Scan Magazine | Culinary Profile | Restaurant Oksen
Alex Pedersen.
A meaty tale There is a certain animalistic force in Restaurant Oksen, ‘the Oxe’, located in the city of Horsens, Denmark. The restaurant has grown to be an integral part of the Horsens community since its beginning in 1986, serving up brunch, lunch and steak dinners for everyone.
tween the tables. I hate when you sit in a restaurant and struggle to hear each other or you have to listen in on other people’s private conversations.”
By Louise Older Steffensen | Photos: Restaurant Oksen
The second expansion may have been necessitated by the decision to serve brunch and lunch seven days a week, which opened up Oksen even for those who do not share Pedersen’s love of high-quality meat. Today, a huge brunch buffet station is located on each of the restaurant’s two floors and tenderly curated by Oksen’s excellent staff, removing any angst guests may have about their croissant, yoghurt or sausage favourite running out.
The current owner, Alex Pedersen, took over in 1999. “I really just love a good steak,” he laughs. “Restaurant Oksen was already known in Horsens for its great meat and, when it went up for sale, I jumped at the opportunity to help develop it even further.” Back then, Oksen had a kitchen the size of a van, though with a professional grill, hob and two tiny prep stations. In 2008, however, Pedersen was ready to expand the restaurant and bought the property next door. “It was a massive project that took more than two years to complete,” Pedersen recalls. “Looking back, it was a bit of a gamble, but we knew it’d all 18 | Issue 105 | October 2017
work out when guests kept coming in during the renovation despite the mess, the noise from the hammers, the missing walls and such. We didn’t close down for even a day.” Restaurant Oksen’s shiny new interior was ready in February 2008, but by 2011 the restaurant was running out of space again. “So, we bought the house on the other side of ours and combined them. We should be set for a good while now,” says Pedersen. The result became a spacious but cosy restaurant set in warm light highlighting exposed details from the original buildings. “We decided to have a really good amount of space be-
A place for everyone “One of the things I really like about Oksen is the range of patrons we have,” Pedersen notes. “We often see business people come in for a brunch-style meeting and then reappear later for a steak,