Sourcing fish from the Danish fishing ports as well as auctions in Paris and Italy, Hav offers the most varied selection of fish and seafood in the north.
Copenhagen’s friendly fishmonger When it comes to seafood, few are as passionate and knowledgeable as Tommy Raabo Lund, the owner of Hav fishmongers. His passion for fish is not only channelled into his hugely successful fishmonger business, but also into the capital’s new fish and seafood eatery Restaurant Umage and the popular food market Torvehallerne. By Signe Hansen | Photos: Kim Matthäi Leland.
With four generations of his family involved in the trade, Tommy Raabo Lund was never in doubt that working with fish and seafood was what he was meant to
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do. But after taking over his first fishmonger in Copenhagen, an almost bankrupt business of which he rose the profits sixfold, he decided that there was more to the world of fish than being a regular fishmonger in Copenhagen. Subsequently, he travelled to one of the largest and most famous fish markets in the world, the Pike Place Market in Seattle, where he got himself hired as a trainee. “All the colours, impressions, and different kinds of ingredients you get with seafood and fish are what made me become a fishmonger. I couldn’t be a butcher. Meat products just don’t have the same variation; you don’t have the substantial sea-
sonal changes that you have with seafood - it changes all year and there is always something different to look forward to in the next season,” says Tommy and adds: “Also, I love finding new produce and developing new concepts; we get a lot of different local produce from small independent Danish fishermen and try to entice people to try something new so it’s not just the usual salmon steak over and over again.” Not even when Hav sells salmon is it ordinary; it is a carefully sourced sustainable salmon from the Faroe Islands.
A haven for foodies When Tommy came back from his time in Seattle, he set up a new business through which he got to see more of the world and, inspired by his trips abroad, he developed a new dream. “Copenhagen was clearly missing a food market of the kind that you see in most other major cities, a place where you can walk