- Written by: Chefluencer Editorial Team
Propaganda has known how to fill a room since its very opening in late 2021. It has given Copenhagen a place where Korean ferments could flirt with Danish vegetables, where a bowl of galbi rice with cured egg yolk could sit beside a bottle of Jura, and where chilli-fried chicken became a dish of cult devotion. The music was up, the wines poured long after other kitchens shut, and the crowd included as many chefs as guests. For a city that prides itself on precision, Propaganda supplied warmth, noise, and flavour.
Now, a smaller door is opening. On 24 September, the former bottle room beside Propaganda becomes Next Door: a 21-seat kitchen and dining space run by head chef and co-owner Youra Kim. Designed with FRAMA’s quiet, tactile hand, the space holds shelves of jars, ceramics and books, with lighting that flatters the food rather than the furniture. It is not just the next restaurant so much as a shift in register.
Here, Kim will shop the markets each morning, write the menu by hand, and cook from instinct and memory. The cooking is Korean in roots but shaped by London years in Michelin rooms, a formative stint at Noma, and the habits she has built in Copenhagen. Expect ssam with raw squid and beetroot kimchi one evening, caramelle of courgette and doenjang the next, or bibimbap with cured shrimps and a tart of charred corn when the market leans that way. The menu is fixed at 450 DKK, with vegetarian and pescatarian paths available, and the wines chosen by Francesca Niro will keep the pulse of Propaganda: bottles with character, poured to match spice, fermentation, and heat.
Propaganda itself remains unchanged in spirit. The main dining room, still led by Sourya Chansavang, will carry on with its mix of French-Laotian heritage and Korean inflexions, delivered from an open kitchen and a bar that buzzes late into the night. Signatures like the chilli-fried chicken stay firmly in place, while the restaurant’s wine fridges, once tucked into the bottle room, now line the main space, keeping the self-guided wine culture alive. Propaganda keeps its energy; Next Door provides its counterpoint.
Marcon’s constellation of small rooms
Behind all of this is Riccardo Marcon, who has been quietly redrawing Copenhagen’s map of intimacy. He arrived to run the wine programme at 108, then in 2017 opened Barabba - a late-night refuge where plates of pasta met natural wine, and chefs came after service to eat properly at midnight. In 2024, he partnered with FRAMA and chef Dhriti Arora to open Bar Vitrine, a 16-seat wine bar where the design was as stripped back as the menu was sharp. Vitrine was not small because it had to be. It was small because closeness was the point: a counter, a handful of tables, a short list of dishes led by spice and instinct, and wines that carried conversation.
Propaganda, with its high-energy main room and now Next Door beside it, joins Barabba and Vitrine in a collection that Marcon has deliberately built small. Each address is different, but all share the same sensibility: personality first, wine as a language, scale kept on a human level.
FRAMA makes the room speak
The transformation of Propaganda’s bottle room into Next Door comes through FRAMA, the Copenhagen design house founded by Niels Strøyer Christophersen. From their headquarters in an old pharmacy in Østerbro, FRAMA has built a reputation for what Christophersen calls “warm modernism” - honest wood, stone, and metal, design that patinates with use, and rooms that feel lived in rather than staged.
In hospitality, FRAMA’s projects blur the line between public and private. Bar Vitrine was almost a manifesto: a space that looked more like a working pantry than a restaurant, where the light hit bottles before it hit guests. At Next Door, the studio has shaped a space that feels like it belongs to the cook. Shelves of preserved goods, ceramics that invite touch, wood that glows in candlelight - the room is designed to disappear into the experience of the meal.
Youra Kim, in her register
Kim grew up in South Korea, trained in London in Michelin-starred kitchens, and arrived in Copenhagen via a stint at Noma. At Propaganda, her cooking has read as Korean in grammar and Copenhagen in accent, with comfort dishes and ferments balanced by clean produce and a wine list that invited conversation. The new room asks for focus rather than volume. Each night is its own composition, written in ink and improvised by market stalls.
“Next Door is like inviting people into my own home. The cooking will be rooted in Korean flavours but shaped by all the places I’ve been and experiences I carry with me.
It’s a quiet, personal, and full of heart and spice. I don’t feel limited – it’s a space for me to draw from my memory and work instinctively. I don’t feel confined by definitions or rules – it’s a space for me to cook freely, with instinct and a lot of curiosity.”
– Youra Kim, Head Chef and Co-Owner
Francesca Niro: The other voice in the room
If Propaganda has always felt more than a restaurant, Francesca Niro is the reason why. As general manager and sommelier, she has tuned the room’s rhythm since the beginning. Her lists are conversations, not catalogues: skin-contact whites, grower Champagnes, orange wines and Jura oddities that stand up to spice and fermentation instead of retreating from them.
At Next Door, Niro’s role becomes sharper. In a 21-seat room, there is no distance: every pour is noticed, every bottle shifts the evening. Her style is bold but conversational, steering guests toward wines that amplify Kim’s flavours without softening them. If Marcon frames the project and Kim sets its flavour, Niro translates it into a night that feels whole.
A city that rewards precision in miniature
Next Door does not stand alone. Copenhagen’s most magnetic openings of recent years have favoured clarity and character over size. Jatak, opened by Jonathan Tam in 2022, is a 30-seat tasting-menu restaurant where Chinese heritage meets Nordic produce with enough precision to earn a Michelin star almost instantly. Goldfinch, opened by Will King-Smith in 2021, reimagines Cantonese cooking in a dining room that feels like Hong Kong after dark, turning char siu and wontons into Copenhagen signatures. Udtryk, opened in 2024 with chef Edward Lee at the helm, pushes intimacy further. After formative years at Noma, Lee went on to Jordnær in Gentofte, the three-starred seafood landmark, before striking out with his own 25-seat room. At Udtryk, his cooking fuses Asian heritage with Nordic produce in sharply defined plates that earned the restaurant a Michelin star within weeks of opening.
Together, they show that Copenhagen rewards ambition in compact form and bold flavours. Rooms where chefs can speak directly, menus that carry sharp edges, and atmospheres that feel personal rather than programmed.
Why Next Door matters
For Youra Kim, Next Door is the freedom to cook without filter: market-led, memory-driven, and set to her rhythm. For Marcon, it is another piece in a collection of rooms that prize intimacy and flavour over spectacle. For Niro, it is the chance to give her voice the same intimacy as the cooking. And for FRAMA, it is another proof that design can be soft, human, and felt more than seen.
Copenhagen has no shortage of destinations. But the rooms people talk about most are often the smallest. Next Door looks set to join that list.
📍 Next Door at Propaganda
Vester Farimagsgade 2, 1606 Copenhagen
Dinner Wednesday–Saturday | 450 DKK |
Reservations via propagandakitchen.dkInstagram: @nextdooratpropaganda / @propagandacph