“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

In the mid-1980s, a vacant textile factory was converted into an art centre in Odense. Modern visual culture replaced weaving mills and industrial dye in the high-ceilinged rooms, and today Brandts is a showcase for contemporary and classical Danish art. After the Funen Art Academy left the building, Brandts has colonized all floors with big ambitions and tales of a future where Odense welcomes bigger exhibitions and give them the space they deserve. The Media Museum is the only other institution still present in this five storey industrial wonder.

Brandts is a cultural giant, setting the tone for the use of former industrial buildings for shops and cafes in the Latin Quarter. A re-launch of the museum in 2014 provided a new logo as well as a new curatorial direction: Brandts banished the solo shows of contemporary artists, and instead specialises in grand, themed exhibitions addressed to the popular unconscious, with appeal to stomach, hearts and egos. At first the contemporary art was displaced to its little sister, Brandts 13, but after another conceptual tightening Brandts 13 is now also in the past.

Whether exhibitions centered on tattoos, selfies and Disney are expressions of an experimental, post-modern attitude to canon, or rather signs of the institution nursing consumer-guests on their conditions is up for debate. For us, part of the answer is provided by the fact that the once well-stocked art bookstore now has been replaced by glasses, scarfs and pillars with Kandinsky motives. A bookstore is where an art museum greets its visitors - an opportunity to show that you have something to tell and that you take yourself and your guests seriously.

In any case, it surely is healthy that the museum is still able to piss people off. For the more traditionally-minded guest, there is a permanent collection of Danish painting on display in the attractive modern extension of the museum, including a gorgeous, dark Hammershøi that you really ought to revisit every time you stop by for a special exhibition.

You should always attend receptions at Brandts, even if there is no chance of catching as much as glimpse of what they have put on the walls because of the crowds. Instead, sip your complimentary beverage in the outdoor gallery in good company of (almost) the entire city and enjoy the glorious view over Amfipladsen.

Today people tend to take for granted that fine arts belong in industrial settings, but the biggest art centre on Funen was a pioneer in the field of developing outdated industrial building complexes into cultural hotspots. In 1988, the museum received the European Museum of the Year Award; the first of any Scandinavian museum to do so. A quality often taken for granted, but something that should still be applauded for respectful transformation of the built heritage. Let's hope it continues to raise the bar for museum practices and doesn't retreat into the comforts of easy choices.

Admission is free on Thursdays from 5-9 p.m. and your grandmother and your maybe-date will both appreciate an invitation (but seperately).

• Mon: -
• Tue - Wed: 10.00 - 17.00
• Thu: 10.00 - 21.00
• Fri - Sun: 10.00 - 17.00

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

Have your evening pilsner on the bank of Odense River with the sun on your face and surrounded by unbusy people on blankets. Leap between water lily petals on the Fairy tale playground, sail to the ZOO with a riverboat, or jump in the water on your last day of school.

The park is the southern bastion of the Latin quarter where the best of city and nature is gathered in one place; water, trees, grass, duck feeding, aafart (sailing), art exhibitions, sculptures, and playground. A nice place to hang with your friends, with disposable grill and beers in the summer time. And a place just as suited for swinging your ponytail and flashing your gravity-defying sporno body in a neon tracksuit.

On sunny days, there is always at leas tone silver ghettoblaster, releasing tunes from past decades. On the playground: kids. In the open lawn areas: drunken people. So, a good opportunity to hear a truth or two.

• Mon - Sun: 0.00 - 24.00

FAA Project Room is an unpredictable and all-round project- and exhibition space for students at the Funen Art Academy.

Here, thoughts, ideas for exhibitions, and formats of knowledge are tested and refined in a coherent space, which among other things is meant to encourage people with interest in art of all shapes and sizes to become familiar with the work of the scholars.

Therefore, FAA Project Room is not like other exhibition spaces. It is a look into the world of art scholars. Sometimes you get to see almost finished and tested project, some other times just a hint of form. That's what is unique about the place. You can't predict what you will find.

There are not fixed opening times or program, so the best idea is to keep up-to-date with their facebook page, or sign up for the art academy's newsletter.

