“We have an insane amount of chair legs. 72 x 4 outside and 130 x 4 inside…” was the answer from the day manager when asked by Jacob Keinicke about the number of chair legs at the opening. Four years have passed and apart from being an established part of the local music scene, the place has blended perfectly with the colorful environment of “Farvergården”. The place is well attended by students as well anyone fond of cheap coffee, beer and toasts. And the amount of chair legs is still insane.

Studenterhuset (The Student House) is always full, whether it be people warming their hands on a cup of coffee while burying their noses in heavy books or huddled around a group projects, or just people who enjoy having a beer without having to shell out 50 kr. A student house is a must in any university city and Odense has succeeded in creating a rallying point and a place of study for both college and university students – and at the same time a place where no one will frown upon the people playing hooky with a beer and a game of backgammon.

• Mon - Wed: 10.00 - 22.00
• Thu - Sat: 10.00 - 24.00
• Sun: 10.00 - 18.00

It smells like Berlin, because of the industrious, creative entrepreneurial desire and limited funds.

The place has an aura of the squatter-environments and backstreet theatres of the past. It tastes like anarchy, of wild energy. The poster-fetischism of the 80s greets you in the foyer, and if you do not know anyone at the bar, you know someone, who knows someone at the bar – they probably studied art or performance together.

The Momentum Theatre ecchoes the homes of your childhood, where the adults were never home, where the doors were always open, where everyone was, but no one was ever visiting. It is the Wienercafé of the city, the salon of the intellectuals. It is where you can argue your way through artistic movements and have angry opinions about the established Parnassus of old, white men with dead money. It is where people are beautiful and fashion plunging backs and second-hand stilettos and entirely original outfits. This is the place of the party with expectations for life.

The theatre serves a steady stream of stage art in all shapes and sizes – and at a price so affordable that even the poorest artisti soul can quench his thirst abundantly. Theatre, modern dance, concerts, lectures, movies, the whole shebang: Momentum Theatre is a theatre with everything coming up – including love.

• Mon - Sun: 10.00 - 02.00

You must lock arms with your friends, stroll through the streets, into Jazzhouse Dexter, one of Odense’s most authentic clubs, which serves as a playground for jazz loving people from far and wide. Meet talented jazz musicians, who will offer a terrific experience from Dexter’s intimate corner stage under the low ceiling. The acoustics are wonderful, the atmosphere unique, and if you arrive early you might snatch a seat up front and enjoy a beer and an (imaginary) cigarette, and be close enough to the musicians to smell them.

If you are one to hide in the corner, under the shade of your hat with a Whiskey and a Cuban cigar, find somewhere else or put out your cigar, because at Dexter’s smoking is prohibited. Luckily, there are other things to do. If, on the contrary, you are the type, who cannot help but shake your tail feather when the live music crawls through your ear canal, feel free to show off your moves on the dance floor. For everyone else, there is also the option to sway discretely off stage.

Follow the blue lights and come along! Do not miss the lovely, wanton and vivid music played here – whether world class jazz equilibrists or the budding musicians of Odense. It is going to be wonderful.

If you ask me, Jazzhouse Dexter’s free Monday events are one of the best ways to spend your Monday evening in Odense. Whether the menu offers jazz jam, blues, or gypy/hip hop/poetry slam-fusion there is something about the atmosphere around small tables in dimmed lighting that always adds something to your evening.

For most, Sunday is the day of rest, reading the newspaper, and general regenration after the hardships of the preceding week. If, however, you feel like bursting the sleepy Sunday bubble, Dexter offers the vitality, which most Sundays lack. Therefore, I have no qualms about bringing my mopey eyes to Dexter’s soft light, without fear of dozing off. I have no doubt that a shot of swinging big band energy or captivating drum solo rythm acrobatics should suffice to wake most people from their Sunday slumber and send them forward with renewed energy.

I love Dexter! I like Posten and Kansas City, but I love Dexter!

• Mon - Sun: -

A small, intimate shop and a wide range of records across genres – both new and used – is what makes RecordPusher one of Denmark’s leading record stores.

After many years working in his brother’s cult record store Moby Disc, Bo opened RecordPusher.com in 2011 and, three years later, a bricks-and-mortar store opened in Overgade. Bo quickly became an outstanding provider of analogue sound in the city centre, sometimes in (bitter) competition with his brother, who re-opened his white whale on smaller scale shop in 2015.

