Marchal
Marchal at-a-glance
Note: Head Chef Andreas Bagh left Marchal in 2021 to open his own restaurant, Esmee. Marchal still offers a similar menu under its new head chef, Jakob de Neergaard.
Awards: 1 Michelin star
Verdict: Marchal succeeds at what it is tries to do, serving clean dishes that show off classic French technique in a city not exactly known for it. It was refreshing to choose a la carte and get what I wanted after so many tasting menus that takes choice out of the diners hands (even if it could have used more options). If you are looking for this type of cooking when in Denmark you can’t do much better. Fully deserving of its one star.
Rating: 91/100
Should you go: If you are in Denmark and would rather eat classic French cooking instead of new nordic this is a good fit. I preferred Kong Hans Kaelder more but this also came with a heftier price tag. A la carte prices were not unreasonable by Danish standards so this fits the bill if you are looking for a quicker meal instead of a longer tasting menu.
Cost: A la carte only - expect to spend around €125 / pp before wine. Wine and cocktails will bring that cost up considerably since it is Denmark.
Value: 11/20, 15/20 by Danish standards
Marchal Background
Marchal is the main restaurant in the posh Hotel d'Angleterre, one of the oldest luxury hotels in Copenhagen (and the world). Marchal has held a Michelin star since the 2014 guide, maintaining it through multiple chef changes. The current chef is Andreas Bagh who previously worked at Kong Hans Kaelder. This experience shows in the food he puts on the table - classic french cooking with a bit of the Nordic precision.
Unlike most Michelin restaurants these days, Marchal does not offer a tasting menu, opting for a la carte instead. The menu was broken down by dish type instead of course, with greens ranging from €28-€42, seafood €32-€47, meat €55 and desserts €25-27. If you order one seafood and one meat dish plus a dessert it is doubtful you will walk away hungry as these are proper a la carte portions. In addition to the rotating menu, Marchal is one of the few restaurants which offers pressed duck at €87/person. We had a little bit of food envy when we saw two other tables order this as it came with quite the tableside presentation, the duck being carved and the bones pressed to make the accompanying sauce. If I was commenting on the menu I would say it could have used a few more selections in each section - besides the duck press the meat section only had the Quail dish (which we ordered) and a rather unexciting steak dish. Similarly, the fish section only had three choices, one of which was sold out on the day we were there.
The restaurant itself is on the ground floor of the hotel in a nicely appointed, if unremarkable dining room. We had a nice table at a window overlooking the street which was perfect for people watching (and natural light for pictures).
What we ate at Marchal
One of the kitchens signature canapes is gougères with truffle cream and comte (€11) which came in a generous set of 6. It is hard to see how they can be improved other than adding more to the serving. Served piping hot from the kitchen the gougères were gorgeous specimens of what pastries should be - light and airy with some crispiness on the outside and the comté coming through nicely without being overbearing. The truffle cream was a welcome addition to this classic french pastry, the flavor nice and pronounced, going well with the comté in the gougères.
Oysters two ways - Gillardeau with wasabi, finger lime and ginger oil (left) and perle blanche oysters “bloody mary” style with piment juice, celery and tabasco. The oysters were smoothly shucked and the garnishes nicely complimenting the natural brine of the oysters but it’s hard to say these were revelatory and for €9/oyster they should be. We would skip these and the signature aperitif next time (which by itself cost almost $40 and was neatly presented but more or less a standard martini) which would make the final bill more palpable with the meal being no worse.
Morels with tortellini, new peas, lovage and creamy parmesan sauce (€42) spoke more of spring than late summer when we visited but was excellent nonetheless. The morels were nice and plump and full of flavor, much like the peas. The real star was the parmesan sauce, adding an indulgent touch while bringing all the components together. I had a very similar dish at 3 star Louis XV around ~5 months earlier and to be frank the version at Marchal was far better.
We had to order one of the signatures which has been on the menu since the start of Andreas Bagh’s tenure - Squid cooked with oysters, champagne butter, spinach and caviar (€32). Champagne, butter, and shellfish is not the most original combination but it is hard to fault much about the dish. The sauce was rich, the caviar added great salinity, the texture of the squid “noodles” was perfect and the overall effect was a very heady dish that deeply tasted of the sea. Maybe this is an odd complaint but the dish seemed like it would have gone better in a smaller tasting portion due to its richness. That said, this was very generously priced both compared to other a la carte selections at Marchal and elsewhere in Copenhagen where nothing comes cheap.
Given we did not want to go for the classic pressed duck (which virtually every other table did) we only had two options for meats and with the rib-eye sounding boring the choice to go with Confit quail breast on roasted brioche with chanterelles and Australian black truffles (€55) was easy. The quail turned out to be an indulgent and rich dish that checked most of the boxes you want from your main course. The quail was nice and moist from the confiting, the brioche was roasted perfectly and the truffles added their signature heady aroma. Perhaps most impressive was the albufera sauce, a perfect rendition of the classic french sauce and miles better than the version I had at 3 star L’Assitte Champenoise back in the fall where the use of Parmesan was so heavy it overwhelmed the white truffles. The quail was also served with two croquettes of leg meat deep fried to crunchy perfection. If I was looking for complaints I could have used a bit more texture in the main dish - the legs on the side had great crunch but the main plate mostly featured softer textures with the closest thing to crunch coming from the roasted brioche.
As the seafood section was much more appealing than the meat, we also went with a second seafood dish of Grilled lobster with pineapple tomato, peaches, and saffron sauce (€47). For me this was a little less successful than the quail (and the 2 courses before). The lobster, brought in from Nova Scotia as Danish were not available, was well timed in the tail but the claw was a tad over. Not in the sense that it was an inedible mess but some of that toughness was starting to leak in that you don’t get in a perfect mi cuit cook. The saffron in the sauce was not too pronounced and the white peaches and tomatoes did not really jump off the plate. Not a train wreck by any means but the least successful course of the day for us.
Quite full from the main courses, we split the baked rhubarb with rhubarb sorbet and raspberries for dessert. A generous quenelle of rhubarb sorbet was placed on top of fresh raspberries and the aforementioned baked rhubarb created a striking presentation that the flavors mostly matched. The baked rhubarb, in particular, having good texture, the raspberries being of top quality and the overall dessert being pleasantly refreshing with a well-judged amount of sweetness. No mignardise was included in the meal so this was, unfortunately, the only entry from the pastry section but it was a good one.
Stray thoughts
Service was very friendly but suffered from a mild case of inattentiveness, especially given there were only 3 other tables occupied on the night we visited. Dishes lingered on the table far longer than you’d expect.
Marchal is open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner which is quite unusual in Copenhagen as many of the michelin star restaurants are closed Sunday and Monday.