I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I forgot to pack my own car keys and had to ring my neighbour to check they were sitting on the kitchen counter. They were. Of course they were. So there I was, two hours late, finally crawling up the coast of North Zealand with a boot full of groceries and a stubborn determination to cook proper Danish meals all week.

The drive to Gilleleje Strand itself was gorgeous, mind you. Those rolling fields giving way to sudden glimpses of the Kattegat, all silvery and calm. But my first impression of the place? Absolute hunger. I had not eaten since a grim service station hot dog somewhere near Hillerod, and that is not a memory I wish to revisit.

The cottage was exactly the sort of understated Scandinavian charm you hope for. Clean lines, big windows, that particular smell of pine and salt. I dumped my bags, ignored the unpacking, and marched straight down to the harbour to find something edible before I made poor decisions involving the questionable tinned fish I had panic-bought.

Gilleleje harbour on a late afternoon is a working place, not some polished tourist postcard. Fishing boats nudge against the quay, gulls argue overhead, and the smokehouses are doing something magical that catches in your throat the moment you step within fifty yards. I found a little fishmonger selling fresh herring, still glossy, and bought far too much. The woman wrapped it in paper with the patient expression of someone who has watched many overeager holidaymakers make this exact mistake.

That first evening I attempted a classic stegt flaesk situation back at the cottage. Pork belly, potatoes, parsley sauce. How hard could it be? The answer, delivered through a kitchen full of smoke and a parsley sauce that separated like a bad relationship, was very hard indeed. I ate it anyway, standing at the counter with all the windows open, feeling simultaneously proud and deeply ashamed. The pork was genuinely decent though. The local butcher in Gilleleje town, just a short wander from the strand, had set me up with a beautiful piece. We had a chat about curing methods, him speaking slowly in Danish and me nodding along pretending I understood more than every third word.

Breakfast became my triumph. There is a bakery on the main street, nothing fancy, just that particular Danish magic with pastry. I went every morning for rundstykker, those little round rolls, still warm if you timed it right. Slathered them with butter and thick cheese from the supermarket, ate them on the little terrace with coffee and the sound of the sea somewhere beyond the dunes. I started buying extra to have with afternoon beer, because apparently that is who I became on this holiday. A man with pastry crumbs on his jumper and no regrets.

The local supermarket, a Meny, became weirdly significant to my emotional wellbeing. I do not know why foreign supermarkets feel like adventures, but they do. I spent twenty minutes contemplating different pickled herring varieties. I bought remoulade in a tube and felt genuinely thrilled. I attempted to recreate a proper smorrebrod one lunch, which mostly involved me piling too much onto too little bread and eating it with my hands like a savage while a nearby seagull judged me openly.

The pubs and eating spots proper were a slower discovery. Gilleleje is not exactly heaving with nightlife, which suits me fine. I found a harbour-side place doing simple open sandwiches and decent local beer, sat outside with a plaice fillet that had been swimming that morning, watched the boats come in. Another evening I wandered to a slightly smarter restaurant near the beach, treated myself to a proper Danish beef dish with everything on the side, felt very grown up until I spilled sauce down my shirt.

My most genuine food moment came from complete failure. I had gathered ingredients for a fish soup, locally caught cod, proper stock vegetables, the lot. I was going to nail this. I did not nail this. I overcooked the fish to stringy oblivion, oversalted dramatically, and ended up tipping most of it down the toilet with the sort of heavy sigh that comes from knowing you have wasted good produce and your own time. I walked back to the harbour in defeat, bought a prepared fish cake from the same smokehouse I had visited on day one, ate it on a bench watching the light fade. It was perfect. Sometimes you need to accept your limitations and let professionals handle the herring.

By the end of the week I had established a comfortable routine. Morning bakery run, light lunch of assembled bits from the market, afternoon walk to build appetite, then either a cooking attempt of varying success or a surrender to somewhere local with a plate of fresh fish and a cold Danish pilsner. I gained weight. I did not care. The combination of sea air and constant eating felt like the entire point of being there.

On my final morning I packed the car with the leftover remoulade, the unused pickled herring, a stubborn belief that I would definitely use them at home. I would not use them at home. They would sit in my fridge until I admitted defeat and threw them out, as everyone does with holiday food souvenirs. But driving away from Gilleleje Strand, slightly rounder and significantly more relaxed, I realised the whole week had been about appetite in every sense. The hunger for something simple, the pleasure of feeding yourself well or badly in a beautiful place, the particular joy of discovering that a small Danish fishing town takes its food seriously and welcomes you to do the same, even when you burn the pork.