I have visited record stores in all the big cities in the world and know what I associate with the real vinyl-experience: Buying vinyl records should be a cohesive experience of feeling, touching, and listening your way through the selection. Being present, taking your time, and having the desire to learn something new.

This is possible at RecordPusher. There is coffee on the pot, a small lounge offering wine and beer, and always good music playing. What is it? Bo will tell you, and you can name a genre and get a recommendation you had not expected, and stream music from your tablet before purchasing, just ask. Most importantly, there are always new records on the shelves.

The store focuses on new releases and a wide range of genres with a preponderance of Indie music. Bo also prioritizes having the music from upcoming concerts and festivals in stock, so this is a golden opportunity to listen up on upcoming concert experiences.

Stop by for a present record experience in one of Denmark’s most well-assorted, independent record stores.

Have a seat in the window or on the bench in fron and watch the bustle of the street.

The shop is always open the first sunday of the month as well, from 11 am to 3 pm.

• Mon - Thu: 09.00 - 17.30
• Fri: 09.00 - 19.00
• Sat: 09.00 - 16.00
• Sun: -

In the old train station at Fruens Bøge, behind the lake, the forest, the playground, and the resurrected Carlslund Kro, lies Velodrom Kaffebar. The name is a subtle homage to the bicycle-racing track, which a hundred years ago was the big attraction in Fruens Bøge, back then home to world champion sprinter Thorvald Ellegaard and his remarkable handlebar moustache.

The place has been refurbished with care and respect for the original use of the building – there’s an old ticket window, DSB soap dispensers in the bathrooms, and Aage Rasmussen’s iconic railway posters on the walls. Café owner and coffee brewer Kåre Loll doesn’t much like the word retro, but admits that he has a lot of love for 1950s aesthetics. He has wanted to - and succeeded - creating a décor with clean lines, no plastic, and a massive presence of polished wood.

The name Velodrom firmly grounds the place in local history, but the cycling references are otherwise very subtle. Apart from a gorgeous, celeste-green Bianchi that serves as decoration on one wall, god is the detail: the excellent coffee is brewed on a Faema espresso machine, model 1961. Faema famously sponsored the record-breaking road racer, Eddy Merckx, and coffee is served in cups whose red and white pattern matches his classic cycling jersey.

Ordering a cup of coffee has turned into quite an ordeal in most places. Variations on “hot, caffeinated drink” seem endless and sometimes impossible to pronounce. And the intake of said beverages is more often than not accompanied by stressed-out guests, acerbic baristas and a horrible soundtrack.

Not so at Velodrom. Here, you happily miss out on all of that. The choice is limited, but everything on the menu is excellent. The coffee can’t drip any faster than it does naturally, which helps encourage a pleasantly slow experience. Café guests wait without impatience; they even do it with a smile, for no one is busy in Fruens Bøge. The radio is never, ever tuned to P3, but often plays 1930s blues legend Robert Johnson, and sometimes French psychedelic 1960s pop. And the coffee has been sampled and approved by friends and family. If it is good enough for them, it is good enough, period. Kåre decides. It is his place, and his call – and he does it so well. 

• Mon: -
• Tue - Sun: 10.00 - 18.00

Goma was one of the first substantial alternative gourmet restaurants to appear in Odense and with its neat fusion of Japanese sushi and, well, everything else, including pork rinds, served in cool surroundings, it quickly became a hit – and it hasn’t lost its momentum since.

I once celebrated a birthday there with my girlfriend and child and on top of great, inventive meal I was pleasantly surprised to find the waiters friendly without being fawning. There is a hyped cocktail bar in the evening with herbal gins and a dj and the restaurant features occasional exclusive wine, champagne & gastro events.

Goma is youthful without being stupid – a rarity.

• Mon - Thu: 17.30 - late
• Fri: 16.00 - late
• Sat: 17.30 - late
• Sun: -

Enjoy a thoroughly great cup of filter coffee on a rainy morning or one (two, three) glasses of wine under the incandescent bulbs on a summer evening. The music isn't muzak, the beans and the grapes are impeccable, and the prices are of course correspondingly high.

