Museum restaurants rarely earn their own cookbook, but Apollo did: the courtyard restaurant of Kunsthal Charlottenborg, at the mouth of Nyhavn beside Kongens Nytorv, is the home kitchen of chef Frederik Bille Brahe, one of the defining figures of Copenhagen's casual-fine-dining wave. The setting is the historic courtyard of the 17th-century Charlottenborg palace, which houses the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and its contemporary exhibition hall - no exhibition ticket is required to eat here. The day starts with breakfast classics that made the place famous - croissants, soft-boiled eggs, sourdough with cheese, and much-photographed dishes like ricotta-and-blueberry toast - and rolls through lunch into evening service, when the kitchen turns out a changing set of seasonal dishes built on simple, local ingredients, backed by natural wines. Afternoons between the kitchen shifts are kept for walk-ins, drinks and snacks. What began as mostly a bar with wine, beer and small plates has grown steadily more serious about dinner, a shift noticed as far away as the New York Times' T Magazine. In summer the courtyard itself is the draw: tables under the open sky in one of the calmest corners of the inner city, seconds from the Nyhavn crowds but insulated from them by the academy's walls. Walk-ins are always welcome in the courtyard, while reservations are recommended for dinner; groups of eight or more are served a set menu. Closed Mondays. The restaurant's standing was cemented in print with "Apollo: State-of-the-art cooking and a party by Frederik Bille Brahe", the first cookbook devoted to the place. Practicalities: the kitchen runs to 3 pm on Tuesdays and Sundays and to 10 pm Wednesday through Saturday, the courtyard season opens each spring with no reservations taken outside, and private events are handled through a dedicated events team. Kongens Nytorv metro station is directly around the corner, with harbour buses stopping at Nyhavn.

Type: Cafe/Bistro

Address: Nyhavn 2, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1051

Telephone: +45 27 50 32 33

Website: https://apollobar.dk

Serves Food