Goodbye fancy pancy – welcome to Sol & Luna
Sol & Luna has opened in Frederiksberg. The name doesn't really mean anything, but luckily the guests do. Read about the new kid at the block at Solbjergvej 8
It’s actually a funny location. There, next to the sharp gray mastodon, Frederiksbergcentret, and only a few houses from a traffic light. When standing outside, it’s hard to imagine what sort of experience awaits one. Maybe, that’s part of the game? But there, in the otherwise rather cold and impersonal metro area, Sol & Luna live in a beautiful, old station building with a large, wide terrace in front.
The restaurant seems smaller inside than from the outside, but no way cramped. There is good lighting, well-chosen and a not at all incidental olive green theme on the bar and cupboards, a blue sofa, and a wall full of shelves with glass and a few flowers. All details are the interior is handled with discrete perfection and is exactly where it should be. When walking in, you get the feeling of stepping into a room, where the people who are to sit in it, have been the main element.
Anders Strier and Anders Vendelbo, the owners of Sol & Luna, are not new partners in the business. Together, they have Polly on Gammel Kongevej and Frank on Ny Adelgade, which have both received many applauds since their openings. But with Sol & Luna, the concept is different. The style is more laid back and peeled down. According to Anders Vendelbo, it is about (Anders & Anders) being tired of the bullshit.
And by ‘the bullshit’ he meant the self-righteous arrogance that unfortunately occurs quite a bit in the restaurant industry. “It’s that people think they should be superstars because they are in the restaurant industry. That’s some fucking bullshit. It’s just a restaurant. Here we just really wanted to do something simple and unpretentious. Here you just have to bother to come down and eat dinner. Nothing fancy pancy” Vendelbo explains.
We threw ourselves into the tasting menu as well as some staff selected extra servings from the a la carte menu, which they thought represented the place well. In terms of price, the card ranges from DKK 35-200, and the tasting menu with seven servings costs DKK 400. Most people can take part in that sort of price level, and possibly quite often.
Left: Boquerones with garlic and olive oil, oysters with black pepper and red wine vinaigrette, baccala, bread and aioli. / Right: Risotto with lobster and saffron.
And now, to the important stuff: the food. The flavors revolve around the Mediterranean, but in fact, they would really don’t want to settle on a specific kitchen type or any “specific box”, says Anders Vendelbo. To mention some of the dishes, you can find both the Spanish tapa Boquerones (marinated anchovies), risotto, carpaccio, baccala, Iberico pig, and au gratin goats cheese with rosemary and grapes. No dishes served have elements or garnish just for the looks of it. Everything on the plate is there for the taste. No fancy pancy. It’s quite refreshing and straightforward.
Especially the servings of redfish with tomato, chorizo, marjoram and white beans, gnocchi with parmesan sauce and truffle as well as pluma with corn, chanterelles, and caramelized garlic made big smiles at the table. The star of the evening, however, was without comparison the mussels in escabeche with fennel, aioli, and croutons. That dish may stay on the menu forever. You like to come by again alone to put the spoon in it.
The evening ended with a tasting of three desserts, which could persuade anyone to order a little more. Creamy vanilla ice cream with prickly strawberry sorbet and fresh raspberries, refreshing lemon sorbet with vodka and olive oil, and a luscious hazelnut ice cream with hazelnut oil and a shot of espresso on top. What an evening.
Venstre: Inside the restaurant / Højre: Lemon sorbet with vodka and olive oil
One can easily imagine how Sol & Luna can become the new neighborhood go-to. If you ask Vendelbo what experience they want you to leave Sol & Luna with, the answer is simple: “We don’t want to be a place that preaches and gives long explanations about where things come from. It’s important to us that we give people the opportunity to talk together when they visit us. The best praise we can get is just if someone says that they enjoyed themselves very much, that they got some really good food, and that we (the staff) were mega-nice ”.
Luckily, that was very much in line with our experience. When you end your night at Sol & Luna, you have eaten some really good food and tasted some well-recommended wine. Most importantly, you close the door with that same feeling, that at Sol & Luna, they think of the people who come to visit. So when you go to Solbjerg Plads, don’t only have to look forward to a good dining experience, but also to good treatment overall.
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