• Mon - Sun: -

On July 23, 1983, Ole and Karen Cafe opened Café Biografen, being thus the first ones to open a new business within the renovated Brandts Klædefabrik. With a colonial builder spirit and a scrap collector energy, they created an oasis in the past detached house city.

Since then, not much has changed. Karen handed the café over to Jørgen. But Ole is still there, the interior is almost the same, and in the small viewing room with soft red seats, where you can bring a drink with you in both glass and porcelain, are still projected movies certainly far from the common Hollywood standards.

Development resistance is rarely an advantage nowadays, but the Café Biografen is today an integral part of so many Odenseaners’ life and story, that major changes would inevitably mean that we would lose a part of ourselves. Even a stressed waiter’s grumpy closing time warning has become for me a predictable ritual, bringing joyful memories.

The Café Biografen is the destination for both everyday evenings, an early city tour and a Sunday afternoon around a backgammon. During the winter, the ground floor is a compelling shelter, bathing the Amfiplads’s soggy quarry tiles in light; in the early summer, the café moves outside under the sun and the linden tree; and when August finally arrives, the Café Biografen becomes home for film makers from all around the world during the famous Odense International Film Festival (“OFF”).

With the support from the Danish Film Institute (“DFI”), there is as well an obligation to give special attention to what moves the movie public places, where they do not already are. Therefore, one could wish that the Café Biografen, with greater courage and independence, dared to push a bit more the slightly-too-safe-choices boundaries, making thus Odense’s own great cinema an attraction for both movie and atmosphere.

• Mon - Sat: 10.00 - 23.00
• Sun: 10.00 - 22.30

Tidens Samling is the city's hands-on museum: you can touch and feel everything... the entire 20th century is in your hands. Clothes, jewelry, shoes, furniture, lamps, gadgets. As you enter the museum, you step directly into the 40's (oh, Rita Hayworth) or the 20's (oh, Louise Brooks) or the 80's (oh Madonna, oh Twiggy, oh Bowie) - all depending on which room you choose first. All the details are into place: the cigarette butt in the 50's living room is of course Lucky Strike, and in the 80's living room it's Marlboro. The devil is in the details, and Tidens Samling is a SuperDevil. Rumor has it that they hold 9000 pairs of shoes in their storage room. 

Tidens Samling is a museum that goes against everything the authority figures of your childhood have told you with index fingers raised: here, you can touch everything on display. In fact you should touch it. Get comfortable in the fringed velour chair from 1910; open the faded magazine pages from 1960 and enjoy the gossip of yesteryear. You can test if you still master the art of putting a tape in a cassette player in a 1980s girl’s bedroom, all in pale purple, decorated with glitzy posters of George Michael and Patrick Swayze. Or you can challenge gravity in plateau shoes from the 1970s.

There are eight rooms in the permanent exhibition at the museum, representing the decades 1910-1980. And everything is touchable and approachable, with smells, textures, dust and all. Anette Hage, founder of the collection, began collecting in the 1960s. She was unable to throw things out, and, she discovered, unable to sell them when she tried. What was left? Putting them on display.

Besides their decade-themed rooms, the museum hosts temporary exhibitions too. Check out what's on right now at tidenssamling.dk

The museum is home to the most well-kept secret café in the city, where you are served Kiksekage (traditional cake made with layers of biscuit and melted chocolate, starched with palmin) on a table laid with cloth and dab the corners of your mouth with a napkin from a silver holder, while enjoying the view of a small display of sugar bowls shaped like fruit and the sound of your teaspoon against the cup in the blessed silence of the café.

• Mon - Sat: 10:00 - 16:00
• Sun: -

Nørregaards Teater is Odense's only professional theater for children, which through the years has produced and developed a number of intense and elegant shows for children and young people.

The theater is very active, producing and co-producing new shows of high artistic quality every year. It's not just a theater that wants to entertain. The performances are deep and based on issues and dilemmas that children and teenagers might have — and always on the children's premises.

The theater also shows guest performances for the young audiences — which adults can enjoy too.

