Food News
A Very Special Announcement From Amanda Hesser
We've got some big, exciting news to share...
Dear Food52ers,
We have very happy news to share with you today: Dansk, the company known for its iconic Danish designs—from Kobenstyle enameled-steel pans to teak pepper mills—is now part of Food52! We’re so thrilled to have acquired not only one of our favorite brands, but a company whose products have been treasured by Americans for nearly 70 years. Even if you don’t know the Dansk name, your kitchen has been influenced by its bold use of color and streamlined design.
Dansk was founded in 1954 by Martha and Ted Nierenberg, a young New York couple who became smitten with the clean lines of Danish design while visiting Copenhagen. The couple hired Danish sculptor and designer Jens Quistgaard, who would develop many of the more than 2,000 designs the company created, including the elegantly streamlined Kobenstyle cookware, which remains a best seller to this day. Dansk’s collaborations with other celebrated designers, including Niels Refsgaard and Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe, helped it cement its reputation for making great Danish design accessible to Americans. It was also one of the first lifestyle brands offering a full range of items for the kitchen and table—even furniture and textiles. Over the years, the company commissioned Bert Stern to photograph its wares and a not-yet-discovered Andy Warhol to design a marketing booklet. Dansk is a heritage brand—its products are sought after in vintage stores and passed down through generations.
Dansk has long been a part of my life, as well. I first became aware of Dansk in college, when I was away from my small hometown and getting exposed to a more cosmopolitan world in Boston. Some family friends who lived in Cambridge would invite me for dinner to make me feel less homesick. They had Dansk flatware and I can still feel the silky, rounded shapes and heft of the spoons. Shortly after college, I purchased my very first Dansk products—Jens Quistgaard’s Odin salad servers and rail-thin taper candles, which made me feel so grown up.
Later, at dinners at my in-laws', salads were always served in my mother-in-law’s large teak Dansk bowl. And later still, in 2017, we started selling Dansk at Food52. It was an instant hit. Dansk is a brand that stays with you. The original shapes, the clean lines, the materials that age beautifully and feel timeless.
It’s a very different world now than the one Dansk was born in, and we think the timing couldn’t be better for an expansive revitalization. Our plan is to preserve Dansk’s heritage, revive many of the exceptional designs from its archives, and collaborate with leading designers around the world to create new products that we hope will someday become heirlooms. Dansk was an American brand created to highlight great design and make it accessible. We plan to carry on that mission as we make Dansk a mainstay of modern living that is known around the world.
More soon!
Written by: Amanda Hesser
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