The clientele is broad, but always well-dressed; in the daytime there is a slight overrepresentation of students and young creatives/professionals that have "meetings" standing around a table and "work" at their laptops. In the afternoon, all types of embellished cosmopolites eat tapas and, for a little while, forget that the world is burning. Here is, hands down, the city's largest selection of magazines and newspapers. Outdoor seating in the summer. Organic ice cream. Hats with logos. What more can the heart wish for ...?

This one is the original Nelle's, the first one in town and the first one in the world. The second one is in Overgade, and it is also worth a visit, not least because they open earlier than any other caffeine pusher in town. It's not hard to imagine that soon every street corner in Denmark will have a Nelle's, but for now, Odense alone has the pleasure.

But who's Nelle really, and why has she lent her name to the coffee shop that started the city's quality-coffee new wave in 2012? The three business partners behind the project had in total five sons and one daughter — the boys all got juices named after them — while Nelle will have the pleasure to grow up with a hang-out place like Sam's.

It was really far-sighted of their parents to open this genuine coffee shop in Rosenbæk's glass palace (which had lived all its short life since 2004 in the hope that someone would notice how much potential it had) with the exterior facing Pantheonsgade and Amfipladsen. Plywood, Danish design furniture and graphic posters with brisk lifestyle slogans add a special touch to the whole thing.

• Mon - Fri: 8.00 - 22.00 (eller senere)
• Sat: 9.00 - 22.00 (eller senere)
• Sun: 10.00 - 18.00

The objective here is to enjoy a jolly evening with kegs and golden oldies in a pub in the Skibhus district. At Vognhjulet, lovable caricatures of house friends and classical Storm P. Beer-ads dress the walls. And when I looked up from the urinal in the men’s room – and thankfully avoided the prevalent bar jokes about not to patronise the long-term unemployed – the walls were covered in all the gun of the fair. But this does not change the fact that Vognhjulet has taken a leap forward.

This happened when Skibhusstuen opened with a speech from the chief inspector and whailing violins by, among others, Stig Stradivarius, although I only heard it through Den evige Terp’s cell phone. Since then, I have, without remorse, treated my kids to a soft drink on the way home from the allotment garden, to show them this noble attraction with its old photos from times where the Skibhus district had yet to house the creative class and still went by names like the Skarntyde (hemlock) or Sutsko (slipper) district.

This spirit is alive and well at Vognhjulet.

• Mon - Wed: 11.00 - 01.00
• Thu - Sat: 11.00 - 02.00
• Sun: 12.00 - 01.00

A city without a broad range of motley pubs cannot claim to be a true metropolis. So of course Odense offers a variety of these. ”Tinsoldaten” (or simply ”Tinneren” to locals) and ”Tingstedet” are legendary. But just off the beaten track, in the Skibhus district, waterholes are strewn like pearls before drunken swine. And beyond comparison is the Hungarian tavern ”Ungarsk Vinstue”. The murals capture the spirit of hussars and gypsies, you can test your skills at local billiard games upstairs, admire inkeeper Arne’s cabinet of curiosities and arcade of abominations, and listen to the evergreens of Rock Nalle on the jukebox.

On special occasions, you might even persuade them to throw a tablecloth on the pool table, as it was the case when this spectacle celebrated its 3 x 15 year anniversary. Live concerts and other exciting events are a frequent feature and, if alewife Connie allows it, Arne is glad to participate in the shenanigans.

Mind the chicken run on your way to the men’s room.

• Mon - Wed: 09.00 - 19.00
• Thu - Fri: 09.00 - 22.00
• Sat: 11.00 - 22.00
• Sun: 11.00 - 18.00

Whenever people come to Odense for the first time I recommend a visit to this bizarre café. I’m actually at Smagløse right as I write this, drinking a good cup of coffee at one of the old bus seats in the corner. Young people come here too. I am here. Every day, Smagløse’s wonderful bartenders serve good coffee, and on the other side of the bar is the infamous Pòlseum. A must-see!

It’s like stepping into grandma’s old living room - except for the Indian elefants on leash rows, the newspaper-wallpaper, the old paintings hanging from the ceiling, the old Aristonia radios and walls that are as orange as my parents’ old kitchen from the 70’s. This place is so cozy, nice and comfortably shady. Still, right in front of me, is a quite disgusting plastic baby head, quietly spinning when the wind creeps in. Spooky, but pretty cool.

Here you can sit and philosophize while staring at the shiny antique globe, or enjoy the sun and the nice weather in the climber-covered backyard. You can have deep conversations, drink craft beers, rendezvous with your lovers or do any other café-like thing with people near and far. The crowd is diverse, of all ages and types, and hey! There’s my teacher, Bob da dap bob! He’s right there!

Come the evening, the music gets louder. The good one. Gorillaz, Caravan Palace, the latest pop hits from the radio and a lot more. The atmosphere is top notch and the energy is unlike anywhere else.

This place is perfect for a date, to break up with your partner, or for a job interview.

Honestly, I just love this place.

• Mon: 12.00 - 01.00
• Tue - Wed: 12.00 - 02.00
• Thu - Sat: 12.00 - 03.00
• Sun: 12.00 - 22.00

S'vineriet was the first of the new wine bars, which have opened recently in Odense. The combination of a wine bar and wine shop just outside the pedestrian area, on Klaregade, and under the shadow of one of the most beautiful trees, the city center can offer.

The location makes the wine bar an obvious after-work destination during summer time, where it is possible to sit at a table directly on the street, of course with a glass, and watching life passing in front of you.  The destination is just as obvious during the rest of the year, during which you can find shelter in the basement to enjoy dark, sun-burned grapes and some tapas under the glow of incandescent bulbs.

The décor is half Nordic New-Yorker flat, half detached house’s basement, and it is in a way the right environment for an informal and accessible wine bar with a little something to please every taste and everything from beginner tastings over community dinners to authentic Danish tarteletter (Patty Shells)! and bingos.

It is not here that you learn about the difference between the organic and biodynamic production methods, or about the volcanic bluestone soil in the Côte-de-Brouilly, but if you don’t mind that, then take a seat in the basement and enjoy your wine with your friends.

• Mon: -
• Tue - Thu: 15.00 - 23.00
• Fri - Sat: 11.30 - 01.00
• Sun: -

Carlsens is one of the city’s proud institutions and has a solid reputation among connoisseurs all over the country. A dark beer-monastery from 1898 with a distinct, mystical magnetism. Here you will meet the chief surgeon from high class Hunderup, the labourer from the Skibhus district, the young student, and the occasional old OB-pioneer.

You will also meet a ginormous selection of Danish and Belgian beer (127 at the time of writing) and if you enjoy beverages brewed by munks, revel in the 13 different Trappist beers on the altarpiece. You can also find two special edition Odense Pilsners made to celebrate OB’s championship i the previous century …

Carlsens is a bar where words are big and the conversation runs merrily, but you can chose to have your beer in high cheer or relative silence. Regardless, the mood is set in the building that, until 1963, housed an apothecary and whose characteristic white, opal-glass ceiling illuminates the bar. It is also due to the personal and competent service from a range of great bartenders, whose predecessors you can see depicted in drawings hanging amongst a more or less becoming interior.

• Mon - Sat: 12.00 - 01.00
• Sun: 13.00 - 19.00

Boogies is where to go when you are in need of dancing, smoking cigarettes in the late hours, and exchanging smiles, kisses, and love until the sun rises.

The dancefloor closes at 6am, and for me it is the epitome of young Odense to see the sun rise after a night at Boogies and riding my bike home to the tune of bird song. With music from the last fifty years and a history of thirty-something, Boogies is not your trivial Craisy-Daisy dicso. People are relaxed and enjoy the (coming) weekend. High heels are a rare sight, the rythm is going to get you, and during happy hour, from 11 pm, heaps of beer are served.

No visit to Boogies is complete without a trip upstairs to Tintin Bar. Start your evening at Tintin in the wonderfully kitsch environment and comfortingly smoky nooks and crannies.

• Mon: -
• Tue - Wed: 23.00 - 04.30
• Thu: 23.00 - 05.00
• Fri: 23.00 - 05.30
• Sat: 23.00 - 06.00
• Sun: -

In the concrete monstrosity next to Brandts Klædefabrik there is a little place for self-indulgence. At Fredo's Coffee Right you can relax and enjoy a very well-served cup of coffee and a sweet treat from their impressive variety. Although Fredo's is just on the border between commercialism in the pedestrian zone and the arts and theater environment around Brandts and Farvergården, the atmosphere is relaxed and intimate.

