Henne Kirkeby Kro

Henne Kirkeby Kro is a country inn on Strandvejen in Henne, Denmark, whose restaurant holds two Michelin stars and a Green Star. Paul Cunningham leads its kitchen together with the head chef Alan Bates.

The inn was built in 1790, a brick house under a thatched roof. For three generations it belonged to the Beck Thomsen family, and the last of them to run it, the chef Hans Beck Thomsen, won the national restaurant award there. Flemming Skouboe bought the inn in 2007, and the British-born Cunningham took charge of the kitchen some years later; the manager, Garrey Dawson, is a chef born in Britain as well. A separate guest building, the Hunters' Lodge, raised the number of rooms to 12, and the restaurant has 34 seats beside a single bar.

Under Cunningham the restaurant won its first Michelin star, a second followed the next year, and the Green Star came later for its work on sustainability. The kitchen garden is central to that work, and the cooks set out to use every part of what it produces. Bates had first joined the team in Henne before moving on to Copenhagen, and he came back as head chef when the inn reopened for the season in March. His return brought a change in how the meal is served.

The fixed tasting menu was dropped, and diners now pick their dishes from what Cunningham and Bates put on offer, while a tasting menu of small portions remains for those who prefer a sequence. In Copenhagen the team keeps a space on Øster Farimagsgade, Restaurant Connection, which serves as a playground for new ideas. The inn works by the season, opening in early spring and closing for the winter in December. Choosing dishes rather than following a long sequence brings a two-star meal closer to the way a country inn has always fed its guests, with the garden setting the limits of what reaches the table.