Review: Esse Copenhagen Amass Chef Matt Orlando’s New Fine Dining Restaurant

Amass chef Matt Orlando is back with Esse, a brand-new fine dining restaurant in Copenhagen’s Nordhavn district that opened this week. The former Noma head chef is best known for founding Amass, widely regarded as one of the world’s most sustainable restaurants. After Amass closed in 2022 following an impressive ten-year run, Orlando has returned with a new project that continues his groundbreaking work in sustainable gastronomy. Esse is more than just a new restaurant – it’s the next chapter in Orlando’s culinary legacy. Guests can expect an innovative tasting menu rooted in zero-waste philosophy, local ingredients, and creative reuse. And yes, the world-famous potato bread from Amass is still on the menu.

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Inside Esse: Matt Orlando’s New Restaurant

Esse is hidden in a back alley in Copenhagen’s Nordhavn neighborhood, inside a restored warehouse from 1895. The restaurant seats just over 40 guests, with four bar stools facing the open kitchen reserved for walk-ins. In December, they’ll also open up the lounge for anyone who wants to pop by for a drink or a snack.

In a world of white tablecloths, Esse is undoubtedly the cool kid on the fine dining scene – with colorful painted walls, rap music playing over the speakers, and shelves lined with jars of fermenting ingredients that double as decor. For anyone who’s been to Amass, the space feels instantly familiar. 70% of the original Amass team returned from around the world to open the new restaurant with Orlando, continuing the story and legacy they began together a decade ago – a story of sustainability, circularity, responsibility, and, most importantly, deliciousness. The name Esse is Latin for “to be” or “to self reflect.”

Zero-Waste Fine Dining in Copenhagen

Amass was famous for banning single-use plastic, championing local ingredients, and running a zero-waste kitchen. For Orlando and his team, these aren’t just trendy buzzwords – they’re a driving philosophy. At Esse, they take things to the extreme, using every part of the ingredients they cook with – even pulverizing fish bones into powder to make noodles. The couches in the lounge are made from recycled plastic bottles, and the non-alcoholic pairing is crafted from kitchen scraps. This restaurant is so sustainable that they even use the leftover water in your glass to clean the floors at the end of the night. But they never shout these practices in your face – they’re executed quietly, often only revealed when asked about.

The Experience at Esse Copenhagen

Natural Wine and Non-Alcoholic Pairings

Esse offers both a natural wine pairing and a non-alcoholic pairing created in collaboration with Copenhagen producer Muri. The alcohol-free pairing is made using kitchen leftovers that would otherwise go to waste. These aren’t sugary juices or kombuchas – they’re complex ferments and kefirs, crafted with the same level of creativity as the food. They matched the dishes perfectly.

The Tasting Menu

Esse serves two tasting menus: twelve courses (1,600 DKK) or seven courses (1,000 DKK). We went for the full shebang. Our meal kicked off with a bowl of potato crisps, made from leftover potato bread, dusted with celeriac and fennel powder. These tasted like potato chicharrons – crunchy, crispy, and absolutely addicting. It was fun to start a fine dining meal eating chips with our hands – it instantly made us relax in a formal setting. This was a variation on the preserved vegetable crisps we previously had at Amass. The crisps were served with a lightly effervescent glass of white currant, blackberry leaves, linden flowers, and marigold. Deliciously peachy with a slight fizz.

The first dish on the menu celebrated the end of tomato season with a ceviche-style bowl of cured zander with preserved tomatoes and a toasted tomato leaf cream. The fish was cured in fennel vinegar, giving it a firm texture that stood up beautifully to the chewy, candy-like tomatoes. The flavors were bright and tropical, elevated by smoked tomato skin oil and pickled habanada peppers (non-spicy habanero peppers). It was a strong start to the meal, and paired perfectly with the non-alcoholic drink made from fermented habanada, fennel flowers, and wild rose kefir.

Then came the return of the world-famous fermented potato bread – Orlando’s signature serving. Yakitori-grilled, finished in the oven, and served warm, it’s fluffy and spongey with small chunks of potato inside and a slightly crispy crust. This is bread you can really sink your teeth into. The potato bread is back and better than ever – there’s a reason it can never leave the menu. This bread is worth a visit to Esse alone! It’s served with a whipped butter made from leftover vegetable skins. We loved the chunky texture and garlicky flavors of this butter so much, and couldn’t believe it was made from veggies. It’s so umami-rich we’d believe it if you told us it was bacon butter. Absolutely to die for!

