Frederiksminde

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A Place Where History and the Present Table Meet

Hotel Frederiksminde stands on ground with a long memory. The site in Præstø, on the southern tip of Zealand, was once the convent garden of Denmark's only Antonitter monastery, founded in 1470. Over the centuries it became a dragoon barracks, a cultivated field, and eventually a civic pavilion inaugurated in 1870 — named Frederiksminde in honour of a bust of King Frederik VII placed in the park two years earlier. That pavilion, extended and renovated over the decades, is the building guests walk into today. Since 2003 the property has been owned by shipping magnate Hans Michael Jebsen and is now managed by Silje Brenna.

The White Guide captured what makes this place distinctive: "a textbook example of how one can sensibly bring together the past, present, and future — a coupling of beautiful historical frames with a contemporary and forward-looking approach to raw materials and taste." That Global Masters recognition sits alongside a Michelin star, and both feel earned rather than decorative.

Two Restaurants, One Kitchen Philosophy

The evening restaurant — simply called Frederiksminde — is where the fine dining offer is concentrated, led by Executive Chef Jonas Mikkelsen. The kitchen draws on carefully selected local and small producers, forages herbs, mushrooms and wild vegetables from the surrounding nature, and tends its own vegetable garden on the principle of farm to fork.

The menus shift with the seasons in ways that are specific rather than vague. In autumn and winter, expect lightly cured scallops with buttermilk, horseradish and dill oil; wild duck with beetroot and fermented berries; dry-aged organic pork with winter cabbage and pickled mustard seeds. Spring brings white asparagus with Havgus cheese and lovage oil; summer shifts to stone fruit sorbets, strawberry with buttermilk panna cotta, and fish finished with trout roe and chives. Snacks arrive as crisp tartlets with vendace roe and hazelnut oil, or tapioca crisps with dried porcini — small things that signal the kitchen's precision.

At lunch, the restaurant Ingrid offers modern smørrebrød, a lighter but equally considered expression of the same seasonal Nordic sensibility.

The Setting

The park surrounding the hotel still holds its three sculptures — including the bust of Frederik VII that gave the building its name — and the building retains the proportions of its 1901 renovation and 1926 hall extension. It is a setting that does not try to erase its age, which is precisely the point. Wine pairing is taken seriously, with a curated selection ranging from Crémant de Bourgogne to Grenache and Syrah from the Rhône, and dessert wines from Monbazillac to close.

For those who want to extend the experience, rooms and suites are available, making Frederiksminde one of the few places in Denmark where a Michelin-starred meal can be followed by a night in the same historic building.