Gourmet butcher in Copenhagen opts for organic

He has already been nominated best butcher of the year, has trained hundreds of staff for  meat departments in Coop stores and set up his own business a year ago. He is Peter Steen, 33 years old and, with his gourmet butcher’s shop in the Østerbro district he has become the acclaimed fine-food star in the Nordic countries. He gets visitors from Sweden, Norway, England and Italy in his butcher’s shop, that has unique, one hundred year-old wall paintings. Quality, freshness and transparency in production are the highest priorities of Gourmandiet. (Picture: Peter Steen)

“For me, the issue is not just organic but excellent quality,” says Steen who, on 6 June 2007, after extensive restoration work, opened his 100 m² shop in the most prosperous part of Copenhagen to the north-west of the city centre. Since then, well over a dozen articles have appeared in international lifestyle magazines and specialist gastronomy magazines about this exceptional butcher, who sets great store by organic quality. “About 80 % of my turnover is generated by organic products”, he says. All the meat he sells comes from organic production.

There is a corridor to the next room where he serves delicatessen products from artisan and regional production that is non-organic:  hand-made chocolate, olive pestos, noodles from small-scale production, chutneys and crackers (picture). On chilled shelves you find packaged fresh salads, soups, for example parsnip soup and desserts like raspberry mousse, chocolate cake with macadamia nuts, and orange sorbet. Heavy pots and pans made by the firm Mauviel in France are on sale too.

Every day an impressive 200 to 600 customers come to his shop, and at particularly busy times it gets crowded at the semi-circular counter (picture). The counter displays a big variety of fine-food salads and meat specialities that customers, if they so wish, can eat on the premises in a third room accessed via the adjacent dry goods space. This bistro can seat 14 people, and the intention over the next few months is to make it better known. The room has been created in designer simplicity, mainly in white and natural tones, and with a wooden floor and wooden bar stools. Peter Steen thinks the 30-40 meals currently served each day can easily be increased.

Around 100 fine-food salads (picture) – all with organic ingredients – are prepared every day with wild boar, beef, lamb, smoked salmon and caviar. “A perfect brunch” is the advertising slogan of Gourmandiet. Naturally, there are also many salads with vegetarian ingredients and no meat.

Mr Steen buys the whole carcasses in organic quality and cuts them up in his butcher’s shop ready for selling or for inclusion in the salads. The trained butcher also employs three more butchers and a salesperson. “Often I do the work of two people,” he concedes when asked about his weekly workload. Another ten shops are regularly supplied with Gourmandiet specialities.

The shop was operating as a butcher’s as early as 1902. Then it became a restaurant with music, and after the sixties it reverted to being a butcher’s shop. When he rented it, the original pictures on the walls (picture) could no longer be seen. His partner is an interior designer, and both are very keen to re-create everything as it was in its original state over a hundred years ago. Restoration by specialist craftsmen has cost around 40,000 Euros. The frieze round the walls shows animals on the way from the fields to the town, the slaughter of the animals, the processing of the meat and the sale of meat and sausage in the butcher’s shop.

Today the shop represents a very successful combination of original themes with ultra-modern but simple and natural design. From the shop and from the bistro too you can see what goes on in the kitchen. Including this kitchen, Gourmandiet has over 260 m² on the ground floor and as much space again in the cellar for storage. Peter Steen acquired his specialist knowledge from his former employer, Coop Denmark, where he was in charge of fitting out butchers’ departments in new supermarkets.

Tip:
Gourmandiet – Home of Great Taste
Rosenvægets Allé 7, 2100 Copenhagen
Tuesday – Friday: 11.00 – 19.00, Saturday: 9.00 – 15.00
Closed Monday.
www.gourmandiet.dk