Köd (pronounced “cud” in Danish), tucked down St Anne’s Court off Dean Street in Soho, is a dark, cavernous Danish steak restaurant with the odd flash of neon faux glamour. In fact, it reminds me of nothing so much as a Wednesday goth night at a club called Ritzy’s in 1987; it’s also the oddest place I’ve eaten in all year.
Köd arrived in London in 2023, over in Liverpool Street, and marketed itself as serving the very best of Nordic meats and experimental Scandi cooking: lobster with crisp pasta and daikon, cod ceviche with passionfruit vinaigrette, that kind of thing. Over in Soho, however, such blue-sky thinking has been grounded, and there’s a scant choice of rather lazy options, alongside Japanese wagyu, Australian striploin and châteaubriand from South America, all served with chips, chips or chips.
In Köd’s defence, menus generally have got simpler in recent years, and multi-paged, fake-leather-bound tomes with 32 choices of entrée feel rather naff these days. My personal bugbear, meanwhile, is the very short à la carte with intentionally opaque dish names that sound like something off the shipping forecast: “Sambucus, Finn, Sticky Cleethorpes.” Obviously, that would be elderflower sap, British vegetarian cheese and the chef’s nickname for his homemade bread. Why would you not know this?
Places such as Köd (the name means “meat” in Danish), then, are clearly aiming for and hoping to hit the sweet spot. The menu comes in a leather case and feels all weighty and full of promise, but on scrutiny, it turns out that this is a place for people who would find an Angus Steakhouse wilfully experimental.
We start with the “snacks” section, which offers a choice of “a selection of nuts”, “marinated olives” or “crisps and dips”, but provides no further details as to flavours or provenance. Why gild the lily? Starters include raw steak in both carpaccio and tartare form, and steak in tacos. Don’t bother with the latter: these are not lovely, malleable, delicious tacos, but crunchy, ready-made poppadoms filled with beef stodge that explode at first bite. Approach these “tacos” with extreme caution, and wear something wipeable.
Other starters include “garlic prawns and Tabasco dip”, “smoked salmon and avocado” and “fresh burrata and rosemary tomato”. I ordered the burrata, convinced that it would feature some kind of flourish or twist, but no: it came on a pile of cherry tomatoes with balsamic vinegar, a combination I last wowed over around the time that Finlay Quaye was collecting his Mobo award back in 1997.
In the mains, other than the steaks, which have been flown in from all over the world because clearly steak improves with air miles, there are just five options with snooze-inducing names – “pan-roasted salmon”, “crispy breaded chicken”, “grilled cauliflower steak”, “Köd bacon cheeseburger” and “Köd tartare as a main course” – and they’re all described with such little enthusiasm, it’s as if Köd’s owners are actively trying to put you off ordering them. After all, “crispy chicken” is what Birdseye called fancy poultry in 1978.
We ordered a UK côte de Köd to share (500g for £75) with sides of “steak fries à la Köd”, green beans and garlic, and corn ribs. During the lull between courses, the other six diners in the room – from the look of them all Scandi Soho media types (there are also branches of Köd in Aarhus, Oslo, Stavangar and Copenhagen) – held a debrief on the day’s pitches and I tried to get another drink. But nobody seemed to be running the dining room – the service was friendly, but in that sleepy, noncommittal way when they’ll watch you fold a napkin to mend a wonky table leg or finish your water and gasp for more, without quite realising that it’s their actual job. They huddled in groups and hid in cupboards while the service bell clanged yet again to summon them.
That said, and importantly, our steak was gorgeous, aged in Himalayan salt and cooked to a perfect medium rare. The corn ribs, however, were caked in a mystery crunchy spice and drowning in miso butter, while the parmesan-coated beans were overcooked and doused in the exact same butter.
This is comfort food with little finesse, but that’s not really the kitchen’s fault, because they’re clearly doing the best they can with lacklustre, cheap, ready-made supplies. Fried apple pie sounded like a delightful death row dessert, but was a loveless, possibly bought-in affair, and not even half as good as the scalding thing at McDonald’s.
I rarely describe a restaurant as dystopian, but it strikes me that Köd may well be the future of dining out, once the AI robots rule the Earth and we’re down to bugs, dust and 3D-printed gateaux – and I, for one, hail our new pared-down burrata-, nut- and olive-loving overlords.
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Köd 2 St Anne’s Court, London W1, 020-4600 0432. Open all week, lunch noon-2.30pm, dinner 6-9pm (10pm Thurs-Sat). From about £50 a head à la carte, set lunch £45, lunch menu from about £20, all plus drinks and service
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The new series of Grace’s Comfort Eating podcast starts on Tuesday 24 September. Listen to the first episode here