The Iconic Cookware We Just Can’t Stop Collecting

If there’s one object in my kitchen that gets more oohs and aahs than anything else in the room, it’s my Dansk Købenstyle butter warmer. A small-scale saucepan in a warm shade of plum, it never leaves my stove except to get washed. Lest you think it serves aesthetic purposes alone, let me underline the fact that I use it every single day—no, multiple times a day. It is quite simply the prettiest little workhorse I’ve owned.

Dansk has been a familiar brand to me for a while; before I bought my first piece I’d seen pepper mills and trays in the homes of friends, and fawned over casseroles and silverware in vintage stores. The name Købenstyle, however, was less familiar to me. If you, like me, first heard the word and thought of København, you wouldn’t be remiss—these distinctive pots and pans were designed by Copenhagen-born sculptor and designer Jens Quistgaard.

Back in 1954, Quistgaard’s artistic prowess was discovered by an American couple, Ted and Martha Nierenberg, who were visiting Copenhagen. The couple convinced him to design a line of cookware together, and Dansk was founded that same year. Two years later, Købenstyle became the name that Quistgaard chose for his first cookware series made from enameled steel—bright, beautiful, and practical.

A trained sculptor, Quistgaard chose to carry his unique form language into the world of industrial design. “For my father, designed objects had to be conceived of in three dimensions, just like sculptures. His work was marked by a distinct personal touch—in other words, the design, while produced industrially, was not defined by a machine but bore the mark of the human hand,” wrote Quistgaard’s daughter Henriette in an email interview earlier this month.

Dansk archivist Christine Muhlke says that it is an elegant simplicity that has ensured the designs’ timelessness. Muhlke has spent the last many months digging through the brand’s archives in the process of selecting designs to be reissued by Food52. “The clean, quietly sculptural lines and the use of lightweight enameled steel in shades like teal and yellow…Købenstyle is unlike any cookware made today—or, for that matter, since 1956,” she adds.

Take for instance the teakwood handle on my butter warmer, which clearly bears the mark of a sculptor but is also extremely functional—both ergonomic to grasp as well as heat-resistant to the touch. Henriette points out that wood was her father’s favorite material: “As in many of his other designs, the idea of the handle played on the aesthetic gains from combining and contrasting materials, in this case wood and steel.” Interestingly, it was this affinity for the two materials that first got Quistgaard noticed by the Nierenbergs, who had come across his designs on Fjord, the first cutlery set to combine steel with teak handles.

Another example of his brilliance at merging design with functional qualities is demonstrated by his use of intricate, sculptural handles—case in point: the Købenstyle casseroles. Henriette points to how the handles are fastened in three places by means of what was a truly innovative type of point welding (pinpoint welding) that would make them heat-resistant as well as bypass the need for pot holders.

The special signature of Købenstyle, of course, is its use of crisp colors. Originally there were only four—turquoise, yellow, orange-red, and dark blue—which Henriette says her father personally picked for their resistance to passing trends. Over the years and across several relaunches, more colors have been added.

The real coup here however was Quistgaard’s use of enameled steel—a material that wasn’t considered particularly elegant at the time. Using it for cookware meant the heralding of a new era of inexpensively produced but contemporarily designed cookware made for cooking, serving, and, yes, displaying. One of the best things about owning a Købenstyle piece is that it can be taken from kitchen to dining table—the lids doing double duty as trivets.

For a special vintage Dansk x Food52 drop, Muhlke scoured an array of vintage marketplaces to pick the rarest of finds, from buffet servers to pitchers, butter knives, pepper mills, and skillets, all in mouthwatering hues. She points to a personal favorite—a straight-sided pitcher in kumquat, a rare color—and a real treat for the person who snags it (apologies to latecomers; better luck next time).

I had to ask Henriette if she had a favorite design from among the original designs by her father. “The casseroles, frying pans, roasting pans, and saucepans all serve their own purposes, but in terms of design I do find that the paella pan stands apart because of its beautiful form,” she wrote. “One item I have personally been missing from the collection, though, is the pitcher, which for decades was available in three sizes. It is functional, beautiful, and not too heavy.”

While Købenstyle has endured as one of his great legacies, during his time at Dansk Designs (a period that lasted until the 1980s), Quistgaard designed thousands of products from his studio in Copenhagen, spanning cookware, serveware, and home furnishings made from a range of materials. Muhlke speaks enthusiastically about designs like the Nielstone coffee set (that Quistgaard collaborated with Danish ceramicist Niels Refsgaard—who is an integral part of the Dansk story even today—on), the Odin knives, and the trays he made in the 1960s from pau rosa, mutenye, and wenge that are part of the Rare Woods Collection. She adds: “After closely examining almost 100 items, what struck me was how beautifully everything has weathered over the decades. Seeing how well made these pieces are really gives weight to the term ‘heritage brand.’ They truly are heirlooms!”