Copenhagen's restaurant scene is not what you think.

In 2012, I opened Relæ. Four courses, 325 kroner, in a city that was just beginning to understand what it could be. Dinner Booking crashed the night the guide came out giving us a Michelin Star. I wouldn't open Relæ today. I'm not sure it would work. -- I am Christian F. Puglisi, a chef and former restaurant owner. 25 years in professional kitchens. Taillevent, El Bulli. Sous-chef at Noma. Opened Relæ in Copenhagen in 2010 (Michelin star). Scaled to five restaurants and 150 employees. Manfreds, Bæst, Mirabelle, Rudo, Farm of Ideas. Sold it all in 2025. Now I write, teach, and cook up thoughts about the cooking life. __ 📧 Subscribe to my Substack to receive the recipes and my thoughts on cooking in your inbox https://chrifrapug.substack.com/subsc... __ This is an argument about what actually happened to Copenhagen's restaurant scene — why international attention peaked around 2018 and has been contracting since, how COVID subsidies created two years of artificial demand that masked a structural problem underneath, and what the near-tripling of Michelin stars in Denmark tells you about the devaluation of the thing we all worked toward. The game changed.