• Mon - 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

Bistros are fast becoming an Odensian specialty. In 2014, Restaurant No. 61 was named the Danish bistro of the year and Restaurant Bacchus has been nominated in both 2016 and 2017,  two out of three years after opening in 2015, won Brasseri of the year in 2017 and was nominated for the special categori "BISTRO" in 2019 by Danske Madanmeldere.

Bacchus is Stephane Libourel's interpretation of classical French cuisine, with no Danish add-ons or extras. He grew up and was trained as a chef in Lyon and Rhone, the capital food region of France, and you immediately get the sense that there are many layers to Stephane's gastronomical culture. His culinary education is based in respect for craftmanship, seasonal produce and terroir as a cultural foundation of each meeting between food and the people who make it.

Stephane formerly ran the now-capsized Brasseriet at Gravene, but whereas that concept struggled to define itself and make its mark, Bacchus communicated clearly from the get-go.

The produce and the quality of the food is top priority, and the wine selection is solid and with a bias for French wines from the Rhone. The real challenge is making something of the former cheese shop and transforming its functionalist space into a nice restaurant. The acoustics have improved, but the decor is still only halfway there and the open kitchen sometimes provides more furnace smoke than insight into the workshop of the cook.

In France, cooking is an art form, and so is talking. Stephane is often engaged in long conversations at the (close set) tables. Whether you like this engaged style of hosting or not, you can't argue that it isn't an admirable attitude for a chef to have toward his restaurant.

Rarely is the leap from a restaurant's opening to its nomination for awards in Den Danske Spiseguide (the Danish gastronomical guide) so sudden, but this is a deserved exception to the rule.

Bacchus is open for dinner reservations Monday to Satuday, and open for lunch Thursday to Saturday. This means, that the restaurant is closed between 3 pm and 5.30 on lunch days. Mondays and tuesdays are classic french dishes. Wednesdays feature a surprise menu of four dishes surprise menu with wine ad libitum.

Lunch prices range from 90-175 kr. For dinner, expect to pay between 270-735 kr. for 2-7 courses.

• Mon - Wed: 17.30 - 21.45
• Thu - Sat: 11.45 - 21.45
• Sun: -

Gourmet-bigmouth Pasfall has been featured in Guide Michelin 2016 and 2017, as the only Odensian restaurant. No star yet, but two forks for “good standard” accompanied by the following middle-of-the-road sentence that must have been composed somewhere on a central European rest stop between Paris and Brandts Passage:

“Good seasonal produce is used to create robust, tasty dishes, with a classic, yet modern style”

And even if the décor can’t be said to be very personal, nor warm, and there could be said to be a slight overrepresentation of real estate suits among the customers, dining at Pasfall’s couldn’t be further from a mediocre experience.

If you’ve ever heard Thomas Pasfall talk – and if you’ve met him, you definitely have – you know that he is someone who is hard to ignore, and so is his food.

There are no style nonsense, no new Nordic trend gestures. This is fine French craftsmanship combined with a certain amount of vulgar and brash provincial Funen arrogance – and I mean that in the best possible way.

I mean – who has a menu featuring ”Oisters in their natural state with red onion vinaigrette & toast Melba” and ”Piña Colada as ice cream”? And who combines that with classical dishes such as lobster, terrine, and roast beef with foie gras (under the name McPASFALL)?

No one else in Odense does, and nowhere else in Odense can you get food and wine of the standard that Pasfall offers. And of course you’ll have to pay for it.

4-9 courses cost between 579-959 kr.
4-9 glasses of wine cost between 420-945 kr.

- Fra 4-9 retter koster fra 579-959 kr.
- Fra 4-9 glas vin koster 420-945 kr.

It won’t be long until the Michelin stars will come to town, and the first one is likely to end up at Pasfall, even though the number of challengers keep rising.

Open for lunch and dinner, but closed in between.

• Mon: -
• Tue - Fri: 11.30 - 22.30
• Sat: 11.30 - 01.00
• 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

Cool places to eat are popping up all the time in Odense. Seaweed is definitely one of them. The story goes that the owners, a couple from Australia, got tired of waiting for someone else to open a sushi street food place that they ended up doing it themselves.

