Texture – Karim Khouani's six-table French memoir on Sølvgade

Half a flight below the pavement on Sølvgade, across from Rosenborg Castle Gardens, Texture is one of the smallest fine-dining rooms in Copenhagen: six tables, never more than twenty guests, run by French chef Karim Khouani and his business partner Albert Dalum. Khouani opened the restaurant in October 2024 after already winning Michelin stars at two different restaurants of his own in Malmö, betting that Copenhagen's bigger market would reward the same classical, butter-and-caviar French cooking he had built his career on since working under Marco Pierre White in London. The bet paid off within a year: Texture earned its own star in June 2025, after only eight months of service, and kept it again in the 2026 Guide. It holds One MICHELIN Star. Behind the discreet door, the kitchen is led day to day by head chef Erin Sykes, and the whole operation still feels closer to a private dining room than a restaurant with a trophy on the wall.

01The room and the setting

Texture sits tucked half a flight down from street level on Sølvgade, with a deliberately discreet exterior that makes the entrance easy to miss without someone waiting to greet you. A lounge just inside the door connects to a chambre séparée that can seat up to seven, before a short corridor — where the restaurant's Michelin jacket hangs — leads into two small, connecting dining rooms.

Inside, wooden panelling and white tablecloths anchor a space that stays intimate without turning precious, while shifting digital reproductions of French masterworks by Van Gogh and Monet quietly reinforce the room's French identity. On each table stand small golden wire trees, whose shadows on the cloth are designed to echo the branches of the restaurant's own logo — a detail as literal about 'texture' as the name itself.

02The chef

Karim Khouani grew up in Marseille, where his earliest memories of cooking were formed at his grandmother's stove; the French-Italian chef later trained through kitchens in France and England, including a stint at Marco Pierre White's Oak Room in London and at Restaurant Escale in France, over nearly three decades in the trade. Love took him to Sweden, where in Malmö he opened Restaurant Ambiance (also written Ambiance à Vindåkra), winning the city's first Michelin star in 2015, before selling it and opening Restaurant Sture, which received its own star just three months after opening.

Insider tip

Six tables only; book ahead. Open Wednesday–Saturday, 18:00–24:00. Two tasting menus, no à la carte.

Texture, opened on Sølvgade in October 2024, was his next chapter — and a personal one. His son Nelson, now a teenage trainee in the Texture kitchen, is autistic and has an unusually acute sensitivity to texture in food and surroundings, which shaped both the restaurant's name and its attention to how everything in the room feels, not only how it tastes. Eight months after opening, Khouani's new project earned its own Michelin star in June 2025, a distinction it held onto again in 2026, alongside four forks and 92 points from the Falstaff Restaurant Guide Nordics.

03The cooking

Day-to-day, the kitchen is run by head chef Erin Sykes, an American who previously cooked at AOC and who, since Texture's star, has become Denmark's only female Michelin-starred head chef, a mother of two who argues the two roles aren't mutually exclusive. Together with Khouani, she cooks food with a lived relationship to classic French technique rather than a borrowed one: buttery sauces, traditional preparations and unapologetically rich ingredients sit at the centre of the menu, often opened tableside with a Gillardeau oyster finished under horseradish snow made with liquid nitrogen.

Luxury ingredients — caviar, truffle, langoustine, turbot — are balanced against small, local producers: organic vegetables and edible flowers come from Kiselgården, and cheese from Copenhagen Goat Milk. When Texture's star was announced, the restaurant's duck fat brioche was singled out from the stage as one of its standout dishes.

04What to order

Texture runs two tasting menus built around the same seasonal repertoire: Amplitude, a 16-course menu at 2,795 DKK, and Nuance, a tighter 13-course selection personally chosen by Khouani, at 1,695 DKK. On the Amplitude menu, expect a truffle choux with craquelin and truffle mornay; otoro with seaweed variations and Oscietra gold caviar; a chawanmushi with king crab, botarga and herb salad; and a lobster doughnut topped with Danish lobster and Rossini black label caviar.

Mains run from langoustine with chicken vinaigrette, burned pearl onions and lavender butter to turbot with fig purée, kohlrabi flower and a fig beurre blanc, and a hand-dived Oslo Fjord scallop with black trumpets. Don't skip the brioche with duck fat and organic cow butter — the dish the Michelin jury called out by name — and, on the dessert side, a Mayan red chocolate bar finished with blueberry and more Oscietra caviar.

05Wine and drinks

The wine list is handled by sommelier Magnus, who previously worked at Frantzén in Stockholm, and leans into the same French focus as the kitchen: a bold, classical menu matched with classic French wines rather than a globetrotting cellar. Texture publishes its own wine list on its website alongside the tasting menus, for guests who want to study the pairings before they arrive.

06When to go and booking

Texture serves dinner Wednesday to Saturday, from 18:00 to 24:00, and the phone line for reservation questions is staffed on the same days between 14:00 and 18:00. With only six tables and a maximum of twenty covers a night, booking well ahead is the only realistic way in, especially since the June 2026 Guide confirmed the star for a second year running.

The address sits on Sølvgade, opposite Rosenborg Castle Gardens and a short walk from Statens Museum for Kunst, in the stretch of streets around Øster Voldgade and Rigensgade where Nørreport and Østerport stations both sit within easy reach — a quiet, museum-and-gardens corner of the city centre rather than a restaurant strip.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.