In addition to a large coffee selection, Fredo has collaborated with several pearls in the city and has therefore incorporated both the bread from Det Gode Brød, cakes and sweet stuff from Odense Chocolate House and classic french dishes like quiche lorraine and croque monsieur from Bacchus. They do their best to source organic, local and quality products.

If you're into something stronger, Fredo's also surprises with some outstanding beers, spirits and cocktails. Instead of club sandwiches, cafe burgers and nachos, they offer an extravaganza of self-indulgence. And in the summer they even got the local Italian ice-cream man to stand outside the door on one of the best sunny corners in town.

• Mon - Sun: 09:00 - 19:00

Sandpaper; cigarette butts at the foot of the bar stool; those merciful hours from 2 am to 5 am… the hole-in-the-wall in the basement is a house of peace. An oasis for the thirsty, a kingdom of pints, a cave for humanity.

I grew up in the provinces, where pubs like these are not the exception, but the rule. This is where people meet; either in skipper’s cabin or in one of these temples of hideousness, where you chew the fat of the griefs and joys of everyday life, while quenching your thirst. There’s freedom in pubs despite – or because – predictability is king.

When I arrived in Odense, it turned out there were no pubs worth visiting. Too many places were either too try-hard or too disgusting. It is possible to become too smoky, too ugly, too grimy. Finding that balance and being a modest, pleasant hole-in-the-wall is an art of sorts. This is how I’d describe Tingestedet on weeknights. During weekends, almost everywhere turns into a nightmare if all you’re interested in is a place to talk and drink a beer, but for those everyday benders, Tingstedet is the place for me.

Tingstedet has its own mood, chain-smoke fog,s and cheap pints. This is where the gang meets when everywhere else is closed. This is where the vagabond brings his dog when their feet are tired. And where artists turn, when their muse has them in a chokehold.

It isn’t pretty. Not nice-hole-in-the-wall with old furniture and a decorative-if-shabby pool table. The walls are nicotine white-yellow and both furniture and art is nowhere near hip. Everything is ugly in a satisfying way. Ugly meaning un-designed, un-arranged. No fancy gestures. Honest functionality. The charm of the place lies in the people in front of and behind the bar.

Tingstedet is good for your spirit. Its unadorned space is somehow peaceful. It offers a breather from the otherwise polished and overly designed world, and I mean that both physically and mentally. It is my guess that the comfort of the pubs has saved more people over the years than it has destroyed through alcoholism. They offer refuge. And in the increasingly gentrified streets of Odense, Tingstedet is one of the last ones standing and it does so without any digital trace.

• Mon - Thu: 10.00 - 00.00
• Fri - Sat: 10.00 - 03.00
• Sun: 10.00 - 18.00

The place to go if you need to go out, but would also like to talk to the people you bring along.

And if you enjoy drinking a truly well-made Margarita in a high bowl with chrystalized salt on the rim, but would rather not pay a fortune for it.

And if you enjoy imbibing your cocktail in a very unusual, smoky atmosphere, which doesn’t have the smell of lingering farts. And if you want either House or Motown to flow from the speakers. Or if you would just really enjoy a cheap draught beer and a round of table football.

And if you like laminated, greasy drinks cards with doofy names like ”Zombie drink”, of which you can only drink two. Or else you die.

• Mon - Tue: -
• Wed: 19.00 - 01.00
• Thu: 18.00 - 02.00
• Fri: 15.00 - 03.00
• Sat: 18.00 - 03.00
• Sun: -

• Mon - Wed: 12.00 - 00.00
• Thu - Fri: 12.00 - 02.00
• Sat: 11.00 - 02.00
• Sun: -

The bar is decadent, dark, and enigmatic and the place to find the most delicious and well-served cocktails in the city.

The wallpaper is deeply pruple with bombastic golden ornaments. Schreechy gramophone jazz flows from the speakers and the walls are adorned by a distinctive, fullbody portrait of a lady and her collie, something most walls desperately want. Everything is softly dust- and sound-absorbant: upholstered velour, heavy curtains, dark wood, and old books with goldtrimmed spines.

