In Karen Blixen’s 1950s short story “Babette’s Feast,” a French woman prepares a life-altering, 
10,000-franc dinner for a group of puritan villagers on Denmark’s west coast. Across the Little Belt 
waterway on the bucolic island of Funen, a similar tale of indulgence in the Danish hinterlands unfolds at Falsled Kro. 
 

World travelers Lene and Sven Grønlykke stumbled upon the remote Baltic Sea village of Falsled, a two-hour drive 
from Copenhagen, in 1971. The couple acquired a small inn—the town’s first when it opened in 1500—and began 
applying their hyper-perfectionist personalities to the task of transforming it into an ethereal retreat. They planted English 
and French gardens, added two half-timbered annexes, and furnished the guest rooms with restored antiques culled in 
forays around Europe. But the Grønlykkes’ most fortuitous import was French chef Jean-Louis Lieffroy, whose 
Babette-like knack for combining Gallic cooking skills with produce and game from Denmark’s fields, forests, and 
seas soon made Falsled Kro Scandinavia’s premier culinary destination. 

 
Its cuisine aside, Falsled Kro has a unique sense of warmth or hygge as the Danes call it. During winter, when 
candlelight illuminates the resort’s interiors and exteriors, the scent of a dozen birch fires perfumes the air while 
chef Lieffroy’s smoked salmon waits on the dinner table. Fragrant gardens erupt into full Technicolor glory in the 
summer, when the sky remains a languorous blue until late into the night. The evening view is best savored from
 one of Falsled Kro’s private terraces, with a chilled glass of herb-flavored aquavit to wash down the nightly feast. 

Falsled Kro, +46.6268.1111, www.falsledkro.dk
 
Setting
On the southern shore of Denmark’s Funen island, 120 miles southwest of Copenhagen.  
 
Sleeping
Of the 19 white stone– and timber-walled accommodations, Nos. 17 and 18—spacious duplexes 
with private terraces—are the best.
 
Dining
The cuisine of chef Jean-Louis Lieffroy, formerly of the Château d’Artigny in France’s Loire Valley, is worth the trip 
to Funen. Lieffroy frequently changes his nine-course tasting menu, which may include venison from Funen’s forest. 
 
Diversions 
Explore surrounding villages by bike and nearby islands by ferry. Plan a daylong tour of Hans Christian Andersen’s 
birthplace in nearby Odense, and the surrounding countryside where you can see the fairy-tale castles that inspired his 
stories.
 
Rates
$350–$680