishes / 6 desserts.

The snacks are where the restaurant truly shines with such well-developed, cohesive flavors and blends of crispy and soft, melty textures. Started with crispy potato puffs served alongside vendace roe in brown butter. Like eating the airiest wonton chip and then layering it with little spoonfuls that capture all the flavor of lox and cream cheese.

Next was roasted bread sliced super thin filled with a raw shrimp tartare. I tend to dislike dill as it often overpowers dishes for me, but here, the dill in the tartare with the subtle shallot and tomato flavors just worked.

Followed by razor clams in a crispy spinach vessel that was combined with tiny cucumber sticks and apple. It looked like a garden, tasted like a garden for the first few seconds, and then evolved to a smokiness that was intense and playful.

Naturally, this beautiful garden course transitioned to the staff laying a whole dry aged beef heart on the table for show. They salt and smoke the beef heart and use it in this next course, which is a tart with a carrot salad and horseradish cream. This was one of the most complex singular bites I’ve ever had. As someone who just looks to have fun with fine dining, I often seek out flavors that remind me of childhood dishes or my comfort foods that are just taken to a different level. Perhaps my comparisons are ridiculous at times but here, this really tasted to me like a french dip sandwich layered with horseradish where the chefs completely transformed that flavor into something less heavy and more fresh and elegant.

Next snack was pine bark cheese with Australian black truffles. It was a delicately crisped umami bomb. Was over the moon with this start of dishes.

Then the meal started to get a bit inconsistent and struggled to reach the heights of those first five snacks. Many delicious dishes still but after a start like that, a lot of the following dishes felt like misses despite still being tasty. It’s almost like I could tell the food was good but wasn’t completely enjoying it. Scallops with apple and wasabi was overloaded with dill after they used it so well in the shrimp tartare. The dish was described as containing wasabi which would’ve cut the intensity of the dill perfectly while elevating the scallops, but I couldn’t taste any wasabi.

The oysters with kohlrabi and coriander course had some bites that were really good but was just overloaded with chives and lacked the richness I want if I’m having cooked oysters in some buttery sauce.

White currant and caviar dish tasted better as separate components rather than together. Buttermilk should’ve went perfectly with the caviar but got lost in the smokiness at times.

The turbot in kombu and a champagne beurre blanc and mousseline had an extravagant presentation done tableside. Very good dish, but it felt like the flavor didn’t live up to the presentation.

Followed by monkfish tail cooked in brown butter and seaweed broth and served with a cherry sauce. The real star of this dish though was the monkfish cheek croquette that came out of nowhere and was the best croquette I’ve ever had. You barely had to chew despite the crispy shell because the inside was so buttery and just melted in your mouth.

Then came the “warm salad” with Australian black truffle making an appearance again. This was another dish I could tell was a great dish and was incredibly stunning but just overly smoky for me and truffle didn’t add much.

Last main dish was quail breast and wings yakitori style. Easily one of the most beautiful dishes I’ve ever seen, and here, the flavor more than matched it. I would eat this every week if I could, really remarkable and the type of dish that shows you can take something humble like yakitori and absolutely blow someone’s mind with how well it can be executed in fine dining.

The desserts were solid and actually challenged the flavors I’m used to in desserts, but it was so hard to focus on the subtle flavors in the desserts much after the quail dish. Gooseberry and geranium was basically a fine dining take on Dippin’ Dots as a palette cleanser.

Wild blueberries with chartreuse and thyme course was overly nutty, but the sheep’s milk yogurt served with it would get every kid in the world eating yogurt if yogurt always tasted this good.

Frozen canele with almond milk just felt like a filler bite, forgettable. Plum with shiso & szechuan pepper, beetroot with 100 year old balsamic, and the chocolate and pine shoot last few bites were largely unremarkable as well.

Overall, fun meal with cool, very global approach to wines in the pairing (makes sense as it was opened by a sommelier) and some absolute standouts of dishes. I think the number of courses is actually their weakness here, and if they focused on 4-5 snacks, 2 of the mains (monkfish and quail), and a couple of desserts that probably need some more work, it could really make the restaurant take the next step. I wouldn’t be dying to go back but still a highly enjoyable experience with some dishes that are some of my favorite bites / courses ever (beef heart tart and quail yakitori really stand out).