The first time I visited the venue, it was in darkness and the receptionist apologized that, regrettably, Louis was not at work. As if that was an explanation. Turns out it was; no Louis = no cocktails. Of course, there is the less fabled but very adept Christoffer who, with polite elegance and dark circles under his eyes, carries out mysterious butler-service from times past. He makes cocktails that look phenomenal, gleaming in the dusty glow of an old globe.

Grab a perfect Whiskey Sour, lounge on the chaise longue, and have your party on a purple satin pouf. And to quote the merry, cardplaying sisters from my last visit: Enjoy the fact that you have discovered this hidden gem now, giving you a lifetime to spend in these captivating surroundings.

• Mon - Wed: 17.00 - 00.00
• Thu - Sat: 17.00 - 02.00
• Sun: -

The pub where people have gotten really drunk since 1506.

It’s a while since I’ve been at the Tinner. As the place is called. On the other hand, I lived there for almost a full year after high school, where I, otherwise never again to be forced into doing something boring, still ended up serving fried food all night long at Burger King, until I broke my arm, and the place burned down. Unrelated events, by the way.

After the night shift’s frying-hat was taken off, but before we went home all together to watch Japanese horror movies with Anders and Maria, we stopped by the Tinner for a bunch of morning beers. And it was dark, and it was nice, and I can’t for the love of God remember much more than that.

• Mon - Wed: -
• Thu: 12.00 - 21.00
• Fri: 11.00 - 00.00
• Sat: 00.00 - 00.00
• Sun: 00.00 - 11.00

In summertime, when the sun shines, Lune Larsen sits outside by the tables.

He follows you with his eyes when you walk by on that bike lane that everyone who is not a local mistakes for a sidewalk. But Larsen is not the attraction. The attraction is Football, the kick and rush from the English division, and the dong-sound in your ears. This is the right place to be nostalgic and to believe that football can still be saved.

That's what fans do, those fans that gather here to watch Norwich, West Bromwich, Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest. Of course, most people would rather see Liverpool, Chelsea and the newest billionaire-club, but this is a place where people still dream about the game that can knock regimes over and make people shut up.

Behind the bar, Flemming pours you a beer that tastes of pilsner and maybe scowls a bit angrily, just like that cranky Hobbit guy. In the background, loud Odensean suburb lingo mixes with songs from White Hart Lane. It's Saturday. There's plenty of time.

Kick Off is a comfortable and nice place.

• Mon - Thu: 15.00 - 00.00
• Fri: 12.00 - 02.00
• Sat: 13.00 - 02.00
• Sun: 13.00 - 23.00

When I was a teenager, and we played Risk for hours and drank beer from the bottle, we always ran into the problem that tables were reserved for trivial things like food, and had to be cleared at the most inopportune times, often standing in the way of world domination. But at Papas, tables are dedicated to board games. And beer.

Head down to Papas if you appreciate board games for their special ability to bring people together in a kind of social contract that is not guided by asking “how things are” until you’re sore. Instead, you can come together to save the world from global epidemics or stab each other in the backs in the attempt to keep your secret identities safe in opposing, equally paranoid freedom movements.

It is a wonderful thing that this place is not founded on the desire to make money off of servings of nachos, but instead is based entirely on the real board game enthusiasm of founder Jens Neumann. So far he is has built a selection of more than 600 board games, and there is something for everyone. Matador, Ludo, and Stratego next to Pandemic, Zombicide and Arkham Horror.

You can walk right in and grab any classic game from the shelf, but if you’re in the mood for a challenge and have between 5 minutes and 24 hours of free time on your hands, you can also try asking one of the volunteer game-gurus to teach you something new. It is much better than trying to make sense of the endless pages of rules that come with every game.

Papas Papbar is nerd paradise, no doubt, but it is no members-only club. Here you’ll find board game love, open arms and hygge to lift the roof.

See the full list of games here, get excited, postpone your meetings/your homework/your chores, call your friends, and book a table at 61705548. It’ll only cost you an order at the bar.

• Mon: -
• Tue - Thu: 13:00 - 23:00
• Fri: 13:00 - 01:00
• Sat: 12:00 - 01:00
• Sun: 12:00 - 23:00

Lalou Vinbar is a nice, little wine church, where the wine is served by the city's most enthusiastic and believing connoisseurs.

An Ivan and a Thomas.

