Restaurant Karla — Restaurant in Copenhagen Municipality

I had dinner at this restaurant with a friend. It was recommended by our Danish friend. However, we had the worst service experience of our lives here. We ordered a starter and a main menu. After receiving the starter, we had to wait almost 40 minutes before we got our main dishes. At first, we thought the delay was because the restaurant was busy, but family who arrived around the same time as us had already finished their meals and were getting ready to leave. I also saw a couple complaining because their food hadn’t arrived, but even though they came much later than us, they received their meals before we did (and as far as I could tell, they had also ordered a starter and a main). Even more frustrating, a woman who arrived later than us received her main course quickly and by the time we finally got ours—after waiting for about an hour—she was already having dessert. When we asked about our delayed food, the staff explained that it was because we had ordered starter menu. But still, we had already waited nearly 40 minutes after finishing the starter. I live in Europe and have traveled to many European countries, but I have never experienced such a long wait for a main menu. My European friends also agreed that this was unusual and weird. While we were eating, that staff came to ask how the food was. I said that the food was good but that I was very dissatisfied with the service, and I explained the situation. She ignored my comments and only wanted to hear about the food itself. I felt that she should have explained the reason for the delay and apologized properly. Later, she came back and offered us a complimentary Danish dessert as an apology(she never actually said “sorry.” It felt more like, “Here, I’ll give you this because I feel I should,” rather than a genuine apology) ,which we accepted. When it came to paying the bill, we separately pay. We noticed that the amount on the first bill was different from the final charge after payment. It turned out that a service charge had been added at the end. After such poor service, we were still forced to pay the service fee. Since we were running late for our bus and had already spent over two hours at the restaurant, we didn’t wanted to argue further. But if you ever have such a bad experience here, I would encourage you to demand the service charge be removed. This was truly the first time in our lives that we experienced such bad treatment in a restaurant, and in the end, we never even received a sincere apology. We had really great time in Denmark but because of this restaurant we felt like our...

My wife and I visited Copenhagen six years ago. We came back the second time for two days. Copenhagen seems very different from six years ago. This time everyone we encountered can speak English. Many of them are practically perfect with English. To my disappointment, American international brand retail stores are everywhere here. Prices of everything are much higher, maybe doubled in six years. We like to try Danish local food. I found restaurant Karla on Google map with over 2k reviews and a ton of photos from reviewers. We liked the photos and reviews so I reserved dinner there yesterday. It was raining late afternoon when we arrived at Christianborg palace. We've never been to the palace before and got disoriented, not realizing only half of the palace is used by queen. We saw doors closed so I called the restaurant to see if we can eat earlier. The server told me it's okay to come early. However, once we set out towards the restaurant, we noticed the tour entrance of the palace. We rushed over and had a fantastic time touring the palace during the last opening hour, almost had the palace to ourselves. Of course we arrived at the restaurant late (actually on time with our original reservation). Our server greeted us with a big smile "you are late!". He led us to a cozy downstairs place to sit. We ordered local beer, cider for drink, Karla's herring for starter, Danish style roast pork and filet of beef on oak for main dishes. Our server was super nice and efficient. I noticed a funny looking sculpture on the square next to the restaurant. I asked our server what it was. He said a while ago the local government wanted to sell the square to a developer. Neighbors hate the idea so they commissioned an artist to create a sculpture to protest. The local government ended up dropping the plan. I thought this is such a nice way to fight, so much better than throwing rocks. We had great dinner there. The food, service, atmosphere are...

This was my first meal in Copenhagen when I visited in 2023. I had such a terrible (and somewhat traumatic) experience at this place which left me a very bad first expression of Denmark (thankfully we met many nice and respectful people during the rest of our trip). We just got off the plane and wanted to have a nice dinner somewhere close to our hotel, and this place had good reviews. Unfortunately, the old lady who served us was EXTREMELY RUDE from the moment we sat down for no reason. Because she seemed very nice to the other customers, I couldn’t help but think the attitude we received had something to do with us being Asians. Then, she served us the wrong dish, so I told her politely that was not what we ordered. She became very angry and insisted that I did order that dish (I was 100% certain I didn’t, and even if i did, her rude attitude was unacceptable). She then took the dish away and yelled at me behind the counter if I still want what I “ordered”, but she then served us something very different (and tasted pretty bad too)... I am not a confrontational person, plus I was very tired after hours on the plane, so I said nothing and eventually paid for an expensive and terrible meal. I would love to give her the benefit of the doubt and think that the whole situation was due to a language barrier, but it just obviously wasn’t. First, her English was fine. Second, I believe I was clear in ordering the food (at least not unclear to the point where the dish would be served incorrectly TWICE). Third, there’s just no excuse for her rude attitude. I left the restaurant feeling a bit traumatized and self-conscious of my race as an Asian for the next couple days of my trip in Copenhagen. I know that there can be many interpretations for this situation, but just wanted to share my own experience...