Taking stock of the New Nordic Cuisine at Danish coastal destinations

This paper deals with coastal tourists’ food experiences and focuses on the potentials and challenges the New Nordic Cuisine (NNC) concept holds in relation to German tourists visiting Danish coastal destinations. By means of a conceptual model, the characteristics of the NNC are related to scholarly knowledge on tourists’ food experiences and potentially critical points are identified. Analyses of qualitative interviews with German tourists at five Danish coastal destinations expand on these critical points and show that the NNC and coastal tourists give different priority to product qualities as well as spatial and social context qualities of food consumption. Sense of place gained through food consumption seems to be where the Geman demand perspective and the NNC concept meet. However, as place-specific food experiences are perceived to be scarce at Danish coastal destinations this represents yet another challenge.