Two oenophiles from the heart of Copenhagen, who lived, traveled and worked with wine, now settled in Svendborg and opened a wine bar in Odense. One of them warm heartedly polishing the glasses behind the bar. The other one moving between the tables and telling stories.

Wine companions and a wine bar built like an artwork that renounce everything fast and effective. A place that shouldn’t be succeeding, but ironically attracts those who can pay for it.

There are probably three types of wine bars, except the wine bars that are not really wine bars at all.

The glitz type wine bar, which attracts the rich; both new money and old money, sipping the wine they know and telling tales of expensive past-times.

The hipster wine bar that sells stories that wine is not only for the rich, but can also be an intellectual accomplishment and therefore balances on an edge between being interesting and completely unimportant.

And then there is the wine bar, which can actually be called - a wine bar. A place where you can learn about wine and those who cultivate it, where respect for the wine and the people behind it forbids you to regard it as anything else but wine.

Lalou - named after the French natural wine producer Lalou Bize-Leroy, is such a wine bar.

And then again, it really is Thomas and Ivan's wine bar. Because here you drink the wines that Thomas and Ivan know the most about and like the most. They will tell you stories they’ve heard in damp Austrian, Spanish, Italian or French basements. And you absolutely don’t have to worry about an arrogant monologue on what you should like.

Wine from Europe. Both natural and conventional. No mediocre wines they are trying to make money on. A wine menu filled with glasses of white, red, sweet and sparkling for between 70 and 150 kroner and bottles with prices ranging from the very reasonable to the absurd.

The two are not just wine connoisseurs, they are also cooks. And that means that their horderves are one of Lalou's biggest draws. At Lalou you can get the very best Jamón Ibérico, carpaccio,  rillette, truffle toast, anchovies, french cheeses and olives, that you could ever imagine.

The quality is high and - the meat melts in your mouth, here you might even like the blue cheese, even sea food haters like the fish and this is the place to learn to eat olives.

Be aware of the many tastings at Lolou. They expand on different wine regions, forgotten grapes or compare wines on the same grapes grown in different countries. There's the very popular wine and cheese tasting that matches wine with the right cheeses and helps you to do the same at home. There's the annual Leroy tasting for those that want - and can afford - to taste Lalour Bize-Leroys top wines. And now there's even a wine for beginners tasting that teaches you the basic craft of tasting.

Lalou is my go to wine bar in Odense, and it should also be yours.

• Mon: -
• Tue: 14.00 - 23.00
• Wed: 16.00 - 23.00
• Thu: 16.00 - 00.00
• Fri - Sat: 14.00 - 00.30
• Sun: -

Take a slow stroll around the old town. Slowly pass right by all the junk-food shops and sweets by the City Hall. Then stop to enjoy a slow juice at Den Lille Smalle (The Little Narrow in English). It definitely lives up to its name, but even though it’s narrow and fairly small, there is enough seating both inside and outside.

This is the only place in Odense where you can get a slow juice. What’s all the hype around the slow juice? Well, it is juice that is extracted by a special juicer that spins slower than the usual centrifugal juicers (you know, the ones that make you jump ever time when you push the ‘on’ button). And it presumably retains more vitamins. Den Lille Smalle offers lots of juices with greens and veggies.
If you are not too much into slowly juiced vegetables, their coffee is excellent too. And they have started to offer breakfast/brunch type of food. Smoothie bowls, sandwiches, avocado toasts, muesli and all that healthy jazz.

They offer vegan substitutes for milks and gluten free cakes and treats. So there is something for everyone.

• Mon - Fri: 9:00 - 18:00
• Sat: 9:00 - 17:00
• Sun: 10:00 - 16:00

Cafe Sølle has in record time filled a giant hole in the Odense coffee scene, being an honest, sincere and quality-conscious place at decent prices. The three owners, Mads, Xenia and Jonas, who are always behind the counter, really have their heart in what they do.

Usually I'm not a big cafe guest. I don't feel like sitting in some Ikea furniture and drinking overpriced bad coffee. I would rather buy something to-go and take a walk. But Café Sølle is something completely different. I pay with joy and feel I get it back double with quality and sustainability.

There are not many similar places in the city, but Cafe Kosmos is also one of them. And if there is to be wine on the table, then you can't get around Lalou Wine Bar.

