ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The small but tight-knit Danish community of Betoota has been left in shock after its local family-run restaurant was featured in Broadsheet Betoota, triggering an influx of hipster diners from the city’s trendier districts.
Lille København, a modest eatery in the French Quarter, has served as a cultural hub for Betoota’s Danish population since the 1970s, when asylum seekers from Denmark were resettled in Queensland under the Bjelke-Petersen (led by Sir Joh, a Dane-Kiwi) government. The group, welcomed by their distant European cousins in the French Polynesians, established themselves in the quarter and have since preserved their unique dialect of Betootanese Creole and traditional cuisine.
However, locals say the restaurant is now unrecognisable following its discovery by Broadsheet’s food writers, whose offices are located above The Advocate‘s on Daroo Street.
“For fifty years, we’ve been coming here for a quick Smørrebrød or a Frikadeller,” said Jens Mikkelsen, a 67-year-old second-generation Danish-Australian.
“Now I have to wait behind some fat young man in a beanie, in February, and his fat cavoodle just to get a Flæskesteg sandwich. It’s fucked, it is.”
Since the article’s publication in January, Lille København has been inundated with new customers from the Old City District and Roma Hills, many of whom have documented their meals on Instagram. Longtime patrons say the sudden exposure has led to shortages of key menu items, with demand for Danish street hotdogs, pickled herring, and open-faced sandwiches skyrocketing.
Mikkelsen fears the trend will drive up prices and push the community out.
“It always starts with food blogs. Next thing you know, there’s a gin bar opening next door. What will they call it? The Little Mermaid? Spare me.”
Representatives for Broadsheet Betoota declined to comment.
More to come.