Another highlight of the meal was a serving of glazed celeriac and apples, frozen and dehydrated to mimic the texture of the celeriac. The slices were topped with ramson capers, parsley oil, and a strong, salty cheese sauce that felt like a comforting hug. Of course, we used the potato bread to mop up that cheese sauce. This course was paired with a drink made from carbonic macerated strawberry and quince, sweet and funky, with gentle tannins from a pear skin infusion.

The next dish was equally comforting: a creamy potato purée studded with fermented leeks, finished with burnt leek oil and a generous spoonful of vendace roe on top for a perfect, salty pop.

The following non-alcoholic pairing was a smoky and intense combination of lacto-fermented cascara and cherry stems. While the drink was a bit strong on its own, it matched well with the next serving: a smoked beetroot skewer. Red beets were roasted in leftover coffee grounds, then sliced, dried, rehydrated, smoked, and barbecued. The result tasted like beet jerky – beety, meaty, and packed with umami. The skewer was topped with a quince and habanada kosho and served with a spicy dipping sauce made from walnut yogurt and chili oil. We loved the juicy, chewy texture and the subtle hint of heat.

Then came the craziest serving on the menu: noodles made from fish bones. Orlando first began experimenting with this dish at Amass, and it has now become a signature. The team breaks down the fish and pressure cooks the bones with water, pulverizing them into a powder that is transformed into noodles. They don’t taste fishy at all, but have a hearty chew similar to a buckwheat noodle. The stock is seasoned with Danish lemongrass and several garums, including one made from their potato bread. Also in the bowl: cured egg yolk, sliced turnips, salted shiso, and chili oil. It’s incredible that they can create such delicious noodles from fish bones, and we loved the texture of the cured egg yolk slices on top.

And, of course, we got to enjoy the rest of the fish. Grilled monkfish was served with roasted koji butter and burnt leek oil. The fish was perfectly cooked and came with a rich, buttery sauce. Orlando left us the pot, so obviously we had to ask for more potato bread to soak up every drop. These two courses were paired with a fresh and woodsy drink made from juniper kefir, pear skins, and gooseberries.

There was still one more savory course to go: wild duck breast confit in juniper oil and duck fat, yakitori-grilled and smoked, and served with hazelnut purée, radicchio, and a plum sauce with brown butter. This could almost have been a dessert. It was an excellent main course and paired perfectly with the lacto-fermented plum drink made in collaboration with Muri.

We finished the meal with three sweet courses. The first was fresh and creamy, more of a palate cleanser: whipped yogurt and frozen carrots with fennel flower oil and apricot vinegar. We didn’t expect to love this as much as we did – it was such an interesting mix of textures, flavors, and temperatures. It had a lemon curd vibe, tangy and sour but balanced by the natural sweetness of the carrots. The dessert beverage pairing was our favorite of the night: a sweet blend of woodruff, fig leaf kefir, and apples.

The main dessert was all about bread. Esse takes day-old sourdough loaves from a neighboring bakery and turns them into a bread ice cream, topped with cascara caramel and fried breadcrumbs. This was a perfectly balanced sweet and salty dessert, and we loved the insanely crunchy breadcrumbs on top. It reminded us of the cereal milk soft serve with cornflakes from Milk Bar. This was so good we had to ask for seconds – it’s a top-tier Copenhagen dessert.

The final sweet treat was a twist on milk and cookies. Whipped milk was served with bite-sized cookies filled with THIC, a sustainable chocolate alternative made from upcycled ingredients like spent grains from beer production and cacao shells. It was a fun, playful ending to a fantastic meal.

Will Esse Get a Michelin Star?

Esse might be a new restaurant, but Matt Orlando’s next chapter carries the same strong vision that defined Amass twelve years ago. For over a decade, Orlando has shaped the global conversation around sustainability in fine dining, inspiring chefs and restaurants everywhere to rethink what it truly means to run a responsible kitchen. His approach goes far beyond farm-to-table ideals and zero-waste philosophies. At Esse, sustainability runs from the dining room into the kitchen, emphasizing that how you treat your team is just as important as how you source your ingredients.

While Amass never received a Michelin star, we believe Esse could. Matt Orlando’s new restaurant feels more refined, more focused, and more delicious than ever. But Esse is more than a restaurant. It’s a creative hub, a living philosophy, and a continuation of one of Copenhagen’s most important culinary legacies.

Have you been to Amass or Esse? Let us know how your experience was in a comment below.