Four Nørrebro businesses doing good stuff for the planet

You’ll find the neighbourhood’s best pizza at Bæst (plus the burrata and charcuterie are pretty sublime too). The Italian-Danish team behind the restaurant produce much of their food on their own farm, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anything on the menu that couldn’t be described as ‘biodynamic’. Don’t miss the chance to grab a pastry from their sister bakery Mirabelle, which is right next door.

Grim is a fast-booming wonky fruit and veg start-up run by two women who met at a techno club while studying sustainable management at Copenhagen Business School (obviously). They supply eco-conscious subscribers and restaurants with mostly Danish produce that doesn’t look quite fit enough to sit on supermarket shelves (‘grim’ means ugly in Danish). The firm also has a hilarious, Nordic recipe-filled Instagram account. 

This big, fun, queer-run flea market means serious business when it comes to curbing the inherently consumerist nature of Denmark’s relatively high-earning population. The stalls span everything from homemade international cuisine to ceramics, furniture, clothing and glassware that could be trash-turned-treasure. Instead of blowing your pay check in the city’s obscenely priced design stores, hunt for originals here and take part in Copenhagen’s long-established recycling culture.

This café and sometime exhibition space is the cute, community-focused embodiment of all Nørrebro stands for – and a great example of a small business playing its part in saving the planet (while also raising awareness of important social causes). Expect a menu packed with organic, largely vegetarian food, plus the hum of creatives and social-justice activists mingling at regular daytime events. They also host kitchen takeovers that introduce locals to cuisine from the area’s immigrant communities (Indonesian and Colombian were recent highlights).