Copenhagen is famed for innovative gastronomy, but its hottest food is strikingly basic: bread, butter and hard cheese. Known as a bolle med ost, or BMO, this open-faced snack has entered the biggest Danish dictionary and become a calling card for the city’s best bakeries. At top spots, bakers experiment endlessly with flour, fermentation, cheese and butter to stand out in a city obsessed with understated excellence.
Priced at about 45 Danish kroner (roughly $7), BMOs are eaten after run club, before dates and between meetings. The hype has drawn tourists and influencers, spawning cookbooks, a Burger King “Gourmet BMO,” and Instagram accounts dedicated to finding the ideal specimen. In July, Politiken published a ranking of the city’s 50 best BMOs. Critic David Dyrholm ate about 65 bolle med ost, spending more than 2,000 kroner (about $300).
Not everyone loves the abbreviation. Some call it “literally just a bun with butter and a slice of cheese,” and a few bakers see the nickname as gentrification of a beloved family food. Still, as Dyrholm put it, thousands are sold daily, so “why not take it seriously?”
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing