DANISH CUISINE

Last year the award for the world's best restaurant went to Noma, in Copenhagen. Earlier this week, the World Cuisine Championship, named the Bocuse d'Or after the famous chef who started it in 1987, was won by the Danish chef Rasmus Kofoed, who had been second and third in earlier years. This time his menu of baby lobsters, followed by lamb with tongue, was sufficient to land him the top prize in Lyon.

The competition was in fact a complete Nordic triumph, as second place went to Sweden and third to Norway. What's happening in all these northern kitchens? And where are the French?

Walter Blotscher