Lingering lunch can offer foreigners a taste of Danish hygge

I think it takes five days of proper sightseeing, on average, to get really comfortable in a city. To navigate without a map, have an understanding of the most famous sites, establish some favourite places to relax and get some feel for the elements that make it unique. I hit that milestone with this, my third trip to Copenhagen.

Getting to really understand the people takes much longer. In some places, you never get more insight than the foreign visitor. Being related to locals, of course, puts you on the fast track. The paternal side of my husband's family is Danish, and it was his aunt's 75th birthday that formed the centrepiece of this trip.

We spent Sunday ensconced at Rødvig Kro, a waterfront restaurant and inn in the town closest to the Bencard farm where the current generation originated. The view of the bay (above), its cliffs and lighthouse glimmering gold in the twilight, was spectacular. The long hall-house was decorated in pale, elegant Scandinavian country style, fires blazing and candles bathing everyone in an attractive glow. And the company was spectacular. Four tables packed with my husband's aunts, uncles, cousins and their progeny. My sister-in-law and I were the only people in the room without Danish blood, and that was painfully obvious. (Even before our pitiful attempts to pronounce any of their baffling language.) Lots of tall people with piercing blue eyes, fair features, broad shoulders, a confident grace and a swaggeringly cheerful way with a toast. 

Generations past, all the alcohol might have prompted them toward the harbour to climb into their longboat and invade England. (Leaving Jane and I, no doubt, as the captured slaves cleaning up after the feast.) These days, they've given up the pillage and conquest and embraced the hygge.  Pronounced, more or less, like huu-guh.

There's no direct translation of this term into English. It's bigger than a single word. It's a concept and a feeling, embracing an ideal state of comfortable, homey conviviality. While you can achieve hygge at any time, it really comes into its own in the winter. I think it's something about snuggling in to your safe place with the people you love while the world outside is dark, cold and miserable. Candles are essential; the Danes use more of them per capita than any other nation. In my observation, alcohol and comfort food play a key role. (And if you find yourself in Rødvig, go to the Kro for their hot-smoked salmon and their wafer-thin slices of venison beef with a raspberry sauce.) But you can't achieve hygge alone. Good company is the essential ingredient in holding back the darkness, and the Bencards had that in abundance on Sunday.

If you don't have a Danish family to bunker down with, try a long, traditional lunch on a gloomy winter afternoon. Pick a long-established restaurant like Cafe Petersborg, candles flickering beneath the low wooden ceilings and tables filled with locals, and you've snatched a shortcut to hygge.

The name and founding myth is Russian, though the food is resolutely Danish. In the middle of the 18th century, this building was the Russian consulate. Just a stone's throw from the harbour, it dished out hospitality to visiting Russian sailors ... many from St. Petersburg. The Russians moved on, but the tradition of hospitality on the ground floor continued. The menu might have changed, but I suspect those first diners would find the interior familiar. It's a warren of 18th century rooms with small windows and low, beamed ceilings.  Most of the wooden tables are long, catering to large groups. The menu follows that style of eating, with many options served family style or in big sharing platters. If there aren't so many of you, or if you want to get specific items, there's a tick list to order individual small plates ... rather like a sushi bar.

The format here, if you go for the platters, is two courses: first fish, then meat and cheese. Bread ... both white and dark, seed-strewn rye ... is on hand and regularly refilled to accompany both. Fish in Denmark, of course, means pickled herring. Done properly, as it most certainly is here, it's neither fishy nor overwhelming. It's meaty, subtle, and finely balanced between sweet and savoury. Laid upon thin slices of rye bread spread with lard, topped with fine slices of red onion, it's a treat. While we often re-create this at home, spearing fish out of jars ordered from Danish Food Direct, Petersborg's herring made those attempts look like pale imitation.

The first course was generous and we could have easily stopped at that point, but that wouldn't be
tradition. And you're settled in for three or four hours, so you can spread your appetite by grazing. Round two brings specialities like grilled pork, warm liver pate, cooked beetroot and wedges of pungent Danish cheeses.

The classic accompaniment is beer rather than wine. This time of year that means Tuborg's Julebryg. It's darker and stronger than regular lager, with a satisfying creaminess. The annual release date is a big deal in Denmark, and given its pervasive availability, I'd guess everyone drinks a lot of it in the run up to Christmas. We certainly did. If you're drinking "properly", you'll also get a bottle of snaps for the table, glasses of which you raise in frequent toasts to others. This is the Danish take on aquavit, less sugary and far more sophisticated than the Germanic schnapps varieties most people know. There's wide variation in that simple description, though, running from throat-burning stuff sure to put hair on a Viking chest through to milder, slightly sweet varieties. You can try different types by the glass, or order a bottle for the table. If you do the latter, they'll charge you for what you drink.

Our discovery this meal: dill-flavoured snaps. The alcoholic kick is hidden beneath a smooth, slightly sweet palate with just a hint of the herb. Enough to remind you that dill is a cousin to the much stronger fennel, a liquorice flavour which works in both sweet and savoury dishes. This snaps went beautifully with all of the herring varieties, but continued happily with everything else. Unsurprisingly, two bottles came home with us.

Copenhagen is famous for its hip, modern restaurants. We've dined in a couple of them. But none are as soul satisfying as the Cafe Petersborg. And that's what hygge is all about.

If you want to learn more about hygge, and what makes the Danes tick overall, look up Helen Russell's The Year of Living Danishly. In it, an English journalist who accompanies her husband on assignment to Denmark spends a year trying to understand why the country regularly tops surveys of the happiest places on earth. It's funny, fact-filled and does a great job of capturing the subtleties that make this little country so special.