EBG Rating: 8.3/10

Choice/Quality of Drinks:
❤️❤️❤️
The Tuborg/Carlsberg lock-out with alternatives also from their corporate umbrella. Homemade gløgg (mulled wine) and a decent back bar of alternatives.

Style/Décor:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
A characterful bar area that still has a tangible sense of history, with comfortable, tasteful lounges in cramped surroundings that would not have been built for such an operation if they were designed today.

Atmosphere/Character:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
An institution with a patrician sense of its own importance, burnished by its prime location and waiters that puff their chests out a little, particularly by Danish standards. Bustling and sometimes impossible during the morning sandwich rush, but there are plenty of accessible occasions during the day where you can enjoy it as the good pub it is, and will continue to be.

Amenities/Events:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Food, snacks, outdoor seating, newspapers, merchandise, shop.

Value For Money:
❤️❤️
One of the more expensive city centre pubs, and as Copenhagen is expensive anyway, you can probably imagine… However, not entirely untethered from the mean average.

Description:
To be a standout institution in a city dotted with them is a noteworthy achievement. Prime location assists, as does its smorrebrød mornings, as the pub heaves with people seeking these open-faced sandwiches, beer and homemade gløgg (mulled wine). This spills out onto the street After this, the pub settles down.

Founded in 1723, dating back to when Nyhavn was a working port, it is fair to say the most notable thing about the pub is that it has survived. Fires, wars, modernisation. It is still here.

Step in off the street into a series of compact, cosy rooms. The bar on your entrance is particularly characterful and worth spending some time to assess. Then you have a choice of lounges to position yourself, in among a classic ensemble of wood fittings, heritage framed photos, browns and greens. The clientele and service is a dead giveaway of its fame – middle-aged, middle-class groups, served by patrician no-nonsense servers (although these are Danes, not Czechs so for some people they may still seem relatively pleasant).

Protecting businesses of this kind is still a concept in its infancy around Europe, but Hviids has been a beneficiary of initial efforts by the city council, providing an assurance of sorts the business will survive for a long time to come.

Watch out on Sundays, as they close up at 8pm unlike the late opening hours of other days.

A venue that has that sprinkle of stardust.

(Added December 2024)