The owners, Jordana and Ron are very friendly. Several time when my friend and I went for a quick dinner, we ended up chatting with Ron and staying longer than intended. Turns out that he is a clarinetist in the chamber music ensemble ‘Esbjerg Ensemble’.

Their wraps have funky names like Black Mamba or Mr. Bean and they taste amazing with their spicy chilli or wasabi sauces. There are offers for both omnivores and vegetarians. You can grab a roll as a quick snack or a couple for lunch or a dozen for sharing it with friends. It’s great for those days with empty fridge or no inspiration to cook.

It tends to be busy at lunch time, but you never end up waiting for too long. And the good news is that it is reasonably priced. The rolls/wraps are 35 DKK a piece and 2-4 are enough for a meal, depending on how hungry you are.

• Mon: -
• Tue - Sat: 11:30 - 19:00
• Sun: -

Some people are peacefully greening the old factory complex around Brandts all year long: French anemone, elephant grass, boxwood shrubs, or flowering branches - all flowing from the lovely couple Joo and Nikolaj Valentin, ex-sailors, newly settled on Fyn, and their farm Allestedlund. The business stamp shows Allestedlund in handwriting, a Fyn-typical fantasy about living in the countryside and making all the good choices. The plants are picked up in botanic gardens in Holland and on Fyn.

On sunny days, the couple creates an urban jungle by exhibiting plants in the yellow yard beside the shop, and even during the cold season, there is so much more to get than the usual thirsty and sad bouquets. The varieties change according to the seasons, as well as the couple's special selection: shaped-cut plants in jars, giant artichoke flowers, fragrant fat roses in unusual colors, moss and grass and trees to grow in the right soil.

They are the best thing that has happened to Brandts Passage for years: Everything is carefully and intentionally selected, everything is vital, durable. You really have to try exceptionally hard in order to kill the plants you buy here. 

Since 2019, Allestedlund has expanded to the neighboring shop as well; a temporary takeover turned permanent as there seems no limit to the jungle’s growth and our need for quality greenery. They now stock some furniture, luxury vases, jars and pots in glass, metal and ceramics, too. Yes, it is a fancy garden, but as well a garden, done with care and a sense of quality. Nobody in town can tie bouquets like this. The price may be high, but the result is always worth (at least!) double the price.

• Mon: -
• Tue - Thu: 10:00 - 17:30
• Fri: 10:00 - 19:00
• Sat: 09:00 - 16:00
• Sun: -

To curate is a virtue. Curation is the opposite of YouTube and the internet’s interminable, mindless stream of pictures, video, words. Curating is like a real print newspaper, a season of theater, the program of a cinema; it consists of selection, the choice of what is to be shown because it is better than something else; because it is the best and the most relevant. This is what an art gallery is. And this is the kind of art gallery that Jonathan Kvium runs.

And it excites him. The fun and fascination of it. He wants it to be an awesome space. A free space. A regular playdate. A place where artists can make things happen, and things can happen for the artists. “My criteria for what to put in the gallery is goosebumps. Nothing else. I’m the one who decides, I’m the one who chooses, I’m the one looking for something extraordinary in a sea of the ordinary. And this is the place where my perspective as a curator will be tested; this is where I have to prove myself.”

“I see myself as a servant of the artists. Curation is a thing that happens constantly and spontaneously inside me; I’ve grown up in and been completely galvanized by art, so I really can’t help it. For me, making the perfect display is magical – whether it be a single artist I’m showing, or a group like, for example, ‘quadruple vernissage’, where four artists have to be presented so that they complement and challenge each other, and together create an atmosphere which is fantastic for audience, buyers, and friends to enter into.”

We’ve gotten a new place to meet; new coordinates for art; beauty has a new address.

Come without expectations, or find @albertcontemporary on Instagram and read a presentation of the artists ahead of time.  

• Mon: -
• Tue - Fri: 11:00 - 17:00
• Sat: 11:00 - 15:00
• Sun: -