Copenhagen: Bror (CLOSED) – Cod skin and bull’s testicles

Update: Bror is now closed

The last couple of months, I’ve been in Denmark, while Poul has been flying all over the world, so we haven’t seen much of each other lately. Though last week, Poul had a layover in Copenhagen, and we could finally meet, so we made a reservation at Bror, which is a stylish, but casual, Nordic restaurant.

We had the Bror Menu which is a selection of snacks followed by 5 courses. At 595DKK, it’s not cheap, but definitely reasonable. The first dish out was the fried bull’s testicles. Poul made a really funny face, we he realized what we were having, but I’ve had bull’s testicles before at Searsucker in Las Vegas, so I knew it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. The waiter claimed that “it takes balls to eat balls”, so Poul tried one. He later agreed that together with the tartare sauce, the testicles were indeed….hmm…edible.

Offal has been a new and hip addition to many restaurant menus recently, so I wasn’t surprised, when the ox heart salad landed on our table. It was a nice and appetizing dish.

Then we had fried cod skin. Are any of you wondering, whether the snacks were just a way of trying to make people leave? Or whether it was candid camera (“HA! You actually ate that!”)? Poul and I did, but then I had a bite of the crispy skin and realized that this definitely wasn’t a joke. It was seriously tasty.

The last snack was a bowl of green peas. It might not sound very exciting, but fresh Danish peas are delicious, and with crème fraiche and crispy rye bread crumbs, it was like a mouthful of Danish summer.

Poul really liked the salad with cured mackerel, green strawberries and tomatoes, but I found it a bit too watered out and I didn’t like the taste of the strawberries with the fish. I would also have wanted a more concentrated flavor of the slush-ice-ish marinade to counterbalance the mackerel.

The salad with chicken hearts was delicious. The meat was very gently cooked, and the texture wasn’t as chewy as hearts can be, but more like ripe, meaty figs.

Danes eat a lot of pork, and the traditional pork belly roast is almost holy to us, so I was really curious to see the Bror version of the Danish classic. The pork was slow cooked and garnished with cucumber and a slightly sweet and sticky sauce. It reminded me of Chinese char siu, and it was just brilliant. Definitely the best dish we had that evening.

The first dessert was bone marrow crème brûlée, and the waiter stated that the bone wasn’t just there for decoration. The crème brûlée actually had bone marrow in it! Poul liked it a lot, but I’m still not convinced. I think it would have been just as good without the marrow. The second dessert (yes, we had two desserts) was rhubarb sorbet with tarragon meringue. The tarragon tasted like licorice, and it was excellent together with the acidic rhubarb. If only the portion had been a little bigger. I’m sure Poul would happily have traded in one of the bull’s testicles for another scoop of sorbet.

My Copenhagen Blog