• Mon - Tue: -
• Wed - Thu: 10:00 - 18:00
• Fri: 10:00 - 20:00
• Sat: 10:00 - 16:00
• Sun: -

Dania, as the city's oldest pub, is something of a local gem, and this pub's grand old lady carries her age with a quiet dignity. It's like stepping into a safe pocket of time, where only the digital jukebox testifies that we are no longer in the heyday of brown pubs in the 70s and 80s.

The average age among the regulars is correspondingly higher than at the other Vesterbro pubs, and the atmosphere in the small room may immediately seem a bit ingrained, but you also often see groups of young people at the tables who want to set life on pause for a while. The brown pubs more often than not are inclusive spaces where the cultural, social and age boundaries that apply on the other side of the doorstep are put on standby.

It’s fitting that Vesterbro's range of pubs, its bodega belt, begins with Dania, which with its brown-yellow shades, curtains and red-white-checkered tablecloths on the tables in many ways appears as the quintessential, Danish, pub worthy of preservation.

Brown checklist:

Jukebox: Yes

EC on screen: No.

Patio: No.

Beers: 22 kr.

• Mon - Sun: -

The brown Vesterbro pubs can still seem discouraging from the outside with their drinking, smoking and shouting. And yes, the most loyal customers are sometimes tough on themselves and each other. It's really just rarely as bad as most people think as long as you are willing to park your prejudices at the door and go in and say 'hello' and order a beer.

This also applies to Billiarden, which is probably one of the city's pubs that has mostly had to contend with a tarnished reputation. Such a reputation is, well deserved or not, notoriously hard to get rid of once it has taken hold, but the new owners Kenneth and Dan are making an honorable attempt, and it's probably worth backing up.

At least a lot has changed at the address since the new partners took it over in January 2020 and called it Billiarden 2020 Aps to mark a new beginning for the place that originally housed a bank until it was turned into a billiard club in 1993 and since received a liquor license and became a public pub.

As one of the first, they wisely chose to remove the grim, old iron bars from the windows, which have probably given a few passers-by some wrong associations over time. Then they painted the walls in lighter and more welcoming colors; light and more transparency are a big part of the new style. Among the other new initiatives are two 65 '' screens, showing all European Championship matches.

However, it is still unmistakably Billiarden, and both the spirit of the place and the vast majority of regulars have stayed after the change of ownership. They still exchange their jovial insults with each other at the bar, just as they can probably also offer a few robbery stories or two from Billarden's wild west past.

But young people are also coming in the door, primarily groups of students who are lured by the cheap prices, the freedom to smoke and the spatial surroundings. The young people usually sit at the tables and drink under the low-hanging lamps, while the bar is the domain of the old-timers.

And yes, of course you can still play free pin bowling at Billiarden.

Brown checklist:

Jukebox: Yes

Patio: Yes

Beers: 22 kr.

• Mon - Sun: -

Of the pubs located at the end of Sdr. Boulevard's sideroad to the south-west, Wienerstuen is the best and probably also the only one of the places - the others are Boulevardkroen and Bondestuen - that qualify as a brown pub. Although I have lived in the neighborhood for almost 10 years, I haven’t exactly been a regular at the place, but every time I have dropped by, I have walked pleasantly uplifted out of there.

Wienerstuen is discreetly located on Gustav Johannesens Vej, which leads from the Boulevard and down under the viaduct to Fruens Bøge, which gives a pleasant hills and valley feeling. The proximity to the forest and to the Zoo also contributes to the idyll out there. The address is still 5000 Odense C, but because it’s located on a side road to the Boulevard, you're a good distance from the city noise. Outside there is a terrace where in the summer you can sit and follow life on the Boulevard pass by. Behind there is also a courtyard, but that’s something I have to try yet.

In comparison to the Vesterbro bodegas, Wienerstuen is more rustic-romantic from the outside and the tone inside is also nicer - some will say more boring! - then in the city. But otherwise they have a lot in common: Cheap beer, brown wood, non-smoking, billiard table and screen. Wienerstuen is an obvious place to end if you have been to the Zoo or on a picnic, yes in general just a good place.

Brown checklist:

Jukebox: Yes

Terrace: Yes

Beers: 24 kr.

• Mon - Sun: -