Magnus Pettersson

The Path

At Selma, Magnus Pettersson works as chef, Head Chef and owner, a set of roles that ties the cooking to the room and the standard of service around it. The food reads from a Nordic pantry and Danish tradition, but it is shaped with a contemporary hand. The result is disciplined, seasonal cooking that keeps its references intact while staying clear-eyed about present tense.

The Work Today

Danish seasonality is the frame for Pettersson’s kitchen, and modern expression is the tool he uses to move it forward. The ingredients remain Nordic; the treatment is restrained, precise and attentive to what each element can carry. Rather than decorate the plate, the cooking interprets it, making the familiar more legible and the season more immediate. Smørrebrød is where that approach becomes most readable. In Magnus Pettersson’s hands, the form stays open and exact: bread as base, produce as the seasonal register, seafood and meats as the weight that holds the composition together. The challenge is not complexity but control. Proportion, freshness and assembly do the work, and the difference between order and clutter is held in careful balance. That same discipline shapes the broader role. As chef, Head Chef and owner, Pettersson is responsible not only for the cooking but for the atmosphere that frames it. The name on the door and the name on the plate point to the same standard: a steady line, a practiced eye and a refusal to treat the everyday as casual.

Signature

Magnus's signature dishes include Blackcurrant herring with red onion, crème fraîche, buckwheat, Copenhagen Distillery aquavit with dill and anise, and Christiansøpigens herring. Read together, they show a cooking style built on clarity rather than excess: seasonal, specific and comfortable letting each ingredient remain identifiable within the whole.

In Their Words “I have been a chef all my life, more or less.” The line is plain, and it matches the practice. Pettersson’s work presents itself as continuity rather than reinvention, a long habit of craft that has settled into the role he occupies now.

Acclaim

Magnus Pettersson has received Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand. Magnus's honors include Bib Gourmand.