A Great Restaurant Is Like the Cinema: Our Job Is to Make the World Outside Disappear for a Little While
Teigh Crowley. Image: Teigh Crowley
At 22, Teigh Crowley is head sommelier at one of Copenhagen's most anticipated restaurants. He fell for wine as a teenager and never quite recovered. Ask him what a sommelier actually does, and he reaches for the cinema: that particular magic of sitting down, leaning back, and letting the world outside disappear for a few hours. Wine helps – or an amazake - if the dish calls for it. The rest is just keeping an open heart. And very good listening.
The first thing you notice about Teigh Crowley is that he does not seem 22. Not because he is stiff or serious — he is neither — but because there is a settled quality to him, a calm that usually takes years to acquire. He has been in the restaurant business since he was a teenager, and it shows, in the best possible way.
We met at my office next to Torvehallerne before Teigh’s shift at Lille Mølle, where he is filling in while Udtryk — the restaurant where he serves as head sommelier — recovers from a kitchen fire that forced it to close temporarily. He is matter-of-fact about the setback. The team is working behind the scenes, developing, preparing. When they come back, he says, they will hit the ground running.
In the meantime, Teigh Crowley has plenty to talk about.
From Bordeaux to Vinøs in Amager
Teigh grew up between Denmark and Ireland — his background is Danish-Irish — which may explain something of the ease with which he navigates different people, cultures, and contexts. The wine interest came early, around 16 or 17, though he is the first to admit that it surprised him too, looking back.
"That was my first experience of really thinking: wow, wine could taste good. And then I completely nerded out. There was no way back."
"It's weird when I look back at it. If it was my own child at that age, I would think: okay, that's a bit different from everyone else."
His first real encounter with wine as a carrier opportunity happened at Vinøs, a natural wine bar in Amager, and he was barely old enough to serve it. He spent hours on his own, started out with Pinot Noir and quickly found himself tasting different communes of Burgundy against each other, nerding out in the way only a teenager with a new obsession can.
The wine that cracked it open? A Pinot Noir from Sandhi Wines in California.
"That was my first experience of really thinking: wow, wine could taste good. And then I completely nerded out. There was no way back."
From Vinøs, he moved toward the classics — joining Bistro Boheme, where head sommelier ’Cuba’ (Christian Cazón) took him on at 19 and introduced him to fine wine in earnest. Teigh speaks of him with obvious affection and respect. They are still close today, still talk wine lists and producers.
The Sommelier as Cinemagoer
Ask Teigh Crowley what a sommelier actually does, and he starts talking about the cinema.
"You know how when you go to the cinema, you sit in and forget everything outside for two hours? We need to be able to give that to people. They sit in our restaurant for three hours and forget everything that is going on around them. Just enjoy each other's company, the food, the wine, the atmosphere."
The guest, in his philosophy, is the only thing that matters. Not the label, not the appellation, not what he himself thinks is cool. What does this person actually want? What would make their night?
He thinks about the couple at the table who might be having their first night out in months. The family who does not know when they last sat down together. The guest who is secretly intimidated by the wine list but will not say so.
"They need to feel like the most important people in the whole restaurant. And that's for every table, every person. When they leave and think: we forgot about everything — that's the job."
He has little patience for the kind of service that makes guests feel they are there for the sommelier, rather than the other way around. He has been on the receiving end of it himself, at uptight Michelin temples in Paris where, as he puts it, you are almost nervous to go to the toilet.
That, he says, is exactly what not to do.
A Wine List for Everyone
Teigh's approach to building a wine list is driven by two things: producers and value. He prefers lists where you can call out names you trust over lists organised purely by appellation — a village-level Burgundy from the right producer, he argues, can outperform its label.
He is also alert to price. At a Michelin restaurant, guests are already spending a lot. The wine list should not make them feel they have to choose between a good bottle and going bankrupt.
"The biggest thing I took away from my sommelier courses was: I know nothing. Even though I know a lot, I know nothing. That’s what you learn."
"Wine is for everyone. I want everyone to feel comfortable with it. It shouldn't be something you're nervous about."
His current obsessions include producers pushing into new terroir in Jurançon — making dry wines that echo the style of the Jura, at a fraction of the price of a premier cru. And the non-alcoholic menu, which he is increasingly making rather than buying, working with the kitchen to develop drinks that are built around courses rather than matched to them.
The Magic of Various Cultures
A recent creation: an amazake — a Japanese fermented rice drink — blended with kumquats, filtered and clarified until it takes on a creamy texture and a flavour that mirrors Sauternes. The idea came from a chef. Teigh tasted it, shaped it, found it a home on the menu.
"Suddenly, as a Danish-Irish person, you're serving something you had no idea existed a week ago. That's what happens when you work with people who have a completely different way of seeing the world."
The Most Important Thing You Can Learn
He completed his sommelier certification at Vinakademiet at 20, added the WSET 3 shortly after, and is setting his sights on the WSET Diploma in the future. He had already been working with wine for two years before that — and in restaurants for much longer, having started as a dishwasher in his early teens. He is not precious about qualifications, but he is precise about what they taught him.
"The biggest thing I took away from my sommelier courses was: I know nothing. Even though I know a lot, I know nothing. That’s what you learn."
He keeps studying. He goes out to eat — in all types of restaurants, from brasseries to Michelin tables — and pays close attention to what he sees, what works, what he would borrow. He lets sommeliers pick his wine. He listens more than he talks.
Teigh Crowley. Image: Anne Køster
There are no hard guests, he says. Only different approaches. If someone tries six wines and likes none of them, that is not a problem. That is the job becoming interesting.
What DSF Gives Him
Membership of Dansk Sommelier Forening, for Teigh, is primarily about community. The world of sommeliers in Copenhagen is intimate — everyone knows everyone, connections overlap — but the association gives those connections structure and intention.
"It's a way to meet people with the same interests and the same work situation as yourself. And I think that's really important to have, because it is a lot of people who know about this world, but not a lot of people who do it."
He has no plans to enter competitions or going back to study for now. His focus is the guest, the list, and the cellar he is building at Udtryk. There will be time for other things later, he says. Right now, he is exactly where he wants to be.
Go In With an Open Heart
His advice to anyone considering a career in wine is characteristically unshowy.
"Go in with an open heart, don't be tunnel vision on one thing and open up. Because you never know — you might find something you'd be absolutely crazy about."
It is the same quality that defines his approach to guests, to producers, to non-alcoholic drinks made from Japanese rice porridge, to a kitchen full of people who see the world differently than he does. Curiosity, without agenda.
At 22, Teigh Crowley is already doing what he loves. The fire at Udtryk has not changed that. When the restaurant reopens, he and the team will be ready. And somewhere in the dining room, a couple will sit down, lean back in their chairs, and forget, for a few hours, about everything outside.
And that, he would say, is the whole point.
Teigh Crowley is head sommelier at Udtryk, Copenhagen. He trained at Vinakademiet, holds the WSET Level 3, and his next project is working towards the WSET Diploma.
